Science Boxes

It's the summer holiday and I'm supposed to be planning and preparing my class for next year! However I just can't seem to get in the swing of things this holiday and instead I feel like I need a break!! Here is what I'm working on:

I thought a lot about the experiment side of science and wanted to come up with something that will create little scientists, who can experiment with what they are interested in at their own time. So I made experiment boxes that contain a variety of materials that can be used by the children independently. I have divided the boxes into air, magnetism, water, sound and light.

The children can take a box at anytime and will find in it interesting materials that they can use.

Above is the air box.

The box also contains easy lesson plans for the children to follow. For the air box I have about 15 different experiments for them to try. When they first work on a box they should choose a lesson plan, read it, gather the materials they need and do the experiment on it. Later as they learn how to use all the materials they can make up their own experiments. I used 'The big book of Science experiments' for the lesson plans. So far this is the best experiment book I have found!

At the moment my children will be working with one box at a time and experimenting with one element. But as they become skilled scientists they can begin to mix the boxes and see the relation between two or three elements i.e: light and sound.