This is the one thing I lack, good replacements for the incorrect material in K-6 textbooks. I'm not a teacher, so I lack the experience in teaching children. I would need this to create good curriculum material. In the following, keep in mind that I'm an electronics designer who complains about the accuracy of info in textbooks, but without having the benefit of actually USING any of these textbooks while teaching.

I've only found one book which lacks all the usual misconceptions. Unfortunately it's out of print. "Basic Electricity" by Gene McWhorter, a RADIO SHACK book. Perhaps you can still order it through Radio Shack stores. It seems to be aimed at the middle high school level. It even has quizzes at the end of chapters. Unfortunately Radio Shack replaced it with "Basic Electronics", which lacks all the wonderful visual representations of electrical science found in the eariler book.

For a K-12 mainstream textbook which is better than most, try Prentice Hall's "Science Explorer" series, the volume on Electricity and Magnetism. This one dates from 2000, and lacks nearly all of the errors I discuss on this site.

For high school level, an excellent commercial curriculum package is the CASTLE material. It takes a conceptual approach to electricity teaching, and is used in high school physics classes. It concentrates on charge flow and energy transfer concepts, and doesn't contain all the misleading "electricity" contradictions. Here's an online copy of the student version.

For K-6 grades there's also the old "BATTERIES AND BULBS" lesson plan. I don't know the publisher, but it's been around since about 1983 and is excellent.

My own attempt at some visual/conceptual introductory material is here: Explaining "electricity" with red/green plastic sheets.

If I were teaching, I'd concentrate on initially having the kids play with all sorts of real electrical devices. Batteries and bulbs, little motors, loudspeakers, maybe solar cells and LEDs (from Radio Shack.) A secret: buy lots of "clip leads", wires with little alligator clips on each end. This lets you connect various devices together, even if the devices lack proper connecting terminals.

One particularly wonderful device is the "Genecon" hand-cranked generator, available by mail order from Arbor Scientific among others. (www.arborsci.com) It puts out about 8 volts DC max, and the polarity changes depending on direction of cranking. Unfortunately it's around $40 or so. Maybe too expensive to have 30 of them for the entire class, but consider buying at least a single one to play with.

Once the kids have had fun and maybe are starting to get excited about the mysteries in the wires, only then start on the more standard curriculum material.

For explaining how electrical energy works, my favorite simple demo is two clothesline pulleys and a loop of rope (with rope ends butted together and duct-taped.) This "rope-ic circuit" shows how the electric charges in a metal can be forced to flow in a circle. Drive one pully into motion with your hand, and that pulley becomes a generator. The other pulley is driven by the flowing rope, and it behaves as a motor. To demonstrate an open circuit, have one person turn a pulley, and have another person grab the the rope at some point in the loop and hold it still. To illustrate an electric heater or electric light bulb, let the rope rub against your thumb so your thumb gets hot. Or to illustrate Alternating Current, turn one wheel rapidly back and forth to demonstrate how AC circuits contain charges which sit in one place and wiggle back and forth, while energy is still communicated to all parts of the loop.

If you can afford to buy a bunch of $4.00 clothesline pulleys, you can have the kids expand it into a vast network of wheels connected by a single loop of string, all of which will turn when a single wheel is turned, and all of which will stop when the "circuit is opened"; when the string is grabbed in one place. The cellulose molecules in the rope can represent the electrons in a wire. Flow of the rope represents charge flow in wires. The push/pull tensions in the loop of rope represent electric voltage. The slow speed of the rope matches the slow speed of charge flow. The rapid transmission of "horsepower" from pulley to pully represents the electric energy which moves at nearly the speed of light in circuits. To show that electrons are not invisible, replace the loop of string with a loop of fishline. When you turn the pulleys, the fishline appears not to move (since it is so smooth.) In wires, the charges are visible as a silvery metallic color (all metals have this), but when the charges flow, we cannot see the silvery stuff move (since it is far too smooth, it has no marks on it which might show that it's flowing!)

Another similar "visible electricity" demo would be a circle of railroad track and a bunch of freight cars as the "electrons" (no engine of course). Include enough freight cars so that you cover the entire circle of track. Then push one freight car along, and you transmit kinetic energy almost instantly to all the cars in the loop. The cars represent the copper electrons which flow within a wire. Or put a row of marbles in a circle on top of a large steel coffee can. If you can get hold of a bag of old golf balls, you can fill a circle of model railroad track with large rolling "electrons" (N-gauge track might be needed, I don't know if golf balls will hit bottom on the standard HO-gauge track). Fill the entire track with balls, so when you push one ball, all balls must roll.

Other stuff:

My usual suggestion is to abandon the term "electricity" and start out with as much correct terminology as you think is appropriate for that age level.

- We do not study "electricity", we study "electrical science."

- Generators don't produce "electricity", they produce "electrical energy" which is made of invisible fields resembling radio waves that whiz along outside of the wires. Generators also force the charges found inside the wires to flow along.

- "Electricity" doesn't flow inside metal wires, charges do.

- Batteries don't supply "electricity", wires do. A battery is a chemically-fueled charge pump. Like any other pump, a battery does not supply the "stuff" that it pumps. When a battery runs down, it's because its chemical fuel is exhausted, not because any charges have been lost.

- Light bulbs don't consume "electricity." Instead, the charges of the filament are forced to flow much faster than they would thick wires, and this heats the filament because of a sort of "electrical friction". Charges flow in through one terminal, but then they flow back out again and none are used up.

- There are no different types of "electricity", but the topic of Electrical Science is divided into many subtopics such as "charges," "current," "imbalanced charge," "sparks," even "voltage". See the electricity map.

- Avoid saying "static electricity" and "current electricity". Instead call them "charge imbalance" and "charge flow", or possibly "voltage" and "current". (A little known fact: static electricity involves high voltage, and flowing charges can display "static electricity" when the voltage is high.)

I've learned a lesson by reading about the "new math" debacle in the late 60's. I don't want to become like the experts who caused those problem. As an educator, I have too much theory in my head and not enough teaching experience. If I were to write a K-6 science book, the book might appeal more to academics and engineers than to children and educators. Curriculum material should be created by teachers, not by content experts having no classroom experience.

If anyone should figure out some good techniques, lesson plans, activities, etc., by all means get them onto the WWW so other educators can benefit. We can point our "Electricity" websites at each other.