The Sequoia Breeze

Rebecca: Welcome, listeners, to another episode of the Sequoia Breeze podcast, a breath of fresh air for your homeschool. I'm so glad you're back and joining us today as we talk talk with HST Amy Griffin and tackle the subject of teaching science in your home school.

Amy: Hi, Rebecca.

Rebecca: Hi, Amy. I'm so glad you're here with us this week.

Amy: What a cool experience. I'm so happy to be here.

Rebecca: Oh, great. So tell us a little bit about you. What's your background? What's your family like?

Amy: Yeah, so this is my fifth year with our schools in various names. I have three kids. I have a 21 year old daughter who is a junior in college, and she's in Spain this semester.

Rebecca: How fun.

Amy: I'm living vicariously there, right? Yes. Awesome. And I have a freshman who is at Boise State. And then I've got my little junior high school kiddo back at home, and he's loving all of the attention. Not really. Not really. And my husband and I have been in place. My daughter was three months old, so we've been a really long time. We migrated, like everybody else out of the Bay Area, so we could actually have, like, a home and not have to kill ourselves. This is the longest I've ever lived anywhere nice. It's awesome. Yeah. And I actually taught brick and mortar in Santa Barbara fourth and fifth grade. I know, it's pretty great. And moved back up. And when we got married and had kids, I just was like, I don't want to be that woman nursing in the supply room. So I subbed a bit and just kind of did whatever I could do to kind of fill in and stay kind of fresh with teaching. So homeschooling has been just awesome. That's great.

Rebecca: So did you home school your kids?

Amy: I did not.

Rebecca: Okay.

Amy: I actually ended up home schooling a little girl who had a medical issue, and that's what really got me going with it. And I just saw the value. What we could get done was just incredible. And she was probably the most resistant child I've ever met, but we could just dig in and go everywhere. So it was enlightening.

Rebecca: It was an interesting experience. Yeah, it was super cool.

Amy: Yeah. So my science background is a little I backed into it. I keep hearing that.

Rebecca: Yeah, I've heard that story a couple of times now in the book.

Amy: Isn't that funny? And so I would not sit here and be like, I'm some expert at all. But I got involved with a maker education program, and I was their director of curriculum, some writing lessons, Tk to eight, and just everything from light and circuitry and robotics and just really fun stuff and really just dove right into it. And I loved it. I had no idea that I would love it so much. And I had decided I was not a science girl. I'm like, oh, no, that's not my thing. That's not my jam, and it actually is my jam. And so I think I serve as representing this person who has made this decision. So when I see kids come to me who are like, oh, no, science isn't my thing, I'm like, Hold on a minute, hold on, I got you. Because I'm that person. And so just opening my mind up to trying new things, it was just been so enlightening. So actually went back to school and got my maker education certification, and I've been just I'm just love it.

Rebecca: So if some of us aren't familiar with that term, maker education, what are we talking about?

Amy: So it really encompasses everything in a way. It's a movement that started a guy named Dale Doherty, he would do these giant maker fairs, and it was like Burning Man for kid friendly burning, literally. You'd be like, wow. So he started a magazine. He started these maker affairs around the.

Rebecca: World, the things that kids create.

Amy: So anything that anybody creates, it can be forging, like, metal. Huge masterpieces. At the San Mateo Makers Fair, there was this giant reminds me there was a movie. I can't think of it, but anyway, this giant spider that this guy wrote on top of that was all mechanical, robotic, would walk through the fairgrounds, and then there's people in little cars that are decorated as doughnuts driving around and everything from the bizarre, scary world. Oh, it is anything your mind can come up with. And so it basically giving you permission to just go. And I think that's where my little art brain and my science brain had a baby. Like, yes, these are my people. I love this. I love this.

Rebecca: So how did you then translate this newfound this is all pretty interesting to educating.

Amy: Yes. Yeah. So really, I feel like steam kind of I feel like the maker world and the educational side, steam would be the translation. And so because they add that little A in there and get the art in there, I feel like it really expands the whole idea. So you're bringing kids in who, again, are like, I'm not good at that. You're like, Hold on, you actually might be there's. The S, the T, the E that you have to be good at one of those things or just at least an open mind. I'm looking for a crack, like, just the tiniest opening in that door window, and then you just bust through. Then you can introduce the stuff. They're like, Me, I don't really want to do that. Or it doesn't make sense in isolation. So I think that's how I approach the whole thing.

Rebecca: Okay.

Amy: And so really, I think they put out the science they wanted a science teacher for GHBA, for junior high. And I was like, oh, my gosh, yes. And I think I'm not sure if there was anybody else. I think people are scared of junior hires, and I think science is scary. So I think those two combinations of things and it's kind of a golden time because little kids are like, yeah, I'll do anything and open and just super creative and scientist and scare them anything. All of a sudden junior high happens and they're like, I can't do that, I can't do that. I'm not good at that. So they lose their confidence. And so I really was like, no, hang on.

Rebecca: Because they're finally old enough to actually do something.

Amy: They are. They are. Especially girls. You know, I hate to put a gender thing on it, but I feel like a lot of girls are like, not given permission to get in there. And I'm not just not good at that. At least my experience. The kids that I've seen come through the doors, the boys are a little bit more open to it. But anyway, that's why back to do it.

Rebecca: So we're talking to home school families. How do we take your big ideas about science and turn that and apply it to our daily lives in our home schools?

Amy: Yes. And I think the beauty of home school is that you get to write the script always and science, you know, in the classroom before fifth grade is because they test in fifth grade, it just doesn't happen. So you know that you're doing at least 80% more than it's happening in brick and mortar because they don't get to it. Those poor teachers just don't have time on top of everything else they have to do. So you know, you're at A plus always. So I think if you go into it, like, anything I do is awesome. So I think availability of supplies is a big thing. And I know one thing is just like, how do you not turn your whole house upside down and like, oh my goodness, our whole house is big signs on. So, you know, relegating things to areas, obviously. And I think if you realistically look at your year and you look at the standards and if you're a rule follower, you're going to want to just like hit all of that stuff. The nonrule follower people are probably talking to the rule followers.

Rebecca: Rule followers or people who are in their first or second year of home school and they're still shaking off unraveling the fear of doing it wrong and the desire to maybe match what they think might be happening in brick border.

Amy: So giving yourself permission yeah, well, permission to have fun and permission to not going to buy a big giant science book and be like, go through this thing page by page. I think once you unravel from that and you look at the standards and you look and really just find out what your kids are interested in, you take a deep dive. And so it's very individual. I would love to sit here and go, oh yeah, you need this or you need that, but it's finding that crack. And so let's say you have your kids are really into carnivorous plants. I mean, that sounds nice and interesting, right? Nobody was like, yeah, Photosynthesis, I really want to get into that. They just don't. But here's the way to back into it is like pick something that's kind of like that's interesting. Well, how does that work? Why does that plant have to eat anything? I thought the sun provided food for that plant. So you could create a whole unit around carnivorous plants and then fold in your photosynthesis, fold in your buying your plants and putting them in different places and charting their growth. And you've got your math. You can write about it. You can visit a botanical garden. You can watch, I mean, YouTube, literally between YouTube and teachers, pay teachers, the world is your oyster. Which can also be overwhelming.

Rebecca: Well, yeah, but we also, as you're talking about Converse plants, I'm like, I know there's a book about this. There's a picture book about this somewhere and oh, it's very possible. Even our Sequoia Grove library has it totally there's so many between a local library and our school library. Yes, you can find all kinds of things.

Amy: Yeah, really, honestly, the wealth of just information books, everything that we have here is really rich. So I think you take what your kids are doing and then you really move from there. That is the defining piece to build a thematic unit to come in and be like, let's you can bring in your language arts. You could create a play. You know, you can get I had kids make rap songs for me. Awesome. Like, seriously, a photo said, this is long. I'm not even kidding.

Rebecca: Awesome.

Amy: Yeah, it was pretty great. And video stop motion animation, taking into account their learning styles. And so you're hitting boxes, like consistently hitting boxes.

Rebecca: So while you're talking about sometimes science, topics that you cover can be fairly individual because sometimes the specific topics don't really matter. It's more learning how to be interested in science, how to explore science, what the scientific method is, and basically understanding about plants or the water cycle or some of those kinds of things. Really specific list of things to learn. It's really different than even maybe, say, American history, where there's some really specific things you want to hit. Science is pretty open ended in the elementary years specifically. So the beauty of that with home schooling is that you can combine your kids, oh, 100%.

Amy: And it's all scalable. It's all scalable. And if you look at the standards, if you just breeze through the standards take to eight, it's literally it builds on itself and you can scaffold. And there's plenty of kids who have a higher IQ in other areas, right? So you can forge ahead in some areas and back up. But I think once you determine when you're building a unit, if you're looking at your family and let's say you have multiple kids. You can take a science concept, you can take energy, and you can make a decision. What's my goal? What's my objective? I want to talk about force. So you're talking about push pull with the babies, you go all the way up to sound and waves, and so you can start with what it is, and then you can take that and build lessons individually, but you can still have the same conversation with your whole family. And once you choose your content and decide and find content that works for each of your children, it's pretty individual. You can come back and get everybody and come and do that field trip and get everybody back together.

Rebecca: So at our house, we're learning about birds right now. And so I have three of my kids focused on that together, and they're in 7th and fifth in kindergarten. And so the 7th grader obviously gets it a lot more, and we're talking about structure of feathers. She's understanding all of it. Five year old is not paying attention. But when we watch a video about how the process of a bird building his nest, building her nest and hatching her eggs and the fledglings growing and taking off and all of that, he gets that. He can absorb that. He can help us identify a bird on an app or something outside. And so he's learning that. And the 7th grader is kind of carrying the torch of the lesson, and the fifth grader is somewhere in between following along and learning as well. And so we're able to do a whole bunch with the three of them, and I don't have to come up with a separate science lesson, separate science book, separate science plan, separate experiment for all three of them, because who has time for that?

Amy: No, you don't. And literature comes into play. Your writing comes into the play. You really literally could take your science and have that be the core of what you're doing. Animals are always a win. Literally. You just want to, like, break it down. Everybody loves a sea otter. Or, I mean, they just do.

Rebecca: Let's just go there.

Amy: And then really, your world is open. And then I think you can meet the needs of your children. You've got your little artist. You've got your songwriter. You've got your techie kid that wants to make the stop motion and wants to spend hours and hours making that work. So it's hard because there's really no one thing, and I would love to be like, okay, here's your here's your awesome curriculum, here's your one thing to do. But you really have to gauge where your kids are.

Rebecca: Well, I think sometimes we don't quite realize how much of what we do is science. So if you go to the zoo, there you go. There's all kinds of science in going to the zoo. You could have all kinds of science going to the railroad museum, understanding the engineering behind all the things that worked. I'm going to butcher the name because I haven't been there yet, so I don't remember the new SMUD Museum.

Amy: Yes.

Rebecca: I've heard wonderful things about so the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I mean, there's so many it's easy to take field trips and learn piles or reinforce the things that you've been learning.

Amy: Yeah. I think what's interesting to me, and if I was, like, had one, like, solid take away from all of this is that and I think my heart is in this junior high age because the little guys are so receptive, is that what button turned off? And let's turn that back on. And I think and to maybe avoid that happening is not defining it so narrowly, as you're saying. And then had a student at Jhva, adorable. And I was doing a lesson on cell division, and I'm looking at her, and her eyes start to glaze over, and she gets a sort of paralytic, like and then she's like, griffin, I have no idea what you're talking about. And I'm like, hold up. Just stay right there. Don't move. And then I finish. And I'm, like, stay after class. And so she hung out with me, and she's like, I'm just not good at science. And I'm like, okay, so you're my tech girl. You are my tech girl, and you have a YouTube channel. And so your brain that does all of that is the same brain that is sciencey. So don't define yourself as, I'm not this person or that person. And tell me what you do know that we talked about. Like, just rewind. Tell me what you did understand. And she said, oh, well, you know, cell is and I know this is how it has to make more cells. I'm like beautiful. There you are. And we can move from there. But what I needed as we're really rolling out the virtual classes for junior high and high school, which are gold, and building those skills to listen to somebody and really being able to absorb and understand another human and the way that they communicate is really hard. It's really good for them. And so I was loving the opportunity to reverse whatever thing you had in your head and really teach you how to hang in there with concepts that are not easy.

Rebecca: Do you think that sometimes parents are accidentally shooting themselves in the foot in this? And that maybe we talk about how hard it is or how much we hate it, or, oh, I have to relearn this, and we're accidentally instilling an attitude in our kids that this is hard and it's not to be liked.

Amy: Model the struggle. If you don't model the struggle, let.

Rebecca: Them see you work hard to learn something I have to. And reap that reward.

Amy: Yes. Yeah. And I think that there's no growth without the struggle. And we don't want them to. We don't want them to struggle, really, as Moms right. But they kind of have to sit with some discomfort and trying to figure things out. But that's the maker mindset. That's a science mindset. That is, you're going to stick with this and you're going to fail. It's not going to work. And even with the science experiments I do, like, they don't all work. They don't all work. So what do you do? Fall apart. Let's go tweak it. What's that? What's that grit? What's that resilience look like? So science serves that purpose, but we have to present the opportunity for them to fail and figure things out. And that's kind of my goal with my classes or my mission.

Rebecca: And I think in science, failure is not defeat.

Amy: No.

Rebecca: I think we sometimes put those two words together in our heads. Failure and defeat are all the same thing. We do, but they're not.

Amy: We do.

Rebecca: Science is something that because a lot of us either aren't comfortable with it it's not our go to thing, or, oh, we don't have time, we're too busy reading and doing math. And so science gets pushed off to the side, and it's easy to feel that we failed at that. And so then we feel bad about science, and so now we don't even want to touch it, and it's this big.

Amy: There we go.

Rebecca: Michael and sometimes even that fear of that feeling, that failure is defeat seeps into just home schooling itself, because not every day is a good day, not every season is a good season. And it can be very easy to feel like I'm not good at this.

Amy: Oh, my God.

Rebecca: And if you're feeling like you're not good at it, you don't then want to try and tackle something that's hard for you, like science. So I'm already dealing with math because I have to, because I know I have to do with math. So we're going to or writing or those things that are hard. They're new, and we're creating new brain paths. I mean, how important to work is that?

Amy: It is such an emphasis on those two.

Rebecca: Right, right. But as you said, you can do those things through science, and now you're, like, totally winning at this gig yeah, you are.

Amy: And embracing your own judgment about it or your own and I think that's, like, there's so much psychology to it and the confidence. I would never be doing this if you told me ten years ago I would be teaching science. Right. You know, I don't know everything. I don't have a masters or some big degree, but I love it.

Rebecca: But it sounds like, you know, kids.

Amy: I love kids.

Rebecca: And you embrace curiosity. I do talk about curiosity a little bit.

Amy: I do. I just think it is the core of the whole it's the whole story. You've also seen the opposite side, right? When you see a kid that's not curious, maybe they're that light dimmed. It's scary to me. So you want to get that back like it's in there somewhere. You got to do a little dig a little because or something, you'll find it and then you're in. And then they're open to talking to you and continuing to trust. And I can take you on this journey of learning and continuing. But yeah, staying curious and staying willing to keep trying.

Rebecca: I know I have a hard time. It's easy when they're little and they want to go down a rabbit hole, be like, oh sure, it's all learning. The list of things to do isn't quite so long. And as they get older, like, no, you may not go down that YouTube rabbit hole again because it will take us all day. And then we'll be behind and then we'll have and it can be harder to foster that curiosity when the list of things to sort of be done and dealt with.

Amy: And that's the truth that has to happen. And again, you don't want the late to do, but you have to get things done. So there is a bounce. There's a bounce. The reality to all this, and you could be buying the sky, is that you do need to get things done. Back to my little home schooler, grace, she's very resistant at school is not her thing, and super behind. So one of her great loves was SpongeBob. And I'm like, okay. Alright. Like her SpongeBob on and on. And so I was like, alright, I'm just going to go with it. So I looked up the author and the creator of SpongeBob. He was this marine scientist teacher down in Southern California, steven Hill, and Brand, I think is his name. And he created, he created SpongeBob to help his teachers, students about the inner title region. Yes. So I'm like, oh my gosh, this is gold. This is absolute gold. So you anthropomorphize that, you know, animals. How fun is that? So we did a biography on him. We then talked about the inner title zone. You can talk about tides, you get into the charts. Like how do tides work? Moons, I mean, you're off to the races. And it started with SpongeBob. Minecraft is another one, right? And Miss Kelly Sober is clean.

Rebecca: Even thinking that a lot of sciencey kids might love cooking. And then you've got all kinds of I noticed that this coming up here, there's a sourdough club. How awesome is that? How much science sourdough. I know, I looked at it like, I can put all my kids in it. So then I can't source.

Amy: I am really good at eating sourdough. I'm like, I'm in, I'm down, and.

Rebecca: I have grown sour. I'm not an expert at it and it hasn't lasted, but this thing is like exploding.

Amy: My fridge is all science experiment. And when we did mold and oh my gosh, the kids were so toddling on their families, like the fungus and the mold conversation, you should see us in the back of our fridge and like, oh, well, yeah, you know, I mean, your mom's doing her best. And please don't touch anything. We have to be very careful. We're not like, spreading disease everywhere. But it is super fun.

Rebecca: What do elementary kids really need to know about science? Do we need to worry as parents about holes in their knowledge of science?

Amy: I think that if you take the skill sets, the underlying skill sets of that grit, of that curiosity and you build on their interests, I think you cannot go wrong. If you ask a kid in brick and mortar their favorite day of the year, it's going to be the day, the one day the teacher did the one experiment. Or it's the science, the science day one. You could sat down, just be like, I'm going to do one experiment outside of my comfort zone. A semester. You could start there. Let's check this out. Exploratorium has science snacks. It is a fun website. Oh, yeah, love. Well, of course love Exploratorium, but science Snacks are these very easy. Most of the supplies you have at home experiments, there's a ton of them in there, so you literally could set them to task. OK, guys, here's a website. Everyone maybe like, everyone pick one and let's just let's just do it. We're just going to get it on the calendar and do it and get together with other families. Swap, you know, I mean, you plan one, your friend plans another one. And then there you've got two already going and you only have to prep and plan for one. And it's way more fun to do it with other kids too.

Rebecca: And then there's always nature hikes.

Amy: Oh, for goodness sake.

Rebecca: Yes.

Amy: Open the door. Yeah, done.

Rebecca: And that's easy. And there's all kinds of if you're in the Sacramento area and you've never been to FEU, go.

Amy: So wonderful.

Rebecca: And then we're so blessed with the foothills and the mountains and we can see all these different and the coast.

Amy: We really can.

Rebecca: Within just a couple of hours. And it doesn't matter where you are. Within our Sakurai Ro family, this is true. You can see so many different climates and ecosystems.

Amy: It is so true. Yeah, it's so true. It's out your back door. Obviously, I'm a giant fan of our Venture Academy classes and use those. They're once a week, use them to give you a little bit of have some ideas. And our whole goal is to spark a little bit of interest. It's not this whole meal, it's just back to snack idea, right? Like, it's a little bite, a little taste, and then hopefully giving parents enough of a little bit of support or ideas or curriculum support to move forward and do things on their own.

Rebecca: And sometimes on a sideways note, that while one kid is getting this science snack through an Adventure Academy another kid can get someone on one time with you because this one is fully involved in something that you use it.

Amy: No, it is, or I have all three, all three or four kids in a class and I'm awesome. It's great.

Rebecca: Read a book for half an hour.

Amy: Oh, please. Hey, if mama's not good, nobody's good, you know? Gotta put the oxygen mask on first. And it does. So much does come back to us. I know it's a ton of pressure to put on yourself, but keeping an open mindset for yourself, understanding, being very honest with yourself about your fear of opening this door, embracing the idea that it doesn't have to be this big, huge thing.

Rebecca: Well, there's very little in science for the first eight years of school that has to be forced. You can, like you said, find the thing the kid is interested and have them go looking for it, or just ask them to stick with you for this little bit and see what they think of this new idea that you're going to present. But most kids are curious, and so letting them dig into that continues to validate their curiosity, and so they will continue to be curious and God bless Internet.

Amy: Good or bad, right? With supervision. You ask a question like, I wonder why frogs are albino? I don't know. And then off to the races you're researching and then, oh, my goodness, we found a little documentary or we found something to support and then we can go see one at Zoo the Albino Alligator down San Francisco or whatever.

Rebecca: It's amazing what you can find. I know nothing about physics, but I can't pull my kids away from Mark.

Amy: Robert the squirrel one is just hilarious.

Rebecca: There's a little zoology.

Amy: I love him. So much good has come from that man.

Rebecca: It's a pretty deep pit you can dive into. And the things that he's presented anyway.

Amy: We could go on and on. Yeah, we really could. But I love it because it makes it accessible. So he's making it accessible. He's making it high interest. So high interest. Always high interest. Again, if you look at those standards and they make your head hurt, it's okay.

Rebecca: There are so many resources out there for things that you don't have to understand at all, you don't have to like it all. But you can present your kids with a feast to see what attracted their attention.

Amy: Yes. Even if you did like the Kiwi cocreate, take advantage. I mean, the quality of the information that's coming to you, it's not just a toy. Like, really look at what they're sending you. They're really good lessons. Malfina is great too. There's people out there that understand that this is a problem and they're going to give you everything. Here you go. And even if you did those, you'd feel like, okay, I'm doing something hands on and just keeping it hands on.

Rebecca: Yeah, I get. Emails from Supercharge Science all the time, advertising free classes. She gives really thorough explanations, all kinds of experiments.

Amy: They're really I do like them. I think they can be a little showy for what they are. And it depends if your kids are like yes, if they're like the character that they're presenting, awesome. If they're like, then maybe not, right? But whatever. They're attracted to that's, speaking to them and speaking their language. I'm all about it in class. Sometimes I would say things and someone would be like, I just did not understand what you're saying. And I'm like, can anyone speak kid to other person and explain? And they say it and kids speak. That sounds the same to me. And they're like, oh, that's what she was saying.

Rebecca: Okay, good.

Amy: Thank you. Moving on. It just makes me laugh so hard. We all have our language and ways of communicating, and that's okay if it's not me or Supercharged or this person or, you know, it was Bill and I back in the day. But whoever it was and people don't do and don't like, it's pretty personal.

Rebecca: I know one of my daughters is really artistic, and there's a lot of engineering that goes into sculpting. Yes, she's got grand plans for a horse made out of pumpkins. I don't know how she's going to put that, but I'm like, okay, but how are you going to make it stand? So there's all kinds of mechanical and engineering things that can go into I've started to notice I notice so many things because of my kids. Like, I look at a sculpture now and like, how do you do that? How do you put that? Like, how did that kid mom.

Amy: Mrs.

Rebecca: DA Vinci, their curiosity. They want to see, they want to know. They want to look. And I can say, no, we don't have time for that. Or I can say, go look at it. What do you see? What do we need to know? What do you not know the name for?

Amy: Or whatever? Very specific. And something kind of what you were saying kind of caught my attention. I think there's also an idea that we need to go out and buy a bunch of stuff. Like, I'm going to go buy it. The one that kills me is the 3D printer. Please don't buy a 3D printer. Just the really expensive things that a lot can go wrong with and that work sometimes. Okay, so what's the value? What's the value of the thing that you are buying? A telescope? Or first of all, look at the lending library to see if we have anything you can borrow. But I'm a low tech reuse girl that if you want to build a model or you want to do something, go get some cardboard. I'm a little obsessed with cardboard, but just look around your house, see what you have going and work with what you have got at home. And if you need a box, curiosity box in the corner, you just throw stuff in that. Just go hit it and get my glue gun and go make me something. Yeah.

Rebecca: When my husband and I had covid a few months ago, one of my kids just took Popsicle sticks and glue guns and created unsupervised because we were too sick.

Amy: Too bad both parents aren't supposed to be sick at the same time. How did that happen? You should go play the lottery, lady. Oh, that's I'm sorry.

Rebecca: Yeah, it was a week. But anyway, he created all kinds of things with glue bend and popsicles to.

Amy: His own room to dazzle it, just.

Rebecca: Make it all paint. I don't think I ever would have let my kids use a glue gun. And I'm not necessarily telling you you should, but you might consider it and try it with them and let them see. But I had their friend who was a teacher, and she one day we went over there for dinner and she had a table full of craft supplies and she let my kids go to town with the glue. Then it was like, oh, they know it's hot. They know better than to touch the hot thing. So they're going to be all right.

Amy: Give them benefit.

Rebecca: Give them cardboard to work on.

Amy: Yeah. There's a lot of great things you can do without going out. And I mean, when I was teaching brick and mortar, there was an entire room of science kits that had dust on them. I can tell you that not a single soul went in there. And just to give you a perspective, too, and I would just be like, what a waste. Such a waste. So don't like charge out. Like make it work with what you've got and make it work with something that you would be willing to do. Because if you're not willing to do it, they're not going to do it. So get in there.

Rebecca: And sometimes what you're willing to do once a semester is different than what you're willing to do on a weekly basis. So you can have those exceptions times. This is a big science day.

Amy: Yeah. Especially bringing another, making it a thing like, let's just do a steam day. And you do that. I'll do this one and just be pretty cool. Yeah. And break up the little kids with.

Rebecca: One mom and the bigger kids with yeah.

Amy: I mean, that's just a win all the way around.

Rebecca: We didn't even touch on high school science. I think that's a conversation for a different day. We're getting long. But I think all of this that we've talked about, if we can help kids keep their curiosity yes. Learn how to explore, experiment, and not see failures to eat, then they're ready for high school.

Amy: Oh, they really are. Because it does get very challenging. And that's really where the rubber hits the road for those skill sets. So they're faced with some harder things. If they're like, if they have that confidence going into it and haven't decided they're bad at it, it's a win. It really is a win, because you're just like, I'm here to learn. So high school. Yeah. And I would defer to our many.

Rebecca: We'Ll hit that in the field.

Amy: So many wonderful science teachers. Really good.

Rebecca: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here with us, Amy. I appreciate it. We talked about several different resources in this conversation today, so those will be in our show notes. We hope that you learning. Coaches and parents are feeling encouraged to try a little bit of science. Dabble your toe in it, keep your kids curious and don't be afraid to explore. So thanks, Amy, for being here.

Amy: Thanks, Rebecca.

Rebecca: Tell us, what do you love about homeschooling?

Child: My name is Max and I like homeschooling because you can take a break any time you want and you don't have to do hours and hours of homework every day.

Child: My name is Mercedes and I'm second Grade, and my favorite thing about Is we get to spend time with people and our family.

Rebecca: Thank you for joining us today on this episode of the Sequoia Breeze Podcast. I hope it has been a breath of fresh air for your home school. I have been your host, Rebecca LaSavio. I always love to hear from listeners. Please send me an email at podcasts@sequoiagrove.org and let me know what you're thinking, what you enjoy, questions you might have, or ideas for future podcasts.