While my son worked on his Biology I experiment, he popped over to his sister to help her with her Physics experiments about circuits.
As previously mentioned, I love my kitchen space so my kids can work side by side…and what a big help my son is to explain Physics to her.
They are taking science classes from Dr. Jay Wile, but the Physics is the most difficult of all the science classes she’s taken, while it’s the one he’s most anticipating.
I wish I had assigned her the anatomy course instead, then she could have pursued Physics directly with her brother, later.
As she continued to be stumped about series and parallel circuits, I had some fun activities which I knew would help her to distinguish them clearly.
SNAP SERIES CIRCUIT KIT
Sending her to the resource shelf for her brother’s electronic circuits kit, I had my son join our activities.
Opening up the activity booklet, she followed the instructions for setting up the closed circuit.
When that was completed, I had her push the button so that she could see the lights or sounds that could be made.
I think there’s even one accessory where a top will fly into the air.
Next, I had her pop one of the pieces off, so that when she pushed the button, nothing happened because the electrical circuit’s pathway dead ended due to an open circuit.
Now she got it!
CREATIVE DRAMATICS
Then employing creative dramatics, the three of us held hands.
I told them I would squeeze my daughter’s hand.
When she felt that she had to squeeze her brother’s hand.
When he felt that he had to squeeze my hand.
And so on…making us a human closed circuit.
After I dropped my son’s hand, I squeezed my daughter’s hand, then she squeezed his, but he couldn’t squeeze mine because we weren’t holding hands anymore.
The game stopped because there was an open circuit.
We repeated this again, this time opening the circuit between my son and daughter.
After a round with that, we reset our circle, then opened the circuit between my daughter and me.
My daughter now understood the differences between an open circuit and a closed circuit.
For an extension, she used the circuit kit to make simple series circuits and more complex parallel circuits with any added accessories she wished.
Then she varied open and closed circuits to see the full spectrum of possibilities.
