School of Physics and Astronomy School of Chemistry School of Electronics and Computer Science

Helping Your Child with Science

Can parents help their children with science? Yes! Even though most of us didn't do any formal science in primary school, there's a lot we can do. For example

• Pointing out a sundial and asking a child how it works, to reinforce what they do in the Earth in Space topic.
• Asking why today is a good or bad drying day for the washing fits into their work on evaporation
• Explaining that the bathroom light switch will either be a pull switch or will be located outside the room demonstrates a real life application of what they learn about safety in the Electricity topic.

We visit schools and talk about how your children's understanding of science develops, what they learn about in each of the main science topics in the National Curriculum and offer ideas for simple, related activities. During the school visit we can even set up some simple experiments for your children to do with your help to demonstrate some of the main ideas.

The support for this project has now ended. However, please feel free to take copies of the handouts listed below.

• Helping your child with The Earth in Space [pdf | PostScript]
• Helping your child with Forces [pdf | PostScript]
• Helping your child with Light [pdf]
• Helping your child with Sound and Hearing [pdf]
• Helping your child with Electricity [pdf]
• Helping your child with Materials [pdf]

Supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council.