EKT Posted March 28, 2017 Share Posted March 28, 2017 Hi friends! Is anyone willing to give me an overview of Mystery Science? I'm scanning over the website, but I'd love to hear some reviews from members here before I invest too much time researching the program. My initial questions: Is this program secular? (I need secular.) Does your $69.00/year membership allow you to view all the lessons? How many years of elementary science can you get out of this program? (How many lessons did your family typically get through in a year?) Is it really almost no prep? Basically, I've tried BFSU in the past, and while I loved it in theory, in practice, it just never got done--too much prep and and mental planning/figuring for me. When I saw that Mystery Science is billed as open-and-go, I thought I should find out more. Maybe this is what I've been looking for? Would love to hear your honest thoughts about the program. Thank you!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
domestic_engineer Posted March 28, 2017 Share Posted March 28, 2017 Yes, it is secular. Yes, a paid membership gives you access to all the mysteries. Yes, it is really little to no prep. (The older the kid the more prep time you need, but we're talking no more than 10 min. Some supplies might need to be bought in advance for the older ages.) How many you go through? It depends on the ages of your kids and their interest level. We typically do one mystery a week. Most topics have 2-4 mysteries on it. For the very oldest and the very youngest kids, there are only 3 mysteries specifically targeted at their ages currently. But other than that there should be plenty of mysteries for most kids for a year. And I'd say that the very youngest and the very oldest wouldn't have issue with going up or down a level to find more mysteries if you need it. It gets done. It gets remembered. It even gets requested! It's a big win for us. (And besides the obvious benefit of getting done, I think it does an excellent job of teaching ... by using stories and good problem solving methods.) 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sk8ermaiden Posted March 28, 2017 Share Posted March 28, 2017 Hi friends! Is anyone willing to give me an overview of Mystery Science? I'm scanning over the website, but I'd love to hear some reviews from members here before I invest too much time researching the program. My initial questions: Is this program secular? (I need secular.) Does your $69.00/year membership allow you to view all the lessons? How many years of elementary science can you get out of this program? (How many lessons did your family typically get through in a year?) Is it really almost no prep? Basically, I've tried BFSU in the past, and while I loved it in theory, in practice, it just never got done--too much prep and and mental planning/figuring for me. When I saw that Mystery Science is billed as open-and-go, I thought I should find out more. Maybe this is what I've been looking for? Would love to hear your honest thoughts about the program. Thank you!! Totally secular. Yes We've been doing a lesson a week. If you expand it out with the recommended extra videos and activities, I think a lesson a week is a nice pace. They're adding lessons all the time. It really is very little prep. We do it at coop and it's been a huge hit. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tdbates78 Posted March 28, 2017 Share Posted March 28, 2017 (edited) We really enjoy it. And yes, it is secular, which is important to us as well. We have not yet paid for a membership. We've only done three lessons so far and I wanted to try it out before purchasing. And we already purchased RSO for next year. My girls, who don't have the best attention span, actually watch and like the videos. And they bring the lessons up quite often.The lessons are fairly short but they have extra activities you can choose to complete And The topics often open uo doors to introducing other resources. Last week we did one on volcanoes and watched a few documentaries afterwards. Edited March 28, 2017 by tdbates78 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs Twain Posted March 28, 2017 Share Posted March 28, 2017 Ditto what the others said. I was a BFSU fan, but I couldn't make volume 2 work. Plus my kids hated BFSU because it ended up being so boring for them. I think I read that Mystery Science is based on BFSU, at least somewhat. The program seems very similar to BFSU (which is a big reason i like it) except that it is fun and engaing for the kids. We have been using one Mystery per week for a year and a half of school, and there are still plenty of new mysteries my daughter hasn't done yet. They keep adding new ones. Just sign up for the free membership and try it out. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fralala Posted March 28, 2017 Share Posted March 28, 2017 Ditto what the others said. I was a BFSU fan, but I couldn't make volume 2 work. Plus my kids hated BFSU because it ended up being so boring for them. I think I read that Mystery Science is based on BFSU, at least somewhat. The program seems very similar to BFSU (which is a big reason i like it) except that it is fun and engaing for the kids. We have been using one Mystery per week for a year and a half of school, and there are still plenty of new mysteries my daughter hasn't done yet. They keep adding new ones. Just sign up for the free membership and try it out. Now that you've gotten answers to your basic questions, I highly recommend you do this. You'll be able to click through and see what the required materials are for each lesson. You'll be able to see if your kids enjoy it and if you like it. It didn't work out for us, but I thought their free trial was absolutely wonderful: easy to sign up for, easy to try, no need to provide a credit card. All curricula should be so easy to sample, because even the most popular and well thought up programs won't appeal to everybody. A free trial is worth more than 100 reviews! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cake and Pi Posted March 29, 2017 Share Posted March 29, 2017 With what they have out now, you can get a solid year out of it for all but the very youngest and oldest kids in the served age range of 5-12yrs. They put out new Mysteries regularly, so really you could probably use it longer. We've done about half the units currently available in the ~12 months we've had full access. My older two are 9 and 7 now and both love Mystery science to the point that they ask for it over breaks and we only do MS on the weekends so that PSed DS#2 doesn't miss out. DS#3 joined in some at 4yo, but was really too young (the 5-8yo mysteries weren't out yet then). Now that he's 5yo he's much more interested and participates fully most of the time. I plan one mystery per week, but we miss weeks and sometimes we'll binge and do 2-3 in a week. Probably still works out to about one per week. We really, really, really like Mystery Science. It's fun, engaging, and gets done. (Okay, just counted. We've done 34 Mysteries since March of last year, including at least one that doesn't exist anymore, and there are 36 left we haven't done yet.) 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trilliumlady Posted March 30, 2017 Share Posted March 30, 2017 A few extra questions..... How long do folks spend on a lesson? I am following WTM for history and science and will be doing chemistry for main topic next year. I currently have the free trial (embarrassed to say we haven't used it much!) and see a few chemistry related units in my list. How many extra chemistry related ones will I have access to if I purchase it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Insertcreativenamehere Posted March 30, 2017 Share Posted March 30, 2017 All of the currently available mysteries are listed. There is a lock symbol by the ones that you don't have access to during the free trial. These are the new ones that have been released during this school year. We LOVE Mystery Science and have done quite a bit of it this year. Typically, we do the video one day and the exploration/experiment on a second day. I add in library books on the topic throughout the week for my 4th and 6th grader. Next year, I plan to continue doing Mystery Science because my kids enjoy it so much but the older kids will also be doing a Life Science curriculum with my younger child following along. We don't have enough mysteries left in Mystery Science for my rising 5th and 7th grader to consider it their full science program but there's definitely plenty left for my rising 2nd grader. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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