Electricity Lesson the Unschooled Way

When I woke up this morning I did not expect to spend the day learning about electricity but I am so glad I followed the moments and allowed them to open the doors of discovery for my entire family.

Starting Our Day Off Right

As part of our slow mornings the kids will often play games with each other or read books. Sometimes I am making breakfast while they play but often I catch a couple extra z’s. This morning my two oldest (Bee, 7, and Sweets, 5) wanted to use our Snap Circuit Set.

Current Electricity

If you are unfamiliar with snap circuits they are a kid friendly product that challenges kids from (8-99) to create circuits. Different sets come with various options such as turning lights on, a music player or a fan. Kids can create their own circuits but my oldest prefers to follow along with the challenges. Occasionally he doesn’t get one to work like it is supposed to so I help him trouble shoot or read the mini book that explains the challenge to him. Currently he wants to try different things until he gets it to work but when he wants to know the exact science behind electricity then the mini books will be the perfect way to step into learning a bit more.

Science is often learned by trial, error and observation. By that definition he is nailing science and understanding more and more everyday.

Lunch Break with an Electric Twist

I would not label myself as a fun mom but when I am having extra rough days (hello, depression) I try and do something I know is a little extra fun that they will enjoy for a longer amount of time so I can take the break that I need.

Today’s fun was making a fort in the living room. I turned our couches into a circle, put the end table between the couches and covered them with blankets. This was not a fancy tent. Honestly though, it didn’t matter. The kids loved it.

We even had lunch in our tent and I joined them! I generally wouldn’t but I knew I would either sit on the couch outside of the fort or I could sit on the floor in the tent and miss out on the fun. Either way I was sitting down, having a break. Joining the kids for lunch was not a big thing but if I hadn’t made that choice I would have missed the next learning opportunity completely. While we were eating lunch, magic was happening, aka science was happening.

Static Electricity

While we chatted and munched away on lunch our hair was slowly creeping up, towards the blanket ceiling of our tent. I pointed our crazy hair to the kids and the next thing I new we were talking about static electricity and how it works. I remembered the basic explanation but quickly we we turned to YouTube for a more comprehensive study.

YouTube Electricity for Kids

YouTube is this teachers best friend when it comes to science. Yes, we try and jump into books when we can but science I am not naturally science minded it can be a challenge for me to know where to find the specific information that I’d like to share with the kids. YouTube to the rescue! We watched science experiments and explanations of electrons, neutrons and protons. The kids learned so much and so did I. That is one of my favorite things about homeschool, everyone learns. Follow this link to see which videos we watched as part of our electricity lesson.

Electricity Lesson Concluded

In the end, everything turned out tying together. I didn’t arrange anything I was just following along and adding to the learning when I could. By that I mean, I knew where what resources we had available in our home and how to utilize them when the moments arose.

Now the real adventure begins because I have no idea what we will learn about tomorrow.