Physics and the Scientific Method

My high school student begins Physics in one week. This is one of my favorite things to learn about and it will be my first time getting to teach it. I'm very excited!

For High School Physics, I am using Super Charged Science. It is out-of-this-world fabulous! It is also out-of-this-world expensive. If I had not received a free membership for a review this past year, it would be out of my budget. If your budget looks like mine, you might consider MIT's free online course.

For our first week, we will go over the Scientific Method. It's a simple thing, but I need to know that my students are solid in this before moving on to anything else.

My 3rd and 4th grade students are doing their own thing, but I found a few resources that will allow them to join us a bit, as well:

• A free download from Teacher's Take-Out.
• A song, lapbook element, and worksheets from Teach Junkie.
• Fabulous worksheets from The Crafty Classroom!

I rarely decorate our tiny space, but this bulletin board is fabulous, don't you think? I plan to tackle my own version of it this week.

Beginning a year of science experiments wouldn't be complete without a science journal, now would it? I have been very impressed with Aurora Lipper's detailed description of what a science journal entails. After teaching this to my students, I want them to have a reminder in the front of their science journals, so I've created this quick reference sheet for them.

For some fun exposure to the scientific method in extreme action, try watching some Mythbusters! This show is available on the Discovery Channel and on Netflix. There is occasionally some inappropriate language, so preview it yourself before plopping the kids in front of the screen.