If you "free-range" science (semester or year), what do you do?

[Sahamamama]

I am genuinely curious about this. Do you purchase books and/or kits? Do you get a membership at the zoo or arboretum?

 

Do you "unschool" or "free-range" your science all the time? one year (just to do something differently)? a semester every now and then?

 

Do you decide to focus on a broad topic (e.g., Birds), or something more specific (e.g., the migration of Canadian geese)?

 

Do you try to line up your "free-range" science with the type of science you would have been doing, if you had gone the more traditional route (i.e., textbooks & curriculum)? For example, if you would be studying Earth & Space Science in a more traditional way, but decide to free-range for a time, do you still focus on Earth & Space, or do you mix it up completely?

 

What age range(s) have you done this with? Pros? Cons? I'm :bigear:.

[AngieW in Texas]

I did free-range science with my youngest twice when I just didn't have the time available to actually do it with her.

 

1st grade was just Magic School Bus videos and the related computer games. My dd actually learned quite a lot.

 

She did videos for science in 2nd grade, but they were a mix. That year was mostly science shows recorded off cable. Most of what she watched was nature science.

 

There's only one of me and I just didn't have the bandwidth those years to do science with her too. She had nothing that she could do independently back then because she couldn't read on her own (dyslexic). I didn't bother with science at all for her K year.

[Renee in NC]

We mix it up completely. It's amazing how science just...happens! It wasn't until I was starting to put my portfolio together that I realized how much science we did outside of the box. We go to the museum, go on nature walks in various ecosystems, observe animals, get up at 4am to watch the space shuttle go up, visited Kennedy Space shuttle, built rockets out of soda bottles, and the list goes on and on. Sometimes we watch videos. Sometimes we look up things on the internet. Sometimes I plan topics and sometimes I just grab interesting looking books from the science section at the library.

 

I did this with ages 5-9, with the 12yo going along for the ride. He also did an online science class through the FL virtual school (which was less challenging and information rich than what we did otherwise!)

 

Next year we are doing textbook science because I have to focus on some dc over others, but I imagine there will still be tadpoles in various stages of development in my front yard then, too.:D

[spradlin02]

Although I don't know how it's going to work out, I'm planning on an after(PS)school science club, nature walks, toys that surreptitiously teach science and projects. I want to make sure they get a organic understanding of science that will translate to theoretical education later (if they want it).

[catz]

I am genuinely curious about this. Do you purchase books and/or kits? Do you get a membership at the zoo or arboretum?

 

Do you "unschool" or "free-range" your science all the time? one year (just to do something differently)? a semester every now and then?

 

Do you decide to focus on a broad topic (e.g., Birds), or something more specific (e.g., the migration of Canadian geese)?

 

Do you try to line up your "free-range" science with the type of science you would have been doing, if you had gone the more traditional route (i.e., textbooks & curriculum)? For example, if you would be studying Earth & Space Science in a more traditional way, but decide to free-range for a time, do you still focus on Earth & Space, or do you mix it up completely?

 

What age range(s) have you done this with? Pros? Cons? I'm :bigear:.

 

I've done this and honestly, I think my kids get more out of the ad hoc style than following any particular curriculum that we've tried using. None of the curric. we've tried seems deep enough or hands enough to engage them. We have kits - snap circuits, crystals, physics, kit building, etc. We have membership to our local science museum. We watch the paper for science news. We always have a science related book going as a read aloud - which often leads to branching off and more research. We do jr. ranger programs at local and national parks. We have a big garden this year! Edit to say we also have raised moths and butterflies and taken HS classes based in science.

 

We are planning to use Hakim's Story of Science this year loosely, but don't plan to stop doing any of the above!

 

I have an up and coming 4th and 1st grader.

Edited July 2, 2010 by kck

[Faithr]

We completely unschooled science this year. About a month ago I went through stuff we'd done this year. End of last August/September we read aloud Nathaniel Bowditch. We also read Archimedes and the Door to Science at some point last fall. I remember we read a book on worms and made a wormery from an old liter soda bottle. The kids watch a lot of shows like Fetch with Ruff, Ruffman, Plant Earth, Nature, DK Discovery dvds we got from the library. We raised chicks for 3 weeks! We also did our 3rd butterfly garden where we watched them hatch. My youngest dd loves butterflies. My 11 yo went through a period where he was really interested in learning about atoms and molecules so we got some books out of the library on that. That's all I can remember doing. Bet there was more. I'd have to go back and look at my notes again.

[Carol in Cal.]

We did this during the early elementary years.

I just didn't like the science curricula that I saw.

We joined the local zoo and science museum, and visited them so often that DD knew them by heart. She developed a deeply observant POV wrt animals that has always stayed with her. Whenever we visited, we stayed for at least 3 hours and usually longer. I would ask her to find some new things out about some topic, and she would set off to do that. We also visited local natural history museums and sites a lot--there was one local marine science place that had marvelous touch ponds where, again, we would spend hours. We joined more structure field trips to various places, and often stayed longer than the group did.

 

We joined a hiking group that met each Friday after school hours. We usually focussed on one plant or animal each time we met, and experienced a number of different kinds of local habitats.

 

Around 2nd grade we read all of the Magic School Bus books over and over, and talked about them.

 

During the summer I signed her up for a summer camp at the zoo or the marine science center most years.

 

Since I am clueless about electricity and don't have a working knowledge of biology, I signed her up for short bouts of weekly experiment workshops in those two fields--maybe 6-8 sessions of each one along the way. She also took a very simple robotics class--maybe 9-10 sessions--in about 5th grade. And I seem to remember a short native plants class, maybe 5 sessions, somewhere in there as well.

 

We also did some home experiments.

 

We started that human body with the cutouts book, but didn't stick with it. We used a nature encyclopedia a lot--DD would read up on something and then write a summary of it. In 4th and 5th grades we used the How Nature Works books and others in that series. We also used Real Science for Kids in 5th grade or so.

[Guest]

We have always approached science in this fashion until this year (8th; physics).

 

In the early years my daughter went to a wonderful program run by our Wild Animal Park. We had a membership to the science museum, which she liked so much that we went to science museums wherever we traveled during those years. We went to exhibits at the Natural History Museum. We went on walks at the beach looking for fossils in the rocks. We tidepooled. We had a bunch of science toys and kits from Steve Spangler Science. My daughter loved to do what she called "kitchen chemistry" -- I gave her a set of empty baby food jars and her own set of baking soda, vinegar, baking powder, flour, salt, etc. and let her go to it. We had fun with kits, especially one called Science With Your Dog -- we worked our poor dog into the ground timing his searches for hidden biscuits (this became a science fair project one year). Vicki Cobb has some really nice science books (I've never taken to Janice VanCleave). It was completely unstructured; we jumped around a lot. Some topics we pursued for months, others for one afternoon.

 

Around third grade or so I discovered GEMS science, which is a series of hands-on activities based around themes or concepts. I've never looked back! We went through about half of all they produce. First we just did ones she wanted to try, but in sixth and seventh grades we were more systematic and organized as I was teaching science in a co-op. We did all the GEMS earth science in sixth grade, physical science in 7th (bubble-ology, dry ice, slime, light and color, Invisible Universe, etc.). I never used a textbook or a spine. GEMS comes with extensive literature recommendations, some of which we used; we found others on our own.

 

In 8th grade my daughter wanted to learn physics more formally, so we've been using Conceptual Physics. It's been interesting and quite a relief for me to see that our extensive hands-on explorations have provided her with a wonderful background for making the move to a more abstract text. However, I miss the unstructured explorations we did other years. The textbook puts you on a kind of guided tour -- nice in its structured way, which my daughter appreciates, but no going behind the ropes or lingering.

 

We continue to read non-texts, too: articles in Muse magazine, chapters from books like Bill Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything, The Physics of Star Trek, etc. And we still love the science museums.

[coralloyd]

We have moved more and more to doing things this way. Both of my girls have shown interest in different topics. I am trying to follow their individual interests. I stopped the science program we were doing to make time for these instead. As they get older I am sure things will become more scope and sequence. But for now things are going great.

 

My 6 yr. old dd loves nature and bugs. I give her plenty of access to nature equipment ( nets, magnifing glass, tweezers, containers, ect...), along with plenty of field guides. I have taught her how to use the field guides and she is very good at finding the info. she wants. I also got her a nature journal that has things to fill in (date, what, where, observations, and a place to draw a picture). I alway encourage her to log her findings in her journal.

 

My 8yr. old dd told me that she wants to learn about elictricity and magnets. So I got an experiment book just on magnets and elictricity. I got all the materials needed from Homesciencetools.com. I found a book about Nikola

Tesla, that I thought would be over her head. However, she is loving it as I

read it out loud to her. It's amazing the attention that interest produces.

[shinyhappypeople]

I just let DD follow her interests. For her this meant reading books (mostly from the library) about the human body, reptiles, snakes and chemistry; watching MSB videos and Animal Planet DVDs (esp. Jeff Corwin) and raising tadpoles, butterflies and building an ant farm. We didn't do many experiments (my fault), so that's something I want to improve on for the upcoming school year. I got a Nutshell Science kit that looks pretty fun, so that should help remedy the lack of formal experiments.

 

She has learned *so much* this year, it's amazing. I think the key has been to let her interests guide her. I'm planning to continue "free-range" science (I like that descriptor!) for the foreseeable future, just because it's so effective for DD.

 

Even my supposedly non-science loving younger DD admits that she'd like to learn more about the constellations. She just didn't realize that constellations=astronomy=science. So, she does like science, she just didn't realize it :)

[stripe]

I just want to recommend a chapter in Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World by Mark Frauenfelder because he talks about a friend who unschools in science, the decline of amateur science in American culture/publications, references to "dangerous" pre-1960s era chemistry books for kids, and his own experience tutoring his daughter for some standardized math test.

 

I've found my kids have a rather broad interest in science, which I've tried to foster with a variety of non-fiction books. But they're small so I don't want to take over your thread.

[Mama Lynx]

We mostly "free-range" science. I guess you could say that we unschool it.

 

We're a very science-minded family. We go to museums, and watch scientific documentaries/lectures for fun. My kids love APOD, and the Wired Science blog. They often do Lego league. Here and there we've done a bit of more formal science, mostly chemistry, and paleontology. We catch caterpillars and raise them. We watch birds, and spiders. We grow a garden and manage it organically. The little boys love to freeze things, to see what happens. Sometimes I buy kits for them. We've had Snap Circuits. I love astronomy, so I talk about it, and sometimes we go stargazing.

 

My oldest will start high school science next year, and I am not worried about how he'll do. He likes science, he's curious, he has good critical thinking skills, and strong reading skills.

[peacefully]

.

Edited November 20, 2012 by yllek

[Guest]

Since he was about 4, dh has been telling him "bacteria stories," and now ds has a pretty good handle on the functions of antibodies, white blood cells, killer T-cells, B-cells, and macrophages.

 

 

This is one of the greatest things I've heard! There's a market out there for stories like this, I'm sure.

[Carol in Cal.]

You know, we raised tadpoles, too. Frog tadpoles and newt tadpoles. We actually established a newt colony in our very urban backyard that way. For years we were the house with the cool yard with actual wildlife, that all DD's friends wanted to visit because of this.

[phathui5]

Up until this year, we didn't use a science curriculum. What we did:

 

- had a zoo membership and went to the zoo at least every other month

- went to the science center monthly

- visited the nature center and went to their programs

- watched Magic School Bus DVDs

- read Magic School Bus books

- went to the aquarium

- watched the "Life" TV series

 

This year we're trying out the NOEO science curriculum because it has real books and experiments.

[Sahamamama]

There's only one of me and I just didn't have the bandwidth those years to do science with her too.

 

:lol: Can I type this up and FRAME this? I get it. Hilarious. Thanks!

 

Yeah, about the K-level science.... we've just been reading library books about animals. January was Primate month, so we read about monkeys, apes, and lemurs. February was Carnivore month (sort of), so we read about dogs, cats, bears, raccoons, etc. And so on. June was Aquatic Mammals. We learned some big, new words: Cetaceans, Pinnipeds, and Sirenians. That's "scientific lingo" for whales & dolphins; seals, sea lions, & walruses; and manatees & dugongs.

 

At this level, it's all the "science" we do, other than the occasional project (very rare), and of course time outdoors. It takes all the bandwidth I've got to do the basics -- reading, writing, arithmetic, and Bible. KWIM?

 

Thanks for posting. :001_smile:

[Sahamamama]

I've done this and honestly, I think my kids get more out of the ad hoc style than following any particular curriculum that we've tried using. None of the curric. we've tried seems deep enough or hands enough to engage them. We have kits - snap circuits, crystals, physics, kit building, etc. We have membership to our local science museum. We watch the paper for science news. We always have a science related book going as a read aloud - which often leads to branching off and more research. We do jr. ranger programs at local and national parks. We have a big garden this year! Edit to say we also have raised moths and butterflies and taken HS classes based in science.

 

We are planning to use Hakim's Story of Science this year loosely, but don't plan to stop doing any of the above!

 

I have an up and coming 4th and 1st grader.

 

You all have such great ideas, I am taking notes! Thanks! :D