Self-confidence comes with accomplishments. Trying something, failing and having the courage to try again. Too many people give up if they fail once. I wish science was the core of the curriculum. Understanding the importance of trying, failing and analyzing why something failed is the center of science. Learning how to fail and learning how to learn. When to repeat an experiment and when to make changes. Understanding that often there can be multiple ways to do something. Appreciating someone else’s way of solving a problem. Being able to explain how you solved a problem.

Problem Solving

Problem solving starts in early childhood. Have you ever seen the efforts a toddler will go to get something that is out of their reach? They get creative with their problem solving.

The way school is taught now tells kids there is one correct way to do something and one correct answer. Rather than problem solving, students wait to be told the correct answer. The correct answer is rewarded and the process is ignored.

What Does a Catapult Have to do With Confidence?

One of my favorite lessons was about catapults. My kindergarten students were given materials and asked to find the best way to get a pompom as far as possible.

We discovered over the course of a several lessons that the medium pompoms flew the farthest. Also that just throwing it did not get it consistently as far as launching it with a catapult design. Spoons glued to clothes pins was one design idea. Also a balloon stretched over the end of a cardboard also made a good launching device.

The highlight of the lesson was when the superintendent walked into the room and got beaned in the forehead with pompom while a bunch of kindergartens yelled, “hey that flew more than 9 feet. Let’s do it again”. It is possible to teach measuring, graphing, predicting, writing and calculating in an exciting way. For more science ideas click here.

They also learned that a teeter-totter (or see-saw) is a giant lever with a fulcrum and great at launching things. Plastic spoons work well to launch pompoms at your friends in the gym. Who knew that a plastic spoon and a little puff ball could build self confidence?