Building foundations of scientific understanding

We’ve done about a dozen lessons in Book 1.  I think it is a very good program, which I think is CM compatible.  It is designed to help the teacher lead the children to explore and discover new concepts.  There are connections with real life, and it works well with general nature study activities.  However, I just couldn’t make it work in my busy life, so I have dropped it for now.  It is definitely not ‘open and go’.  Each lesson has several pages of information for the teacher to read in order to prepare to teach the concepts.  There is the basic science knowledge that is necessary, instructions on how to lead the discussion and introduce new concepts, and how to connect to previous concepts and lead towards new topics.  It is very thorough. 

I just found that because it took so much time to prepare, it was always the thing that got dropped when we were busy, which is pretty much always.  I’d love to be able to make it work eventually, perhaps when my kids are a bit older and more independent in other subjects.  I’m glad to have it available as a reference for when questions come up in our other studies or just day to day life.  I just have the ebook, so it only cost $10, which I think is an excellent price for an excellent resource.  It just isn’t our primary science program.

Joanne

We love the book but as mentioned, it takes a lot of prep time reading several pages of the lesson.  We’re doing Book 1 with my 2nd graders.  There is a group (two men) who are working to create a program based on BFSU in an open-and-go format through online lessons.  I was in their pilot program on astronomy and my boys really liked it.  I don’t know when they think they will have the whole program ready but that would be something to look for in the future.  Since, like Joanne, it is easy to postpone these lessons when something has to go, we won’t finish Book 1 until next year, even though we originally started it last year.  (That’s more my own time management problems than the program’s fault.) If you ever have questions, there is a yahoo group in which Nebel, the author, contributes regularly.  It is wonderful to be able to get clarification from him and others when you have questions about the science.  He seems a very dedicated and gentle man.

You want to know what I just discovered and have been greatly enjoying?  Janice VanCleave’s ________ for Every Kid.  We have Oceans for Every Kid and are borrowing from the library Biology for Every Kid.  She has a lot of topics – look on Amazon.  I don’t usually like ‘experiment books’ or even ‘science kits’ and yet I’ve really enjoyed these.  The lessons are short, they aren’t dumbed down and they take very little prep.