How do you party like a Home Schooler? Looking for fun new ways to bring in the New Year?

How about a marathon electronics science class? We have a friend who brought the board an electronic kit from Radio Shack for Christmas. His note said that he had done two of the projects, but that the kit was like new.  What I read was – “I’ve done two of them and would like to have friends to work through the rest.” I sort of bombarded him at church on Friday and said he was our new Science Class Mentor. After a little prodding – he was in.

He called on New Years Eve and wondered if the boys would like to play with the kit that night. They all said, “Yes!”  The kit comes with a workbook with introductory pages. I’d like Nathan to work through those on his own to understand what the board does and what the supplies are. However, he had a project idea of making night vision goggles playing with lights and everyone was on board with that.

After finding out they didn’t have all of the right supplies, our friend showed them a simple light project using the board. When done correctly, the light flashed when in the direct line of an infrared light, like the remote control.

And that’s when it happened. Curiosity sparked. Questions asked. “What does this part do?” “How do we create something with a compass?” “How do we do more?” Out comes the workbook. Searches on Google are created. Questions are answered and projects are found.

In the end, we have a few boys excited about electrical sensor boards. They spent a couple of hours on New Year’s Eve playing Science.  Our guest said he didn’t like science at his school, but loved Science at Petra School. We get that a lot.  We have project lined up now to last a while. Our friend is also excited about our Robotics projects and will spark some new life into that venture. Around 9:30 p.m. we ventured outside to light off our remaining 4th of July Fireworks and didn’t realize how many we had stored away over the last couple of years. They were still outside past 12:30 in the frozen grass and dock on New Year’s Morning.  Perfect way to bring in the new year with a house full of boys – and a science lovin’ mama.