Some Ellen McHenry Questions

[tmstranger]

My rising 8th grader has decided that he would like to study chemistry for 8th grade science.  (this is completely different from the way I was heading with him, but if he's interested in a topic, I'll give it a chance!)

 

I was looking at NOEO Chemistry 3, which seems to be more aligned with TWTM recommendations, imo.  But, then I started looking at Ellen McHenry.  I know her products get great reviews from the hive, so I figure that I couldn't go wrong with that. 

 

My question is about timing...The Elements says it would take 6-9 weeks.  Carbon Chemistry says 11 chapters, but I didn't see a timeframe....so, let's assume 11 weeks.  With this, I've only covered half of the year.  What do I do the rest of the year? 

 

What would you add?  We've already done The Brain by her, but I guess she has other books we could use...

 

Any suggestions on how to finish the year?  Bonus of NOEO is that it's a full 36 weeks and I don't have to worry about anything else! LOL!

 

Also, these books are appropriate and "enough" for 8th grade??  Age range says up to age 14, so I think we're ok.

[mlktwins]

So...we haven't started the Ellen McHenry Chemistry units yet, but we are getting ready to (I just ordered The Elements last night).  My boys are going into 7th grade.  I am planning on both The Elements and Carbon Chemistry.  We've read the 3 Itch books (really good) and plan to read the Mysteries of the Periodic Table.  We started reading The Disappearing Spoon, but that didn't go over well with the boys.  I have a puzzle of the periodic table for us to do together and we are half way through Exploring the World of Chemistry by John Hudson Tiner, along with the supplemental questions and tests from Memoria Press.  I will also have them do a book report on a famous chemist. 

 

Would love to see what others do too!

[tmstranger]

So...we haven't started the Ellen McHenry Chemistry units yet, but we are getting ready to (I just ordered The Elements last night).  My boys are going into 7th grade.  I am planning on both The Elements and Carbon Chemistry.  We've read the 3 Itch books (really good) and plan to read the Mysteries of the Periodic Table.  We started reading The Disappearing Spoon, but that didn't go over well with the boys.  I have a puzzle of the periodic table for us to do together and we are half way through Exploring the World of Chemistry by John Hudson Tiner, along with the supplemental questions and tests from Memoria Press.  I will also have them do a book report on a famous chemist. 

 

Would love to see what others do too!

 

I had forgotten about Tiner.  Good idea!  We've read the Itch books, and I didn't really like the Disappearing Spoon when I tried it before, but maybe it would go over better now. 

 

Are you going to try to line up Tiner with the EM units?  How do you plan to integrate that, if you don't mind me asking??

[SilverMoon]

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Edited May 23, 2023 by SilverMoon

[Farrar]

Middle School Chemistry from ACS?

[hellen]

Middle School Chemistry from ACS?

That's exactly what I was going to suggest. It's free.

[Farrar]

That's exactly what I was going to suggest. It's free.

 

Of course, free is relative... the chemicals and glass and splurging on getting some of the demonstration materials like the density cubes set us back. But it's sort of the polar opposite in studying chemistry from Ellen McHenry and is also only about half a year's worth of material, if that.

[tmstranger]

Of course, free is relative... the chemicals and glass and splurging on getting some of the demonstration materials like the density cubes set us back. But it's sort of the polar opposite in studying chemistry from Ellen McHenry and is also only about half a year's worth of material, if that.

 

 

What do you mean by it's the polar opposite?  I've looked at the website before, but I generally shy away from online things...just my personality, so I've never gone that deep into the site. 

[Farrar]

What do you mean by it's the polar opposite?  I've looked at the website before, but I generally shy away from online things...just my personality, so I've never gone that deep into the site. 

 

Ellen McHenry's chemistry materials are a ton of reading about high level concepts and a bunch of crafts, games, and metaphor based demonstrations to help you remember a lot of vocabulary and concepts. There are generally few to no real labs in her materials.

 

The ACS's chemistry materials are very little reading and all based in experiments, discovery, real materials, and lab sheets. It's learning through discovery and doing. There's vocabulary and concepts, but the focus is very much on the hands on experiences and learning through those. It's pretty much all labs.

 

ETA: I'm not saying one is better than the other. And really, the ACS stuff is not "online." It's exactly the same as the Ellen McHenry stuff in that sense - a pdf and a few supplementary videos you can see online. You just don't have to pay for the pdf in this case.

Edited May 26, 2017 by Farrar

[Miss Tick]

Not Farrar, but Ellen J's writing is so friendly and student oriented and ACS is written for classroom use. I printed out the worksheets, taught the lesson and we watched some of the videos and did most of the experiments. With the EJM books that we have done we did the reading, filled out the review sheets and watched some of her curated videos. EJM was more collaborative.

[tmstranger]

Ellen McHenry's chemistry materials are a ton of reading about high level concepts and a bunch of crafts, games, and metaphor based demonstrations to help you remember a lot of vocabulary and concepts. There are generally few to no real labs in her materials.

 

The ACS's chemistry materials are very little reading and all based in experiments, discovery, real materials, and lab sheets. It's learning through discovery and doing. There's vocabulary and concepts, but the focus is very much on the hands on experiences and learning through those. It's pretty much all labs.

 

ETA: I'm not saying one is better than the other. And really, the ACS stuff is not "online." It's exactly the same as the Ellen McHenry stuff in that sense - a pdf and a few supplementary videos you can see online. You just don't have to pay for the pdf in this case.

 

Thank you for clarifying! :)

[carrierocha]

I used The Elements as our Grammar stage Chemistry spine this year, but ended up feeling like it left out a lot of important Chemistry concepts so I supplemented. I actually pulled some ideas from this free resource: 

http://www.middleschoolchemistry.com

 

I think you could complete The Elements, then cover any topics in Middle School Chem that weren't already covered in The Elements, then do organic chemistry through her Carbon Chemistry book.

 

Also, we like documentaries or movies that correspond with what we are learning. We enjoyed the PBS series "Mystery of Matter."

[Murrayshire]

I taught Elements and Carbon Chemistry this past year with 5-8th graders. We had a blast!

Here is a link to some resources we used first semester....... https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e0RpKedZSyU5GkYocNTVDrUfFrQteg2y88rSUqKgqYs

 

We stretched Elements out to 14 weeks adding more Chemistry concepts, videos, activities, and an "Element Fair" the last day of 1st semester. We spent the same amount of time on Carbon Chemistry adding in a Scientist Study/Presentation and the last day I found a ton of activities for our Polymer Party!