When it comes to science homework, teachers are always walking a fine line as to what is really the most effective.  A fast and easy science projects that can easily be done at home, with little help is one way to go.  There will be times the homework needs to be basic stuff, memorizing terms, answering questions, studying for tests.  One good thing about science is there are also lots of chances for making diagrams, drawing pictures, and with the Internet watching cool videos on your topic.  Letting the students to a simple experiment at home to demonstrate a point should not be overlooked.

The weekend is an obvious time frame that will work for this kind of thing as you have time to do the experiment and time to either write up the results or create graphs and charts.  However there are many quick and easy science fair projects that literally take less than an hour to do, so could be done any night of the week for homework.  The youngest students get a big kick out of these things. Even with your middle school and older kids with today's technology this could be something that was started in school, the data collection continues at home, and the next day the write up can be done in school.

If you are going to assign a weekend experiment, it is extremely important that it is well organized.  This might sound basic, as teachers are notorious for being well organized, but with weekend experiments you run the risk of getting parents too involved if it is not set up in a way the kids can do it all themselves without help. This way once it gets home, it will be easy to put into action.   The organization will be easy, since it will be set up using the scientific procedures that are used in class experiments based on the scientific method.  The wording for the best science projects will be written in the way the teacher normally explains things so the children should be  fine on their own.

One thing the sometimes gets overlooked, particularly with newer teachers who do not  have school aged children at home, is the materials list.  It is important to make sure that they are common household things typically found in most homes or things that can be found at the local grocery, hardware, or discount store.  There is nothing worse for a teacher than annoyed parents who had to spend a lot of time running around looking for some hard to find ingredient. In fact the Thursday night homework assignment could be to gather the ingredients.

Your students will have a great time with an occasional weekend  fast and easy science projects and it gives them some hands on learning. Monday morning follow up will be active and lively, which is just what you want science to be.