I’ve read that the United States is falling behind when it
comes to science, math, and technology training and education. And I think back to when my daughter was
still attending public school. There was
almost no science education at all for kindergarten and first grade. I can’t help but think that it is completely
possible that the lack of simple science early could mean that students are not
getting the opportunity to become engaged in science before it becomes
intimidating in the later elementary grades.
I’m not faulting the public school system. I understand that there are limited resources
and for grades K-2 it might be deemed more important to put those resources
towards reading, writing, and arithmetic.
I pulled my daughter from public school half way through the
1st grade. One of the first
things we did was look for an early elementary homeschool sciencecurriculum. I do believe that part of
the reason my daughter loves science now, almost eight years into our
homeschooling journey, is because we “poured” science at her as fast as she
could learn it. She learned to love
science before it got hard, scary, or intimidating.
She wants to be an astrophysicist and a veterinarian. I feel it is pretty safe to say that science
will be part of her future!