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For Parents

One thing I'd like to do with my kid is make glue.

This is the lesson plan to end all lesson plans. You take some small children and some kitchen ingredients--maybe corn starch, baking soda, baking powder, sugar.

You have the kids experiment with the materials. Which makes the best glue? Is it the corn starch/water combo? The baking powder/water combo?

The kids test their results with paper. Can I attach one paper to another? No? Then the glue isn't working very well. This is how it becomes clear which household ingredient is best.

Then: the really elegant climax. You have the kids vote: Which is the best glue-making ingredient? They create a large bar graph. They create the bar graph by using the glue that they feel is best. That glue becomes the glue by which the kids affix their particular choice to the massive bar graph you have posted.

Why is this so thrilling? Well, it's an approach to problem-solving in which actual hands get actual use. There's a mess. There's a question kids are passionately interested in answering. And, when they have an answer, they want to record that answer in a graph. (So something that can be sort of dry and baffling to kids--a graph--becomes a subject of intense interest.)

I often struggled with teaching, but this was a lesson I loved. It is such a pleasure to define a problem and then take concrete steps toward a solution. (It *can* be a pleasure, if you have a good attitude and you're well-rested.) Here's a way a kid can solve a problem, on a kid-sized scale, and experience some excitement along the road.

Be patient and have wet paper towels on hand! And ask your kid questions. Enjoy yourself.

*P.S. GEMS--Great Explorations in Math and Science--is the world I'm plagiarizing from, and I encourage you to take a look at their wares!
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