Do you want to get your kids excited about reading? If so, get ready for the countdown: ten days of ideas that will get you and yours into reading!
Children are curious. These days, curiousity is easily satisfied. By Googling things, we can learn just about anything in mere seconds. Of course, that’s not to say that it isn’t necessary to hone your research skills. In fact, in the age of the internet, it’s more important than ever to have excellent research skills, so that you can sift through the vast amounts of information that are out there in the world.
When your child asks a question, and it’s on a topic he’s really interested in, use this as an opportunity to do some research. Yes, you can start with Google, but then get serious!
Go to a university. Introduce your children to the vastness of the written word and the world of research by heading to the book stacks of a university. They might have a question that they want to explore or a book that they want to find. Find it, and take a look. While you probably won’t be able to take the book out of the library, you can stay and read while you’re there.
Even if there’s no university handy, you can check out the reference section. Encyclopedias seem so retro nowadays, but they’re a lot of fun. It’s interesting to see what’s in the section with books that you can’t take out!
Read online and in books to discover areas of potential research, and embark on a research project. When do birds start singing? What makes me hiccup? When do roly-polies turn into a ball? Science is based on good research questions and a lot of prior reading. Make it clear to your kids that in this time of vast amounts of information, there are lots of good questions to ask and to answer, and that reading and research provide a good way to get information about what questions to ask.
If you’re doing a project, why not ask to interview scientists or other experts in a field? Interviewing is a good skill to hone, since it combines good writing and careful reading.
Write about what you’ve learned. Do a science fair project, or write a booklet about your community’s history. Sharing your curious nature with others is just as fun as doing the research!
Other ideas in this series:
Cultivate down time from media