Need Some Help With Science

[RahRah]

I don't usually post over here, but am coming to understand my DS6 (will be 7 in August) is advanced in a couple of subjects - math and science. He's on grade for reading, first grade.

 

Math I have covered with SM - we'll finish up 2B by end of June and just continue along into 3A and so on....science is where I'm stumbling along trying to find a good fit for him. At this point, we've blown through all the RS4K pre-Level 1 material, the RS4K Level 1 material and are working with a grade 5 textbook and workbook from Harcourt - DS is doing well with this level and when I go back to review material with him he's retaining at or above 90% of the material. I've slowed things down a bit to go deeper in areas, but with so much of the material review of what he knows (are all public school texts like this - a bunch of review and then some new material?) this set is likely going to hold us until July.

 

With science he's very curious and wants to do, do, do....visual-spatial learning seems to be his style. To give you an idea of what's going on here - at the moment we have five different plant projects in progress, butterflies, frogs, ladybugs and ants....we're also starting dissection (asked for by DS - I thought we would have waited, but he asked and got through the earthworm with no problems) and have a tree-of-life in progress on our wall as we continue to work through the classification system in depth. This can most definitely keep us occupied until end of June - but when we move on to earth science and astronomy, which we've covered in depth this year too, what do I use to keep him challenged?

 

What I have on hand includes BSFU (both books), which I'm using as the baseline topic order outline - I like the flow of the material, not using it so much though. Just doesn't fit well with my style or DS's....but it's a great resource for me to use and get ideas from.

 

While we're mostly following a classical model of education, DH and I don't want to limit science to one discipline each year - the year will focus on the classical model suggestion, but we'd like to continue including new concepts and work within each until DS is older. With that said, our new year officially starts in July and we'll be starting, for record keeping, second grade - so with WTM in mind, the focus for the year will be Earth Science and Astronomy....but also include elements of life and physical science and chemstry where they intersect with earth & space.

 

So....I need to find material that will challenge DS, but not overwhelm him.....I can adjust output requirements, but want to also make sure I'm not going too crazy with the level expected for input to him.

 

Any ideas are welcome and needed!

[2smartones]

You don't want to limit to one discipline per year, so I assume you've already looked at apologia. What about doing one per semester for apologia and also taking science classes through a science center or science museum? What about getting all 6 apologia books and randomly selecting a lesson?

[JennW in SoCal]

I think you are off to a fabulous start with all your activities! It may seem a challenge, but really, you can keep doing science in a loose and unstructured way all the way until high school. I never used a text book, followed a program or the WTM science plan, but instead let my kids follow their interests through projects and kits and lots of library books and NOVA programs. I found many terrific lessons, projects and ideas through simple google searches. Both did well with high school science and one, at age 16, is a top student in his college chemistry class this semester and has had an internship at the zoo. He is planning on majoring in the physical sciences, and has said he loves how I handled his science education.

 

I found lots of things on-line such as this Rocket Educator's Guide which has easy and very fun activities to demonstrate Newton's laws of motion. My kids built catapults, electric circuits and motors from stuff at Radio Shack and from kits. They built many a lego and k'nex contraption. We were fixtures at our Natural History Museum, where my oldest at age 8 was an exhibit docent for a dinosaur exhibit because he knew so much about them.

 

We grew plants every year, hatched butterflies every year -- even when they were teens, collected rocks and experimented on classifying them. We went on geology field trips based on local guides -- looking for fault lines here in Southern California is fun for the whole family! I had geology craft books, field guides for local wildlife. We participated in Cornell University's Project Feederwatch. My kids made specimen nets to use at a nearby pond and we studied the water under a microscope. We kept up with the stars and planets through Heavens Above a website that will give you details about the sky in your area, including when the space station will be passing overhead. We've gone out to watch it pass. There are also fabulous apps for iPads and iPods for studying wildlife and the night sky.

 

The Janice Van Cleeve books had lots of ideas. We had the DK Science Encyclopedia that I used sometimes for copywork. There are some terrific kits available these days for homeschoolers, though I don't know what they are. I'm hoping someone will suggest a few for you (RS4Kids??) Your son is a little young for it, but Muse magazine always has really interesting articles. Ranger Rick was also a fun magazine for kids.

 

I found most classes at our science museums and zoos to be far too simplistic for my kids. One summer my ds dropped astronomy camp after one day because it started with "hey kids, did you know there are 9 planets?" This was a class for 8 year olds and before Pluto got demoted! I'd take my kids instead to talks geared for adults, or on tours also geared for adults, where there were always welcome because they would be well behaved.

 

Have fun with it! Science is best learned through doing rather than by memorizing material in a text book.

[RahRah]

@2smartones - at this point, and given DS's propensity to want to know everything, limiting him to one discipline in science for a year isn't going to work well for us. I started this year with that approach and we blew through RS4K pre-Level 1 biology in less than a month, moved to pL1 chemistry - same thing, quickly finished it up, then pL1 physics - that we spent a good amount of time with building lots of contraptions to visualize the concepts, but that wasn't from the books, but from digging around to find things and getting a ton more books to work with, then he pooped out with the physics and wanted to do plants, yeah!, we moved to RS4K Level 1 Biology - so much was review, I could have simply skipped pre-level 1 all together, I was disappointed, but we're now in that, along with the Harcourt books, DE Science, DE Streaming+ and a ton of projects, along with a science journal. Spring is a great time of the year to be doing this now, so I think I'll have his interest kept at least through the end of June, maybe July, then hope we can move to earth science and astronomy, which is what is planned in WTM. Who knows, maybe he'll want to do it all year, I just doubt it.

 

So far as memberships - we have one for the local children's museum which gets us into all the participating CM's around the country, and one to the science center that gets us into all the SC's around the country...neither do much here though for programs, but when they do, we do those. We travel some during the year and I'm always on the look-out for a program or exhibit we can do on the road too. We're also members of the anthropology museum which has a monthly program for kids that DS does, as well as the archelology museum, which does some programs, but they're sporadic.

 

@JennW....it's a lot of activities, but as long as DS is interested and keeps doing them, I'm game for continuing to find them and help him with them! Right now what we're doing seems to be working well, so maybe to just keep piecing things together is a better approach - to do, rather than to just memorize - DS has a great memory, so in the doing it's really just reinforcing things he understands.....I guess I was/am worried about trying to keep him at the level he's able to work and finding materials is what's proving difficult since he's not reading at an advanced level, but understands the advanced level.....finding the right curriculum may not be really what I'm after now that I've read your post - maybe just finding the right pieces is a better way to do this, and heck, I'm already doing that - I just don't want any gaps if I can help it, ya know?

[MaMa2005]

For a formal curriculum, I like God's Design because it incorporates first through eighth grade all in one book. It may be too regimented for you.

 

Have you looked at Zoom activities? (http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/sci/) It might give you a jumping off point.

[Embassy]

Sounds like you are doing a great job. I have a science lover here too and I've found that making up my own "curriculum" fits us best. There are textbooks out there that have the desired amount of information, but they are too textbooky. We go in depth in one topic rather than covering many different topics in one year. This year we are doing biology and we spent the first half of the year studying the human body. Medical students spend years studying it so there is no shortage of information. I found using library books that give the detail my son craves to be the best fit. He also still enjoys lots of pictures so I choose books that are filled with pictures. We watch DVDs from the library and online that cover topics more in depth too. We also do lots of activities and experiments. Google is a great resource for activities or experiments. There is quite a bit out there with open courseware so your ds could watch or listen to lectures on topics of interest too. Maybe you could unschool science too and just provide him with resources to learn. I ended up doing that with my son's major science interest. But we still cover other science topics in school.

 

Here is our human body study. It took us about 60 hours to complete it. Maybe there are some resources on there that could help you.

[RahRah]

Sounds like you are doing a great job. I have a science lover here too and I've found that making up my own "curriculum" fits us best. There are textbooks out there that have the desired amount of information, but they are too textbooky. We go in depth in one topic rather than covering many different topics in one year. This year we are doing biology and we spent the first half of the year studying the human body. Medical students spend years studying it so there is no shortage of information. I found using library books that give the detail my son craves to be the best fit. He also still enjoys lots of pictures so I choose books that are filled with pictures. We watch DVDs from the library and online that cover topics more in depth too. We also do lots of activities and experiments. Google is a great resource for activities or experiments. There is quite a bit out there with open courseware so your ds could watch or listen to lectures on topics of interest too. Maybe you could unschool science too and just provide him with resources to learn. I ended up doing that with my son's major science interest. But we still cover other science topics in school.

 

Here is our human body study. It took us about 60 hours to complete it. Maybe there are some resources on there that could help you.

 

Awesome plan! Thank you for sharing it....lots of great ideas!

[SnegurochkaL]

My first 2 kids are not that close in age so my son is trying to keep up with his older sister. Last summer we did some studies of Rainforests and my kids made 3 lapbooks. We are kind finishing this year trying to grow a pineapple. We are done with our bird studies and making a lap-n-note books. We used Apologia book as a main course textbook and a lot of library/Internet resources. My daughter can identify birds much better than I do. We will be studying Plants and Bugs this summer and are planning to make some lap-n-note books/nature journals.

 

My kids love science too. We are in a process of making our own "Root Beer" using a kit my husband bought a year ago. Chemistry in work!

 

Here are some links to the sites we use to study Rainforests:

 

http://www.squidoo.com/rainforestlapbook

http://dynamic2moms.webs.com/rainforestamazon.htm

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/great_kapok_tree.php

Edited April 16, 2011 by SneguochkaL

[Storm Bay]

I don't usually post over here, but am coming to understand my DS6 (will be 7 in August) is advanced in a couple of subjects - math and science. He's on grade for reading, first grade.

 

Math I have covered with SM - we'll finish up 2B by end of June and just continue along into 3A and so on....science is where I'm stumbling along trying to find a good fit for him. At this point, we've blown through all the RS4K pre-Level 1 material, the RS4K Level 1 material and are working with a grade 5 textbook and workbook from Harcourt - DS is doing well with this level and when I go back to review material with him he's retaining at or above 90% of the material. I've slowed things down a bit to go deeper in areas, but with so much of the material review of what he knows (are all public school texts like this - a bunch of review and then some new material?) this set is likely going to hold us until July.

 

With science he's very curious and wants to do, do, do....visual-spatial learning seems to be his style. To give you an idea of what's going on here - at the moment we have five different plant projects in progress, butterflies, frogs, ladybugs and ants....we're also starting dissection (asked for by DS - I thought we would have waited, but he asked and got through the earthworm with no problems) and have a tree-of-life in progress on our wall as we continue to work through the classification system in depth. This can most definitely keep us occupied until end of June - but when we move on to earth science and astronomy, which we've covered in depth this year too, what do I use to keep him challenged?

 

What I have on hand includes BSFU (both books), which I'm using as the baseline topic order outline - I like the flow of the material, not using it so much though. Just doesn't fit well with my style or DS's....but it's a great resource for me to use and get ideas from.

 

While we're mostly following a classical model of education, DH and I don't want to limit science to one discipline each year - the year will focus on the classical model suggestion, but we'd like to continue including new concepts and work within each until DS is older. With that said, our new year officially starts in July and we'll be starting, for record keeping, second grade - so with WTM in mind, the focus for the year will be Earth Science and Astronomy....but also include elements of life and physical science and chemstry where they intersect with earth & space.

 

So....I need to find material that will challenge DS, but not overwhelm him.....I can adjust output requirements, but want to also make sure I'm not going too crazy with the level expected for input to him.

 

Any ideas are welcome and needed!

 

 

Agreat book is Paul Hewitt's Touch This! Conceptual Physics for Everyone. http://www.amazon.com/Touch-This-Conceptual-Physics-Everyone/dp/0321051629

 

My middle one is highly visual spatial, and if she were interested in science I know the Hewitt would have been perfect for her at that age.

RS4K Chem II might be a good fit; it's a lot longer than I and you design your own labs with the lab manual. You can do the reading and writing for him. It's grade 7-9.