How it all started…

We are VERY excited to announce ( if you missed it ) that we are finalists in TWO categories for the MAD Blog awards. While we both hoped this would happen, we didn’t dare get our hopes up too much, so last week’s announcement has still not really sunk in. There are so many amazing blogs out there, and we are honoured to be selected as finalists.

We are in ‘the best MAD schooldays blog’ and ‘most innovative MAD Blog’ categories.

A brief history

The last year has been a bit of a journey for Kerry and I. We met through Twitter and our personal blogs, discovering our shared love for science through a meme started by Kerry. I mentioned my passion for science and how I would love to blog about science experiments. Kerry later offered via Twitter to help, and I asked if she wanted to do it together.

We live about a 3 hour drive from each other, so opportunities to meet up are few are far between, usually limited to blogging events in London, but we do tweet, e-mail and Skype frequently.

I feel very lucky to have met some amazing people on Twitter and through blogging, and Kerry is right up at the top of my list. We are quite similar personalities, and I’m sure had we met in ‘real life’ we would have still become firm friends.

We both have three small children, and found ourselves unable to return to work due to the cost of childcare, which motivated us to start our respective blogs.

Science Sparks started out as just a post each week on one of our blogs, it was only after CyberMummy last year that we were inspired to give Science Sparks a stand-alone site.

We have floundered many times along the way, struggling mostly to find the time to manage our homes, children and two blogs. At times it feels like we are doing a full-time job with no childcare.

I have to give a huge shout-out to Maggy from Red Ted Art, who spotted us struggling and gave us a much needed boost and push to carry on.

We are both overwhelmed by the amount of encouragement we have received along the way. Every lovely tweet, e-mail or comment makes us smile and gives us the confidence to keep going and keep improving on what we do.

So a huge THANK YOU to everyone for supporting us, and please please consider voting for us.

Emma and Kerry

My aim with Science Sparks is to show people that science isn’t scary or boring and you don’t need expensive or hard to find equipment. The investigations that are the most fun are those you can do with ingredients you already have around the house.

I love seeing that spark of interest develop in my children. A spark that leads to questions and more questions, helping develop a little enquiring mind.

Emma

‘As a teacher by trade, I have a huge passion for science and an awareness of the shortage of scientists in the country, and I want to make science more accessible for all and something that can be done as a family. We all read stories and attempt maths homework, but we never really think about science, and yet it is all around us. For me, at pre-school and primary level, it is not about understanding how, although that is fab, it is more about getting the ‘Wow!’ and sparking children’s imaginations and minds to want to know more! Science is not a scary subject, and our aim is to bring it into the home and make it easy and fun!

Kerry

Last Updated on May 2, 2023 by Emma Vanstone