Science and history

[mom2vikha]

How many times a week do you do history and science?

 

Science we do Ellen Mchenry chemistry with Itch novel and watching Nova hunt for the Elements for the first two months, then we transistion to Quark and RS4K for biology

 

History we do Bookshark 6 and Geography MP geography 1 with DK geography

 

Should we do this 5 days a week or .... I am so confused? Can someone do the scheduling for me😢

[BusyMom5]

I do not use any of those materials, so this may not be helpful :)  I try to find something for them to do in each subject each day, and I teach from one or the other.  For example today 6th grader read some history, and for science I did more of a lab lesson with her, reviewing stuff read earlier in the week.  Tomorrow she will write about something science-related by herself (and a fun art project!), and we will do history aloud together.  For my 8th grader, I am meeting with her daily, and assign something from each.  We tend to talk more about the science right now, and history only once or twice a week.  That is b/c the science is a little harder than her history right now.  I look at the entire weeks worth of lessons, and decide which things can be done alone and which would be better with my supervision and input, and sort of divide them out in the week.  SOme days I do need to address both, but I try to make one relatively short.

[stlily]

When deciding how to schedule any subject, you should begin with what your goal is.  I'm not familiar with the curriculum you're using but, if you're goal, for example, is to "finish the book (curriculum)" then you'll want to take the number of lessons in the book and divide that number by the number of weeks you'll be homeschooling.  This will give you the number of lessons you'll need to cover per week.  Again, you have to go by what your goals are and the needs of your student.

 

TWTM provides sample schedules for the logic stage on pp. 458-462 (I have the 3rd edition).  For history they suggest 60 minutes three days per week, or 1 1/2 hours, twice per week.  For science they suggest 1 1/2 hour, two days per week.  These are just suggestions.  They're intended, I believe, to give parents an idea of what a typical day or week could look like.  I tend to follow this sample schedule because, to me, it seems like a reasonable amount of time to spend on these subjects.  I don't hesitate to spend an extra day on a topic/chapter if I feel we need to or want to, though.  Hope this helps.

 

 

Lily

[mom2vikha]

Thank you so much for the reply ladies! If possible I would do science and history every single day but she is a competitive figure skater and she stays in the rink from 1:00-4:30. So I am breaking my head over the schedule!!! Driving me nuts😢

[Sahamamama]

I do not use any of those materials, so this may not be helpful :)  I try to find something for them to do in each subject each day, and I teach from one or the other.  For example today 6th grader read some history, and for science I did more of a lab lesson with her, reviewing stuff read earlier in the week.  Tomorrow she will write about something science-related by herself (and a fun art project!), and we will do history aloud together.  For my 8th grader, I am meeting with her daily, and assign something from each.  We tend to talk more about the science right now, and history only once or twice a week.  That is b/c the science is a little harder than her history right now.  I look at the entire weeks worth of lessons, and decide which things can be done alone and which would be better with my supervision and input, and sort of divide them out in the week.  SOme days I do need to address both, but I try to make one relatively short.

 

We approach History and Science (and a few other things) sort of like this, too. There are components that the students can do on their own, so those can be assigned as Independent Work. There are other aspects that I think work best if I am directly involved, so those we do as Group Work. I have three girls who are less than two years apart, so it works very well for us to do much of this kind of work as a group (at least for now).

 

Some examples of what they can do on their own (by 3rd or 4th grade):

• Assigned Independent Reading (A.I.R.) -- They can follow a grid for their Science & History reading assignments, with specific pages out of specific books. It helps that the textual resources we use for this component (SOTW for History; Apologia Swimming Creatures & Flying Creatures for Science) also have audiobooks, which we also use. My daughters can follow along in the book while listening to the audiobook. It works! Their retention is amazing, and they enjoy this part of their assigned work.
• Notebook Summaries -- They can complete weekly one-page written summaries of their Science & History readings, sometimes including a labelled drawing or graph or map.

Some examples of what works best to do as a group (for us):

• Video or Web-based Resources -- I like to learn along with the girls, so we watch all videos and learn from all web-based resources together. This gives us good opportunities to discuss what we are learning, and creates a family culture of "learning about Ancient China" or "learning about birds."
• Hands-On Labs & Observations -- This year for Science, we focused on Zoology, especially birds. We did all of our "hands-on" work together, but we were never limited to just one topic. When opportunities came up to go star-gazing at night, go to the Science Museum, or go to a library Physics workshop, we just did it all as a family.
• Group Read Alouds -- About 2-3 days per week, I try to read aloud a lesson or two from Mystery of History, plus something from our History Book Basket, even though the girls have access to those materials to read on their own. I think it helps to read aloud the most "readable" resources, introduce and make comments on others, and then let them have access to it all. Some resources are not very read-aloud friendly, especially if they have tiny print and lots of captioned pictures; these are best for independent perusing. But some resources just beg to be read aloud as a group. On the other 2-3 days, we try to work on our Science resources that we do as a group (What's That Bird? and other bird-related materials). After we do our reading and workbook, I put on the Bird Songs CD, the girls color their Peterson's Bird Books, and we spend time observing the birds at our feeders. It's very relaxing and pleasant! :) Highly recommend a Year of Birds!

This upcoming year (4th/4th/6th) in Science, we are transitioning away from Biology & Earth/Space to study Chemistry & Physics for a few years. We'll do our video component as a group, certain readings as a group, hands-on labs as a group, and they will still have their independent readings and notebook summaries to do on their own. The main difference that I can foresee is that I may need to help them (in the beginning) to understand how to complete a simple lab report form. History will continue with Ancients, Part 2, so no major changes there.

 

I hope this glimpse into our "method" is helpful. At this stage, I don't think we would be successful if we tried to squeeze both History and Science as a group into every day, but it works well for us to try to do something in each subject daily. HTH.

[mom2vikha]

Thank you so much for your reply! I should not be stuck on doing every single thing every day I guess! Need to loosen up a little bit!

[Tiramisu]

I usually did science and history twice each week through 8th grade, unless they were doing a coop class that required more. this did not hurt my older kids.

 

Last year, not counting high-interest, low-output coop classes, my fourth grader did science twice a week, and history and geography once a week, though she would do geography related memory work daily. I went low pressure in science and history because I had more important priorities for her.

[TKDmom]

Ellen McHenry's Elements can be completed in 2 months, using it once a week. If you have other resources to go with it, I'd do it twice a week.

 

Bookshark is already scheduled for 4 days/week IIRC. And I think MP schedules geography once a week. Doesn't Bookshark history already include geography? Do you need to add in MP?

 

With your resources, I'd probably do science MW, geography on Fri, then history M-Th.

[2_girls_mommy]

I did history every other day until 7th grade with my older dd.  She was in a co-op class that required a lot of science homework, so she did that on her own through middle school.  She may not have worked every day at that point. By 8th grade her outsourced science class was requiring daily work, so I adjusted the schedule for both of my middle school girls.   We did an hour of science and an hour of history for both daily (history together) instead of every other day longer sessions.

 

In the case of being out of the every day between 1 and 4, I would agree with science and history being an independent study.  I would assign reading and the occasional paper for in the evenings after practice or after dinner. I would use the mornings to get all of the must dos done. :)

[mom2vikha]

I am finding my groove with Ellen now and is more fun.

Does Bookshark 6 history cover geography in depth as well? It doesn't seem that way for some reason😳

And how long does history take usually? With Bookshark it seems like a lot, like read aloud and as such. Or is it just me???

[TKDmom]

Does Bookshark 6 history cover geography in depth as well? It doesn't seem that way for some reason😳

And how long does history take usually? With Bookshark it seems like a lot, like read aloud and as such. Or is it just me???

 

I haven't used Bookshark 6, but I've at least dabbled in every SL/BookShark Core from Pre-k to 5. They don't really have a systematic geography, but with every book you read, the IG instructs you to have kids look up places on a map and mark them. Looking at the sample for History 6, it looks like they take that same approach. The idea is that they will remember the geography better if it's in the context of a story.

 

And yes, it's time-consuming. Here is SL's estimate on how long a Core takes. Their numbers seem too high to me, but I never did every single thing in the IG. I would rther just read and narrate, without bothering with comprehension questions. This also includes their Bible program, so I would expect BookShark to take less time. I tried to do two SL cores when my kids were little and I didn't make it through the year. It took way too much time. I would guess that grade 6 is more independent, though. Looking at the sample, I see only one chapter of read-aloud and some poetry each day, with everything else being books kids can read independently.