My son decided he wanted to be an inventor when he grows up, so I set up a homeschool Inventors' Club. My goals for the club were to help him find friends with similar interests, and to teach the kids some of the science and technology necessary to invent.

At each meeting, I had a fun project for them to build. Some of the projects we built were catapults, rubber band cars, and horses that raise and lower their heads. Each project was designed to teach them principles of simple machines and mechanical engineering. Note that I am NOT an engineer, nor did I know anything about machines, but I made use of a lot of good childrens' books about these topics.

Along the way we also learned some physical science as we had to learn how to deal with forces such as gravity and friction. I used a program called Invent America to teach the steps to inventing. The kids also did reports on inventors and inventions, so we snuck in some social science as well!

Overall the club was a success. Everyone had fun and I think the kids got a lot out of it. Next year I'm thinking about doing an electricity theme!

Related Links

InventAmerica