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Help with Science
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I am super science challenged and have no idea what to teach my kids. We have tried Apologia and Answers in Genesis elementary science texts, but apparently I have some sort of aversion to textbooks, go figure. I get through about ten weeks and then chuck it for something new. I have a 2nd, 5th and 7th grader. At this point I do not expect the 7th grader to go into a sciency field so I have decided to go with the John Hudson Tiner books and lesson plans from Masterbooks through high school, most of these are 1/2 credit, but it will give us what our PSP requires for graduation. This way he only has official science scheduled 2-3 days a week and he can join is for nature study. So my question is how to plan nature study. How long do I study a particular thing? How do I study that thing. There are so many great books I dont know where to begin. This is my thought, please give me any input. I thought maybe using Fabres Story Book of Science as a “spine”. It seems to have a few chapters each on many subjects. I thought I could coordinate the Handbook of Nature Study with the chapters when possible/practical, and maybe add in some additional library reading for my 5th and 7th grader. Keep a nature notebook maybe. Or the other idea is doing the Burgess Bird book with them. I may have my 5th grader read this independently since she loves birds. Oh help. My goal for them really is to be able to identify some trees, bugs, birds, rocks, constellations. Practical knowledge. It just seems like so much I dont know how to fit it in. Any ideas?
Some things that help us are: My children are enrolled in 4-H. Our club is a nature club that rides horses. It is great fun and the leader loves science.
Secondly, all the Burgess books make great read alouds and independent reading. For bird study a few years ago, our family read Burgess bird, which describes a specific birds’ habit. We used a Bird book by Marguerite Henry and I traced the outline of the picture out of the book for the kids and they filled in the details and then colored them in with colored pencils. They turned out so beautiful that we put their art in a portfolio and put it in our living room for company to look at.
We then listened to a cd with eastern us songbirds songs while we worked. We are much more noticing of birds and all wildlife as we are outside.
We also had the opportunity to visit the National Aviary in Pittsburgh, PA, (Fabulous).Since then, we’ve hung up two bird nesting boxes and the kids enjoy making suet cakes which they hook to the trees on the side lawn. A Christmas tree for the birds. Hope this gives you some fun ideas. Martha
We never stuck to a science text for long either! My 7th grader is enjoying the Wonders of Creation series from Master Books, mixed in with some living science books. For example, now he is reading The New Astronomy Book after he read HA Rey’ s Find the Constellations. Next is Destination Moon. Then Eric Sloane’ s The Weather Book.
Winter is a great time to hang up a bird feeder and study birds. There is a Fandex on birds, Dover coloring book, and DVD Backyard Birds we highly recommend for hearing bird calls and seeing details of live birds up close.
Spring is great for trees or insects. Just go on nature walks and see what interests them. Study it for as long as they are interested. Have some field guides and interesting non-fiction books on hand. SCM sells Jack’s Insects and companion study for grades 4 and up.
For rocks and minerals, check on museums and special events in your area. Collect some interesting samples and look them up in a book.
Nature Study is a great way to learn more about our Creator. The less planned out it is, the more enjoyable. Just be sure to schedule that time in and not skip it.
Crystal – just a thought about those science textbooks – maybe you are chucking them because they spend so many months in the same topic? I know the Apologia books are a single branch of science for the entire year, so a whole year on astronomy or botany might not be your thing. The Answers in Genesis ones are 3 books per year but still a long time in a single topic area.
So one possibility would be to recognize you want to switch between books/topics about every 2 months instead of tossing it all aside. For example you could do 2 months of astronomy, then 2 months of zoology 1, then 2 months of chemistry. It just takes having a couple of the books on hand instead of just one, and you could continue rotating through books for multiple years until you make it through them all.
On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with doing science without a textbook generally. I would caution you against assuming your 7th grader won’t change/grow/mature and end up wanting to have a more scienc-y career path. They change a lot during middle and high school years! I always suggest preparing them to enter any career path by doing a solid set of basic courses in high school that won’t hold them back if they decide they do want to dive into something you never expected. That means they all do writing, science, history, math, and the arts all the way through high school.
Thanks for he advice everyone. Very good ideas.
Tristan, good point about me and textbooks, I do get bored and want to move on, rotating what I have and adding in living books might be a good solution. Also your point about preparing them for any possibility is well taken. Unfortunately ds is behind in math so our hs science options are a bit limited by that. I dont expect him to hit Algebra till 10th. This is something I just had to accept and we plug along as best as we can. How could I give him college prep in light of our math challenges? I was thinking just letting him do interest based science, making sure he had 1 credit of physical and 1 credit of Life, which is what we need here. The courses would be non traditional, but still hs level. Is it important to do the standard Biology and Chemistry with labs. Would Junior college science be attainable after non traditional courses? Would I better serve him doing a BJU or Apologia text over two years, just in case? In light of our math situation I think a local jc is going to be the only route to University. Does any of that make sense? Sorry I have so many questions.
I would really encourage you to start letting your 7th gr. go independent with science. He’s reaching a level of specific requirements now and it’s not about what you necessarily like, in terms of switching up, as it relates to him. IMO, he’s got to start developing (after the Tiner series), the ability to stick with one topic for a full semester and/or year as part of preparing for high school, and any type of college-level work.
You may even consider enrolling him into a co-op or an online course for Life Sci and Phys. Sci, if you don’t have any co-ops around (especially for Phys. sci.). Landry (purchase from an individual who previously bought in bulk), BJU (they have $99 sales for online courses), Virtual Homeschool Group (free, with live or at-your-own-pace) there are others. With a co-op class or an online one, you can oversee his progress and help him develop valuable time-management and “this assignment-is-due” skills. Then, you can continue nature-study with the younger ones, switching those topics around (even seasonally) as suggested earlier; but long enough to have some immersion for deep learning and not hop-skipping and possibly interrupting that process.
Doing the Tiner books with the guides now is a good foundation, but I think all of them would only be worth 1/2 credit, right?
Then, he’ll need to complete 1 credit of Life and then 1 credit of Physical Science. That takes him into 9th grade or 10 grade to begin Biology.
So my question is how to plan nature study. How long do I study a particular thing? How do I study that thing.
Nature study should be planned, but allow for spontaneous nature study too. On the day you have nature study planned, have a focus for what the children should be observing. One week it might be an insect of their choice, another week it might be a flower. You can repeat any nature study focus as many times as you like. For example, you may want to spend several weeks focusing on observing insects. Or you may have each child choose a tree to observe for the year, then make that tree the focus of nature study at least one time each season. Remember the idea of nature study is to observe nature and learn as much as you can about the habits of the things in nature.
For guidance on what to observe each season, you may consider something like our Journaling a Year in Nature.
There are ways to do high school science without the higher level math skills.
One option is to tutor the student through the math problems, modeling how to do them, and giving them exposure to the math, but not requiring them to be tested on the math problems.
Another option is to choose a curriculum that doesn’t emphasize the math, such as the 101 series (Biology 101, etc.)
For labs, a student can watch videos and do lab reports and it counts as credit. Of course if they want real life labs, that’s better.
There are many discussions about high school science on this forum.
I tailor science to each student, but require biology, physical science, and chemistry from all of my students.
Retrofam said what I was going to – work with them on the math parts!
Also, it helps to look at the math pre-requisites for a specific company. We’ve used Apologia, so here is theirs:
General science: None.
Physical science: 7th grade math.
Biology: None.
Chemistry: Algebra 1
Physics: Algebra 1, Geometry, basic Trig functions.
Adv. Biology: None.
Adv. Chemistry: Algebra 2
Adv. Physics: Precalculus
Marine Biology: None.
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