Finally They're Excited!

This year has been a struggle. I have been working SO hard to get my 4th grade boys excited about school and wanting to do the work. They lack so much motivation. I have tried a reward system, which turned out to be more of a distraction than help as they would come check on their progress ANYTIME they were out of their classroom, I've tried getting them excited about what they want to be when they grow up, positive reinforcement, prizes, stickers, promise of a pizza party, you name it, I've tried it. Yet, nothing helped... nothing seemed to motivate my boys.

Finally, we were assigned a science fair project. I have been dreading this, as it is a lot of work and when your students are working at least 2 to 3 grade levels behind, it is difficult for them to undertake such a large project. I turned to the wonderful web to figure out what in the world to do. I came across Science Buddies. This website had a TON of experiments, all of which were fairly simple and already had procedures and background knowledge. This site is GREAT! If you have any reason to do a science experiment, or even if you just want to get your kids excited about science, check it out.

I gave my students a few choices of experiments and let them choose which they wanted to do. First I suggested Bubble-ology, A Soluble Separation Solutioin and a few others I found. My students we very excited about the bubble one. They didn't understand all of it, actually pretty much any of it, but I went with it.

Well, finally, the day came where we actually had to preform the experiment. My students were thrilled to be able to go outside and started saying they were going on a field trip. We went out side with 2 bubble solutions, pipe-cleaners, clip boards, a timer, and four wonderful 4th grade boys.

Although I still am pretty sure they have NO idea what the point of any of this was or how it applies to real life, they LOVED it. I think I may just do this every year for my kids... Take a look at some of the pictures we took.