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I'm starting a new thread b/c I don't want to derail the other more than it has been. I'm in the midst of planning today and am at a crisis point. Yes, I know I should have done all this in the summer but we were selling our house, everything was in storage, and we were having a house built. To say I'm not where I want to be is an understatement but I'm rolling with it. :lol:

 

We're using CPO Life Science as a spine. The experiments seem pretty good, it's getting my son used to answering short answer questions in complete sentences. I'm adding in extra reading some of which are given in CPO Life Science. They have a book list for 3 grade levels which is nice.

 

I just pulled out Macaulay's The Way We Work (TWWW) and WOW I just want to sit down with this book and read it and gaze at the illustrations.

 

Now I'm looking at Exploring the Way Life Works (TWLW) by Hoagland. (Yes, I really should pull books off MY OWN bookshelves every once in awhile.) Again wow.

 

I guess I'm forming a difference in my mind between CPO Life Science on the one hand and TWWW and TWLF on the other along w/ something like BFSU.

 

I can see that CPO Life is more of a broad survey, which is what I wanted. TWWW and TWLF is more focused. They don't include protists or plant anatomy or biomes, for example.

 

As I look through them, whereas CPO is middle school and TWWW is listed as 6th grade+, I think TWWW and TWLF is more advanced. Things I didn't cover until high school or even college! Ok, the immunology in TWWW I didn't cover until graduate school!

 

I guess the distinction I'm feeling is the tone, the wonderment, the excitement and passion about the topic in TWWW, TWLF that isn't present in a book like CPO. If I had to sum it up, perhaps these books seem more like conversations. I may sit down tonight w/ SWB outlining how to and see how these books are to outline.

 

I have no idea where I'm going with this....thinking out loud and trying to process my thoughts.

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The tone from science explorer is very dry and to the bones. I feel when I read it like I'm in a hurry, rushing from poorly explained concept to poorly explained concept, without ever pausing to absorb and appreciate: like we jump from topic to topic, trying to cross an ocean of knowledge on burning, sinking ships.

 

The tone from a living book is one of sharing wonderment. There can be a lot of "extra" knowledge, though--Like college level concepts in a book I'm giving to my 6th grader. But, I'm so used to thinking inside the school box, that maybe it's okay to do that.

 

I struggle to find a balance between the two: sometimes I don't want to take the time to "stop and smell the roses" with a living book, but then again, neither do I want to waste my time reading, memorizing and forgetting minorly important vocabulary words, only to move quickly onto the next subject. I wish there was an easy answer.

 

I am struggling with how to move my son to the next level without the dry, lifeless textbook that I know I will some day have to resort to.

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Yes, I'm having the same conundrum I suppose. It can be hard to step off the familiar path we remember from school. I read CPO and I don't think it's bad, I think compared to other textbooks I've seen, it's pretty good but it certainly doesn't scream "Pick me up and read me!" But the chapters are short and I think the living book recommendations it gives will give that component so that perhaps you can have it both ways!

 

I'm looking at CPO Life Science and The Way Life Works and The Way We Work and while they are all listed as middle grade +, TWLF and TWWW are grade levels ahead of CPO Life Science I believe. Some of the topics in these books I didn't get until high school, several I didn't get until college, and a few in TWWW I didn't get until graduate school (NK cells, Killer T cells, perforin). AGain though, I think these are meant as exposure. When DC sees it again in high school (perhaps science is more advanced now than when I was in highschool. I remember doing leaf and insect collections in high school and blood typing) and college, they will have these pegs in place.

 

Not that it bothers me at this age, but if anyone is looking at The Way Life Works, it ends with reproduction and has a full-sized drawing of the "act."

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Last year for 6th grade, we did CPO Life Science as our spine, with end-of-chapter assessments and experiments. Then I had them outline The Way Life Works - that seemed a good combo of covering all the bases and the increased depth and excitement of a living book (though I saw the WWLWs as exposure more than expecting them to retain all that).

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Ah Matryoshka - Yes, that's exactly what I've settled on. I just finished writing out each chapter of CPO Life Science and then made a note in the margin of the page numbers in Exploring the Way Life Works and The Way We Work. At some later date, maybe do the human body next year, we'll then finish The Way We Work. I probably got the idea from you Matroyshka but w/ the move, everything got lost in my brain. I feel like I'm finally coming out of a fog! It feels good to have a plan written down! Now every two weeks, I just have to look ahead in CPO and order any books from the library or look up the exact page numbers DS needs to read in TWWW or TWLF.

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Ah Matryoshka - Yes, that's exactly what I've settled on. I just finished writing out each chapter of CPO Life Science and then made a note in the margin of the page numbers in Exploring the Way Life Works and The Way We Work. At some later date, maybe do the human body next year, we'll then finish The Way We Work. I probably got the idea from you Matroyshka but w/ the move, everything got lost in my brain. I feel like I'm finally coming out of a fog! It feels good to have a plan written down! Now every two weeks, I just have to look ahead in CPO and order any books from the library or look up the exact page numbers DS needs to read in TWWW or TWLF.

 

I have to admit I only made a passing attempt to line up the pages - the scope and sequence of CPO and TWLW are so different! And both build upon what's gone before, so I had a hard time assigning either out of order. I ended up just divvying up TWLW into chunks and having them do it in parallel, even if the topics didn't line up.

 

If you manage something that makes more sense, you'll have to share - I still have one more kid to go through it. :D

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Crimsom Wife - That is why I initially chose CPO Life Science. I wanted something systematic that touched on each area that you'd think of as Life Science. WE had done human body, and protists but not much on biomes, classification, plant structure, cell structure that was systematic.

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I guess the distinction I'm feeling is the tone, the wonderment, the excitement and passion about the topic in TWWW, TWLF that isn't present in a book like CPO. If I had to sum it up, perhaps these books seem more like conversations...

I have no idea where I'm going with this....thinking out loud and trying to process my thoughts.

 

We are in this same spot. Before we stopped for Christmas break, ds was complaining that science isn't as fun as it used to be "when we read a lot of different books." We have been using SEPS. It is the sense of wonderment and excitement that is missing in his interest level.

The tone from science explorer is very dry and to the bones. I feel when I read it like I'm in a hurry, rushing from poorly explained concept to poorly explained concept, without ever pausing to absorb and appreciate: like we jump from topic to topic, trying to cross an ocean of knowledge on burning, sinking ships.

This is a pretty good description. DS has complained about vocabulary that is hard to grasp and it seems as if they have crammed a lot of information into a middle school level text book. While I haven't found the concepts individually poorly explained, the material doesn't help students make connections between the concepts. If you miss a piece somewhere, there is nothing compelling that is going to make you go back and look something up out of interest.

 

The tone from a living book is one of sharing wonderment. There can be a lot of "extra" knowledge, though--Like college level concepts in a book I'm giving to my 6th grader. But, I'm so used to thinking inside the school box, that maybe it's okay to do that.

I love the exposure to advanced concepts. DS has gotten a lot of this by reading Scientific American and other science & technology magazines.

I struggle to find a balance between the two: sometimes I don't want to take the time to "stop and smell the roses" with a living book, but then again, neither do I want to waste my time reading, memorizing and forgetting minorly important vocabulary words, only to move quickly onto the next subject. I wish there was an easy answer.

If you find your easy answer, please do share! I often feel the pressure to provide the background information necessary for advanced sciences and forget that there can be as much, if not more in the living books.

 

I worry that if I start including more living books in the plan that he will end up being totally lost in some areas of science. Life Science is our biggest weakness.

I am struggling with how to move my son to the next level without the dry, lifeless textbook that I know I will some day have to resort to.

Yes.
Yes, I'm having the same conundrum I suppose. It can be hard to step off the familiar path we remember from school. I read CPO and I don't think it's bad, I think compared to other textbooks I've seen, it's pretty good but it certainly doesn't scream "Pick me up and read me!"

It's that "pick me up and read me" thing that ds misses so much, I think.

 

I remember doing leaf and insect collections in high school and blood typing) and college, they will have these pegs in place.
Now insect collections are late elementary school! We did blood typing last year as part of 7th grade. I think there is so much more information available in the sciences that it is hard to decide what must be learned at each level.

 

I, too, wish there was an easy answer.

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This is a pretty good description. DS has complained about vocabulary that is hard to grasp and it seems as if they have crammed a lot of information into a middle school level text book. While I haven't found the concepts individually poorly explained, the material doesn't help students make connections between the concepts. If you miss a piece somewhere, there is nothing compelling that is going to make you go back and look something up out of interest.

 

I love the exposure to advanced concepts. DS has gotten a lot of this by reading Scientific American and other science & technology magazines.

If you find your easy answer, please do share! I often feel the pressure to provide the background information necessary for advanced sciences and forget that there can be as much, if not more in the living books.

 

I worry that if I start including more living books in the plan that he will end up being totally lost in some areas of science. Life Science is our biggest weakness.

Yes.

.

 

I just finished jotting down notes for TWWW and TWLF and BFSU1 and 2 onto my CPO Life Science syllabus. It is definitely not a one year course! I'm thinking perhaps at this age, rather than a quick survey, it's better to take a few key areas and go deeper. Or rather, give some areas a quick glance such as biomes, classification, plants and go deeper into cell structure, function, division, chromosomes, microorganisms.

 

I think where I need to make the mental adjustment, now that I've done this planning is to LET GO of the schedule. Start the plan, and as long as we're moving, don't worry about not finishing all of CPO by end of June if we're taking the time to enjoy TWWW and TWLF. Those are meaty and won't be quick reads. I don't want him to understand those fully to automaticity and writing an essay on them, but I want to discuss enough so those pegs are there for later. Perhaps read 1 day, discuss the next, then write a few key facts he found interesting ala WTM to put into science notebook. This will put us *behind* in CPO but certainly not behind in interest and knowledge.

 

Life Science was our gap as well since we've done quite a bit of chemistry and physics. We actually started out w/ life science years ago but DS needed chemistry to understand the answers to his questions so we stopped to give him that chemistry background which of course led to physics and now we're back to Life Science. He knows quite a bit though by going to museums and talking about biomes, classification while out on nature walks.

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