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What to do for science next year…thoughts?
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We are currently doing Beautiful Feet’s Science for elementary. It basically starts with early scientists like Archemedes and continues through to the Wright brothers. So far it is goiing ok, but two of the books seem to be a bit over their heads. I added in Storybook of Science and they are loving that. I have Jack’s Insect to read to them next year, but I would like a more formal or read and go type program in addition to Jack’s Insects. We’ve touched on astronomy, geology, zoology from last year’s Sonlight science and this year is more machines and electricty and magnetism. I am trying to decide between Science in the Beginning, Noeo Biology II, or any other options somebody might have…..thoughts? Oh, my son is in 3rd & age 8 and my daughter in 4th, age 9 almost 10.
Thanks,
Channa
I am leaning toward human body for next year. My students will be 5th grade (age 10) and 3rd grade (age 8).
Here are some resources I’ve been perusing:
http://www.guesthollow.com/homeschool/science/otters_science/science_human_body.html
http://www.kidsdiscover.com/shop/themedsets/ (the human body set. There are some freelesson plans to go along with these, but I have not looked at them)
http://materamabilis.org/ma/subjects/science/human-body-and-history-of-medicine/
Not set on anything, though. 😉
I did Noeo Physics l and Biology ll. It worked for me because it was all put together, all I had to do was follow along. I am planning to use it again for my younger kids because I have it and it was pretty expensive but am planning to modify it this time. For the Biology it uses the Usborn Encyclopadia a lot and we found it very dry. I would probably skip that book altogether and replace with other books.
We are doing Guest Hollow Chemistry now and are loving it. I am not using the same spine she did but am using Ellen Johnston McHenry’s books, which she also recommended.
If it was to do over I wouldn’t spend the money on Noeo but pick out things from Guest Hollow.
Next year I am going to try Epi Kardia/Train Up a Child. It includes history, geography, language arts, and science. I am going to buy the lesson plan sample and then write my own lesson plans. I like that the science goes with the history and uses living books.
I considered Dr. Wiles new books, but I am not big on a lot of experiments.
suzukimom – I’m thinking hard about it because it seems so organized and straight forward and I am just hoping the kids together (they get along great with each other) can do the experiments and dare I add possibly without me? Your experience on this would be appreciated…..
JenniferM & petitemom – Thanks for the idea of GuestHollow. I have never heard of it and will check them out ASAP. I am kinda giddy…. I love checking out new stuff. Yes, still fairly new at homeschooling, but had no buget really my first year and now I really really do have a tight budget so I have to be super choosy. I have everything ready for next year, except a few things and science is proving to be harder than I thought because I like science, but I can’t seem to figure out how to get kids in on a science cycle that I want to do…..history cycle was easy to decide……
retrofam – I love living books for science and I had thought to add a few in with something a bit more formal to help keep me focused more or maybe help kids get a bit more independent. They really love me doing school with them for everything still and I know they need to start building up some independence. Their perfect day would be for me to watch them write every word and listen to them read every word! LOL Besides, I tried to show them light refractory and dicuss the different colors in light and I told them we needed to light a candle and look at the flame. Both exclaimed they didn’t know how to light a candle. I do not care for my kids to say they don’t know how to do something, so we switched gears and I taught them how to light a candle. Then to not want to encourage them to play with matches, I then educated them on how fast things can burn, like tissue paper, toilet paper, notebook paper and I also showed them how much quickly and how much longer it burns if there is an accelerant on it such as windex or germ X. BTW, if you want to illustrate a weak flame such as candle (red/yellow) and a blue flame, just light a smidgen of germ X!! blue flame that you can not see!! Held a toothpick up over it to show there was a flame. then we rolled into fire safety and 3 hours later our day was shot! LOL I really need guidance to stay off the bunny trails…. OH and now I have my kids telling everyone that I made them play with fire for school!! They find this very funny….
cdm2kk wrote ‘…and 3 hours later our day was shot! LOL I really need guidance to stay off the bunny trails…’
Just wanted to say that sounded like a PERFECT day to me. I was totally impressed with all that got wrapped into your ‘bunny trail’. I bet you all had a great, memorable day!
cdm2kk – I know you asked suzukimom to reply (and hopefully she will) but I, too, have a bit of experience with Science in the Beginning. We attempted it for about 2 months. LOVED it. As you guessed, the way it’s laid out is wonderful. Lessons are short, tone of the writing is warm and inviting and not over the heads of anyone. I am a history lover, so I truly appreciated the idea of approaching science as a chronology. Despite all these “loves” I left the program precisely because of the point you brought up above. With the busy scene in my home with my youngest children, I REALLY needed it to be a program where Mom is not required (or at least not majorly required) for the experiment/activity, and I just didn’t find this to be the case in this program. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, where (to get full benefit, IMO) Mom “leads” the experiment (the entire lesson / read aloud, too) in order to get the children working their minds to figure out where it’s all going. If you left them to do the experiment, it would be like reading the last chapter of Black Beauty while you were in the middle of the first chapter. (at least this is what I got from the teacher notes) Again, if there was only an occasional experiment or activity, this would be ok for me, but in SIB, there is an experiment or a hands on activity in every lesson. Sooo.
It’s a GREAT program; if I had less children (and fewer balls in the air in our family life) I would be doing it, but unfortunately I couldn’t make it work well. We’ve moved to an entirely living books approach and finding it working well for our family, particularly since we are all such book crazy people.
Hopefully suzukimom can respond as well because I think she’s been using it a while and perhaps has found that it does work okay to give to the child independently, even if it takes away the “self discovery” aspect. At the end of the day, if they’re learning science, it probably shouldn’t matter….I’m just a silly stickler for “rules” so I just didn’t want to bend on it (and I do have kids who will read the last chapter of a book first, so probaby tainted already, LOL!)
Blessings, Angie
I loved your 3 hour science. As long as the kids were interested, it sounds great! I would count the three hours as science for the week and catch up on the other subjects for the next few days.
I tried a more formal program this year and was bored. We went back to living books and looking for ways to do science as play more. My 7th grade son does science naturally, so I am keeping a log of his projects instead of fighting him to stop so he can read a spine with me. One of his favorites is Snap Circuits.
Just our experience this year.
Angelina – thanks for the information….that is exactly what I thought would happen! There was one mom who had said her 3rd grade science loving son had already completed the book by himself and so I was hopeful maybe it was easy enough for self guided however if it sounds too good to be true….LOL
Noeo seems to have plenty of living books, but I don’t want a dry year and I wish they would cover more than one thing…..
I’m now looking at maybe just going cheap and doing some living books and easy peasy science since it is free and either picking and choosing certain areas we haven’t covered OR just doing the first 90 days of each section so they get a variety and then year after doing same thing etc. that would have me doing 10 days of her lessons in a week and they seem fairly short. Might be doable…. OH what to do What to do…. if we miss some probably woudn’t be the end of the world….
This would have my daughter covered up to 7th and my son up to 6th and then we could start a formal something, possibly apologia IDK….by then they should be independent, right? tell me yes, please !!! LOL
Thanks everyone and please keep the thoughts or options coming…
Noeo doesn’t cover just one thing, to be fair, they do include a lot of different things related to either Biology, Physics and Chemistry. Altogether it is a good program if you have the money to spend, just didn’t care for the Usborn Encyclopedia they use for Biology although it does have a lot of internet links so you could use mostly the links and library books. I just liked the fact it was all planned out for me but it is now our 4th year so I am comfortable enough to put things together myself (w/Guest Hollow’s help!).
Petitemom – Thanks for the clarifycation, it will help me make the decision. I’m scoping Guest Hollow too……LOL
It always is the act of Decision that is the hardest part!!!
As my 2 oldest kids have dyslexia, I do Dr. Wile’s with them. I would have thought older elementary would be able to do most on their own, but can’t verify it.
We are using Dr. Wile’s Science In the Beginning this year. My daughter is 11 1/2, she is doing this independently. There was one experiment involving the stove that she asked me to observe, but she does the reading and experiments on her own. I review her notebook entries for each lesson, and occasionally we will discuss something. We go over her tests after she is done if there are any errors. It has worked out well here, and she is enjoying science!
Paula
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