Looking for something fun to do this summer with your kids? Lucinda Crenshaw has a plan down to a science.

Crenshaw, science teacher at West Junior High School, says finding experiments to do as a family can help keep your children busy and keep them learning throughout the summer.

“When kids ask ‘Why?’ or ‘How do you know?’ or ‘Can I do it again?,’ they are practicing scientists,” Crenshaw says.

Children have a natural curiosity to experiment, even if not in a formal sense, and Crenshaw says it’s important to help that along. Adults are scared when kids ask questions and they don’t know the answers, she says. That’s OK because it’s more important to just figure it out.

Various sites explain these science experiments in detail. Sites such as www.stevespanglerscience.com have experiments as well as simple directions and videos to help these budding young scientists flex their knowledge muscles.

Crenshaw recently demonstrated how to use household items to make your own lava lamp. All you need is a bottle of oil, water, food coloring and Alka-Seltzer. Start by filling a bottle half full of oil and the other half full of water. Start adding drops of the food coloring and then break up the Alka-Seltzer tablets and throw that in the bottle last. Everything will begin to circulate, and one can add more Alka-Seltzer as needed.

Here the water has separated from the oil, and the food coloring becomes attached to the water. The tablets release gases that help circulate all the materials like a lava lamp. This is just one simple experiment, and Crenshaw says it’s easy to find more.

All things everywhere relate to science, and it’s only a matter of thinking about it and talking it out with someone, Crenshaw says. The Internet and the library both have a wealth of instructions for simple science experiments and how they work, she says.

If children get the opportunity to play around, she says, they begin hypothesizing and analyzing results without even knowing.

Simple science projects to keep kids busy, as suggested by Lucinda Crenshaw, science teacher at West Junior High School:

• Look at the stars — get a book from the library or go online to find constellations and the stories that go along with them.

• Make scrapbooks about your travels.

• Instead of throwing out that broken toaster, first take it apart to see what’s inside or try to put it back together.

• Go on hikes at different times of the day and observe — plants, bugs, birds, animals, people, etc.

• Keep a journal of observations — you pick the topic.

• Cook together — talk about types of food, measure ingredients, talk about fractions and follow directions.

• For a month look at the moon and draw a picture each night to see the phases of the moon.

• Plant a garden or flower box and measure height of plants, number of leaves, blossoms, etc. See if adding fertilizer makes a difference.