120 Teaching Minds how best to throw a rock in order to hit the cat. For many of these things, hypotheses can be formed, discussions about what makes a good hypothesis can be had, and ideas for testing out hypotheses can be sought. Maybe these would just be thought experiments (as in the case of hitting the cat), but thought experiments are important also. Knowing what would confirm or deny a hypothesis is important. Finding out what kids want to get better at is part of the issue here. If they want to learn to hit a baseball, having a theory about what makes a good swing and what makes a bad one may matter to them. The subject matter doesn’t matter at all really, just the thinking and the experimentation. This suggests that the real way to teach experimentation and the other subjects we have discussed here is to group kids not by age but by interests. So, if a child wants to think about dogs all day, group him with a set of other dog lovers and start coming up with hypotheses about dogs’ behavior, needs, commands that they might learn, train- ing, breeding, and so on. It just doesn’t matter what the subject is at this stage. Suggestions for kids’ science experiments are everywhere. Here is a typical one: Gravity The Earth tries to pull everything down toward its center. This pull is called the force of gravity (the invisible force). When you lift things up, you have to pull against gravity. If you drop a pencil, gravity pulls it to Earth. If you rest its midpoint on your finger, gravity will pull down equally on both sides of the pencil and it will balance in the air. Here is another: Sound and Noise Have one person fill each of the plastic eggs with a different item. Put some rice in one, some dried beans in another, and so on. Keep track of what you put in each egg by writing numbers on the eggs. Have a different person try to see if he can figure out HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_023866