Season 8 of the Tips for Homeschool Science Show is almost here!! In this short episode, we share a sneak peek at what's coming up for the Science Soundtracks season.

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Episode 101 - Science Soundtracks Prequel: The Explanation Behind Season 8

Episode Transcript

Hey all! It’s been a hot minute since we have chatted about teaching science at home.  For those of you that are hearing a brand-new episode for the first time, hi-ya, I’m Paige Hudson and this is the Tips for Homeschool Science Show.

I’m here today to tell you that season 8 is right around the corner! Next week, we’ll be sharing the first episode of season 8 and we’ll keep sharing new episodes on Mondays until the season is done. But before we get going on our Science Soundtracks season, I wanted to start with an explanation behind the theme of the episodes. Think of this as the prequel to the main series.

The seed for season 8 got planted while we were on a morning run. I often listen to audiobooks – it makes the miles go by quicker. On this particular morning my earbuds were filled with a book that had nothing to do with science, but everything to do with our ability to teach it. It hit me how what I was listening to could be applied to teaching science at home, really it applies homeschooling in general. And as I was pounding the pavement the seedling of an idea grew into a full-sized, podcast-plant season.

The book was Soundtracks by Jon Acuff – it’s a business book about overthinking with a healthy dose of humor sprinkled in. It’s not an if-you-think-it-it-will-come kind of book – rather it’s about how we change the thoughts, or soundtracks, that narrate our life.

If you are like me, you know that as humans, we tend to focus on the negative. And the premise of Acuff’s book is that we can change those negative soundtracks into ones that will help us slingshot forward. It’s not that we are telling ourselves a lie. It’s more like we are looking for a silver lining or for a single, simple thought that can help us move from a place of paralysis to a place where we can move forward.

We stop fighting those soundtracks that are holding us back and find a way to flip them instead. “I can’t do it the way they do it,” becomes, “I have a unique way to approach this problem – one that will help me find a solution.”

In the book, Jon sets forth three questions to ask about any soundtrack:

• Is it true?
• Is it helpful?
• Is it kind?

I am not doing all 240 pages of the book justice, but I hope you get the basic idea.

So for season 8, which we are calling the Science Soundtracks season, we’ll be going through some commonly held beliefs about teaching science – ones that I have heard over and over again. We’ll be putting those soundtracks through the three-question litmus test.

Spoiler alert – none of these will pass the test.

And when a soundtrack doesn’t pass the litmus test, Jon encourages us to say, “That’s enough of doing it that way, let’s try something else.”

I’ll be sharing how you can flip these negative beliefs into positive soundtracks that will help you teach science at home. We are not going to fight these or try to convince ourselves of an alternate reality, we’re going to flip them so that we can see that silver lining, which is so much easier!

How do I know that?

Because I have tried this “don’t fight it, flip it” mentality and it has made a world of difference.

It’s because of that that I knew I needed to share a season like this with you guys. A season that will help you see that teaching science at home is totally doable when you have the right soundtracks playing in your mind and the right tools in your hands.

So, I hope you guys are as excited about this upcoming season as I am. I’ll be back in your earbuds next week with the very first soundtrack – one that says that science is too hard. I bet you have heard that one or maybe you have even thought that one before. We’ll be flipping the idea that science is too hard into a new soundtrack that makes science seem simple.

You really don’t want to miss an episode of this season! If you haven’t already subscribed, be sure to add the Tips for Homeschool Science Show to your favorite podcasting app today. Thanks for listening and I hope you have a great week playing with science!