Just received Life Through Time

[Susie in CA]

and it looks awesome! However, it does feel overwhelming. If you have used this before -- Have you done all of the stations or just picked some. Have you done the Tree of Life and the Timeline and the poster. I am not sure I can pull off doing all of it but I can see doing some of it. Or maybe I just do some of it and then some more. Does that make sense?

 

KarenAnne, I think I need you to come over to my house and help get organized! :D

 

Susie

[Guest]

Well, we did do all of it, but we didn't rush. As I have said in a previous thread, we used lots of little plastic animals we had lying around the house, found related types of grasses, moss, and leaves outside, and in general didn't fuss too much if the terrarium display was exact in every way. I didn't set up the terrarium or make the changes to correspond with eras; dd did that and enjoyed it a lot.

 

The Tree of Life is a marvelous visual activity and it's really easy -- the hardest thing was finding a space on our walls to hang it up because we have a chopped-up house with little wall space.

 

The timeline was also a huge aid to understanding the scope of geologic time.

 

I don't remember a poster...

 

Al the activities reinforce one another, going over big concepts from different angles and in different ways. That's partly what makes it all memorable afterwards. We kept our Tree of Life up for years and were always referring to it when we read about new fossil discoveries or mutating bacteria.

 

I sympathize with your feeling of being overwhelmed, because I remember that myself with my first couple of GEMs books. But once you collect a bunch of materials and get going, it will be very engaging and fun. Promise.

[Susie in CA]

Dear KarenAnne,

 

I want to thank you so much for all the inspiration you give on this board.

 

I am re-thinking our school quite a bit as so many have posted on the issue of creativity and flexibility, and I am working toward it. I very excited to start fresh after the holidays with more input from the kiddos. We'll see where we'll end up. I guess, I am afraid to let go a bit.....working on it.

 

Thank you so much again for your encouragement.

 

Susie

[redsquirrel]

I also want to thank you for the guidance and reassurance.

 

Susie, could you, pretty please, keep us posted as to how it goes? I think there are quite a lot of use who want to use GEMS but just can't imagine how it is supposed to work in a homeschool situation.

 

I am seriously considering a GEMS for next years earth and space science.

[Guest]

GEMS certainly works really well with groups; but also, there are some situations in which the materials are just so much fun and so attractive that a group can threaten to get out of control! Sometimes my dd was much better able to concentrate and apply herself to the concepts and materials when it was just the two of us.

 

There are some sections that are based on discussion or where two people trying different approaches is really useful. In those cases, I simply worked alongside dd myself, and at times I'd play devil's advocate or ask questions or ask her to consider a different angle. You don't need an entire classroom of kids, but often it is a lot of fun working with someone else rather than alone, so I usually was right there -- although sometimes I just watched, asked questions, and commented on what she was doing that I found really interesting or that made me think of things in a new way.

 

If you have one of the guides that you think would work best with a group, you could try what we did one year: we had a series of monthly science parties on Saturday afternoons with five or six kids.

 

Every once in a while we skipped one activity in a guide because we didn't have a group of kids handy, but those moments were amazingly far and few between considering the program was developed with large groups in mind. In fact sometimes I think the groups must have been a bit boring, because there are a number of cases where groups of four are supposed to divvy up work on a particular task and each kid barely gets to do anything. If you have one or two or even five or six kids, they can each do the entire procedure themselves.

[Susie in CA]

I also want to thank you for the guidance and reassurance.

 

Susie, could you, pretty please, keep us posted as to how it goes? I think there are quite a lot of use who want to use GEMS but just can't imagine how it is supposed to work in a homeschool situation.

 

I am seriously considering a GEMS for next years earth and space science.

 

I sure will. I am planning on starting to collect supplies in January. That means we'll start the unit in February. You'll hear from me then.

 

Susie