Are you doing First LEGO League?

[Capt_Uhura]

This is my first year with a First LEGO League team. If your child is on a team, do you use the topic as your science? This year's theme is Nature's Fury and I'm thinking of just having this as the science for the first quarter.

 

Capt Uhura

[duckens]

We are hoping to do Junior Lego League this year.  I looked and looked for a Jr. FLL team for dd last year, and no one could help me or answer direct questions about the Jr. FLL system.  This year, we're just jumping right in.  I am not an engineer or a programmer, so here we go!!!!!

 

We are not planning to use Jr. FLL as our science, but:

 

1) We are a very science-oriented family.

 

2) I am hoping for an organized and systematic presentation of science for my 1st grader in curriculum, rather than the hodge-podge she has received so far.

 

3) I don't expect Jr. FLL to be as time consuming as FLL would be.

 

4) Dd6 would pout for weeks if I discontinued the Dinosaur curriculum (which is on top of the basic Biology we plan to do this year).

 

I hope you have a great year!!!!  I also hope you come back in the Spring and start a thread of the things you (and other Lego Leaguers) learned this year with FLL to mentor the rest of us.

[dbmamaz]

We only did a Junior team and an FTC, neither of which put as much emphasis on the topic.  But last years topic was aging, so its not always that sciencey.  

[mrs.m]

Yes. But I don't count it as science. It's extracurricular even though it fits under STEM.

 

We've been working on the theme all summer. They aren't really studying "natural disasters" but rather the social response to them. I almost think that part would fit better into "social studies" if we did social studies as a subject. But we don't...

[zenjenn]

I'll be the voice of dissent here.

 

I consider it science.

 

5 years into homeschooling, I pretty much have decided formal elementary school science is a complete waste of time.

 

BUT, caveat that we are a very science-oriented family. My husband is a physicist. I found there was nothing mentioned or done with any science curriculum that particularly introduced something that my kids weren't already exposed to by... conversing with parents, reading, going on outings to museums or nature hikes, family TV-time (things like Mythbusters), and in extracurricular activities like Girl Scouts and FLL (both of which husband and/or I run). They do go to homeschool science classes average of about twice a month at either the science museum, Space & Rocket Center, or the local botanical gardens. We're the kind of nerds that didn't just go through the children's museum and play with the exhibits - we always stopped, explained, read, predicted, and experimented.

 

Both of my kids score almost perfectly in the science portions of the SAT 10. 

 

That said, I proctored a 3rd grade SAT 10 last year, and I was frankly a little shocked at how much I saw kids getting wrong that I (and my kids) would consider common knowledge about the world. So, I guess those science curricula are intended for kids who are, for reasons I don't relate to, not picking up on that knowledge by living life, reading, and conversing. 

 

I do think a lot of the same people who feel it necessary to have formal science (the people who are involved in FLL and sciencey-extra curricular activities) are the same people who don't need it. There came a point in time where I had an epiphany that my kids weren't really learning anything new from anything I tried to do *formally* at home. More time spent on math and letting them read is probably more efficient, in terms of prepping them for advanced science study.

 

And back to the original topic, when done right, FLL, while perhaps "just an extracurricular" teaches kids more about science and engineering than any elementary school science curriculum I've ever seen.

[MAMommy]

Have to agree with zenjen....we are also a very science family.