BFSU - please convince me!

[blondchen]

After thinking I'd go with something more along the lines of WTM recommendations, I have fallen in love with the concept of BFSU. I really want to make this work, but everything I'm reading says it's difficult to slog through the material and implement it. Two things working against me are 1) Being a newbie HSer, I prefer open-and-go curricula, and 2) I am strong in language and the humanities, but I am probably what you'd consider illiterate when it comes to science - my science education was abysmal, and that's actually one reason why BFSU appeals to me - I feel it will give me a science foundation that I never had, which will be helpful in teaching and interacting with my kids. As much as I like open-and-go, it's important to me to understand what I'm teaching, and with science I realize that I'm going to have to make a time investment at some point unless I outsource it.

 

DD is going into first grade, and her 4yo sister will probably tag along with the lessons. I've got them all excited about studying animals and plants during next school year, and I guess with the flexibility of this program I can choose to focus more on those topics as long as the prerequisite lessons are done, right?

 

So, please convince me that I can do this and that it's worth it - but be honest about what it will require of me. I want to know what I'm dealing with. I haven't bought the book yet, but I just signed up for the yahoo group and will look there for advice and encouragement, but I'd love some input here as well. Thanks!!

[kateingr]

I've used BFSU this year with my k'er and loved it. It sounds like you have your eyes open to both the pros and cons of the program.

 

I love science, but it has been amazing to me how much I've even learned in doing BFSU this year. The other big advantage I have seen is that I don't have to spend a lot of time on "official" science for it to have a big impact, because Nebel gives you a lot of ideas of how to incorporate the concepts into daily life.

 

My tips on how to succeed with BFSU:

 

1. Pick out the topics you want to cover at the beginning of the year so that you don't stall between topics, although it is always fine to change up the order later.

 

2. Plan a specific science time or two each week, but don't feel like you have to spend a ton of time on it.

 

3. Expect to spend some time reading the lesson in close detail and mark that book up! I underline key points, especially when the book calls for the child to think deductively, so that I don't overlook those. I also often draw lines dividing long lesson into one-day chunks.

 

4. For each topic, I like to have some library books around that we read during read-aloud time to co er the topic from different angles.

 

5. A couple of the lesson sin BFSU have felt strong conceptually, but I wanted more hands on activities for my kid to do. Janice Vancleave books fom the library have been perfect for helping fill this need.

 

 

[Five More Minutes]

I've used BFSU for the past 2 years with my now K & Gr. 2 dds. I'll admit that it has stalled sometimes, but it remains the best guide I've found for our family's walk through science.

 

I love how BFSU is organized, forcing me to identify connections across topics. And the flow chart sequence, while admittedly confusing at first, has given me a very flexible way of going through age-appropriate science topics.

 

BFSU is not formatted well. The pages aren't easy to read, and I agree with the pp - you may need to highlight and mark them to make them workable for you. This then requires that you read them ahead of time so that you can note how you want the lesson to flow. (Sometimes I do just open the book without prior reading and launch a lesson, but those haven't been our favourite lessons.)

 

For the most part I've ignored writing output related to science so far. (BFSU's standard writing response is to make a small book about the topic.) I may change that next year, but so far haven't felt the need to have more formal output.

 

I don't use many of the recommended books in BFSU. Usually I end up grouping three or four topics together at a time and then get books from our library related to those topics. Sometimes I buy science books that seem to be widely recommended on a topic and are close to my dds' reading levels.

 

This year, I added in a TOPS science unit (radishes) when we were studying plant germination in BFSU. I was so impressed with the way the TOPS investigation was designed, and how much my dds learned about observation and recording in science. I plan to use TOPS heavily in the future.

 

One of the biggest things that has helped me use BFSU consistently is deciding that science is important enough for me to put effort into it. I don't do hours of work every week, but I probably do spend about 30-40 minutes of prep time on science alone over the course of a week. When I accept that as a priority, then science happens.

[cmac]

And remember, it doesn't have to be perfect. They are still learning a lot even if you don't do it all or do it exactly as you would like to. I use it with my third grader, but he tells you what to expect younger and older age groups to understand. For example, he'll say, don't bring this up if they are younger or don't expect them to understand all of it if they are younger. I usually find a video/activity on the web for him while I look over it. And when we go through it and I get stuck, I send him back to another video/activity. That's just how I make it doable for us. I really think he has learned a lot from it.

[warneral]

We got through the book in roughly a year and I started to really dread it. Take it slow and expect to take some time with prep. I think I'd have felt differently if we had started it earlier and had more time to get through it. It really builds a good foundation. Brainpop has good videos to cement the ideas. Also, the lets read and find out books are awesome. Definitely use the library to help them explore the concepts further.

[blondchen]

One of the biggest things that has helped me use BFSU consistently is deciding that science is important enough for me to put effort into it. I don't do hours of work every week, but I probably do spend about 30-40 minutes of prep time on science alone over the course of a week. When I accept that as a priority, then science happens.

 

We got through the book in roughly a year and I started to really dread it. Take it slow and expect to take some time with prep.

 

I think I'm okay with the prep time, especially since the rest of our curricula is mostly open-and-go and requires very little prep. And even though we didn't start in K, I may go ahead and plan to take three years to get through all of it - the last thing I need is to feel pressured by a timetable. I don't care if DD isn't ready for book 2 right at the beginning of 3rd grade. And since we do a year-round schedule of sorts, that will give me even more flexibility with scheduling this.

 

Thanks for the input so far...please keep it coming!!

[Tanikit]

I have used BFSU for about 9 months now and it has gone very well for my K'er who is working ahead. I prep usually on the weekend and when we go to the library I get out books on whatever topic we are doing. I also though take out books on any science topic that might interest my DD if we are coming to the end of a topic in BFSU as I do sometimes take a week or so inbetween topics to pick up the next trail if I haven't planned that far (I try to plan which topics at least for the next month so that this does not happen too often).

 

I also try to have a very flexible schedule with BFSU - so if we start a topic that can be stretched and we are interested in it then we will take as many weeks on it as we choose. We recently covered the topic on biomes and I did a separate section on the biomes of our own country and then addressed each of the major biomes of the world using library books, exploring our neighbourhood and using worksheets off the internet that I thought were at my DDs level.

 

As far as doing the prerequisite lessons go - I have tried to structure my schedule so that the prerequisites will be done beforehand, but I have found that in taking out books on random scientific topics and then discussing those that even if the prerequisites are not covered it is still ok - when you do get to them you can then relate it back to what you taught before. Some of the topics have a long list of prerequisites and trying to work backwards to get them all filled can sometimes take a very long time before you get to the topic you chose - I guess it depends how much it is important to you to do the topic and how much just plain exploring science will do.

[junepep]

Everyone has put it so nicely, I'll just chime in to say that I've really enjoyed doing BFSU with the girls. I had to reformat it into something a bit more useful for me, but other than that (relatively minor) nitpick I think that it's been great for us. I definitely haven't found anything that I like better. It really does seem to build a solid foundation.

 

We take about 3 weeks per unit for a few months and then I drop it for about 4mos to do nature study/gardening, sometimes we drop it longer than we should (I think that it might take us longer than 3 years, but we started super early) and happily they both seem to retain the info through the breaks :). Once you get over the wall of text style presentation I'm sure that you'll like it too. Don't be afraid of it - it hasn't taken me more than an hour of prep every couple of weeks or so (assuming that you don't accelerate through it). If you'd like to see how we handled the first few segments I put up what we did on my blog. It's not very organized, but maybe it'll be helpful to you: http://lovelearnplay.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/bfsu-ab-1/

[Miss Tick]

At the beginning of the year I look ahead at the lessons, plan them out, coordinate some demonstrations, etc. By this time in the year I'm more likely to be going in blind. :-) It still works, though.

 

We spend a couple "periods" on each lesson. Sometimes I read a library book out loud or use their pictures. Sometimes we do a demo from BFSU or a book of 250 easy science experiments. To "finish" a lesson I write the major points on the bottom of a story page and they draw an illustration on the top. This is helpful when we want to review a prerequisite. They find it in their notebook and we talk about it.

 

Before I put the book away I look through whatever lesson I plan to do next. That gives me a heads up about how much prep I might need.

 

One last tip, I made up a schedule for the lessons with checkboxes so that I can keep track when we do lessons out of order. There are flow charts on the yahoo group or you can pm me.

 

Good luck.

[aprilleigh]

You should also be aware that the author maintains Yahoo groups for these books, and he is actively involved. I get several emails from each group in a month (sometimes more if something hot comes up) and about 1 in 4 is directly from him. If you have questions or problems, these groups are the best source of help and ideas I've ever seen. In addition, for the new user intimidated by the scheduling side of things, there are sequences created by other users to get you started.

 

I personally can't say enough good things about these books (there are 3 total).

[Eagle]

After fussing over not having it all mapped out in a linear fashion, I ended up just jumping in and looking at one topic at a time. Then it isn't overwhelming and I can see where to go next based on questions from ds and any interest he shows on particular topics. Once we choose a topic, I check books and DVDs out of the library and look for a corresponding BrainPOP or Discovery Education video. I have a few science experiment books and I check them to see if there is a related science experiment. Then we dive in and do the lesson along with our supplementary resources. DS shows great retention from the topics we have covered so far. We love it!

 

I own the $5 PDF rather than the book.

[Ariston]

After fussing over not having it all mapped out in a linear fashion, I ended up just jumping in and looking at one topic at a time. Then it isn't overwhelming and I can see where to go next based on questions from ds and any interest he shows on particular topics.

 

I believe this is how Dr. Nebel intends to book the work, and why he doesn't give a straightforward order of topics. It took me a long time to realize this. I spent a lot of hours trying to come up with an order of topics that made sense, but I always reached a frustration point. Eventually I realized I should just do one at a time--that's what made it work for me. One chapter at a time is not overwhelming, and like the previous poster said it allows you flexibility in where to go next.

 

I read the chapter I'm going to do, and I outline and highlight in the book to make it open and go for me. This is the ONLY book I've every highlighted in. I feel I need colors and underlining in the text to bring an extra level of organization to it. I highlight the main points that need to come across in discussion, and what I'm supposed to say/do.

 

I also go to the library and get books that have to do with the topic of the week.

[Nart]

I couldn't make it work. I kept opening the book and looking at the chart and the lessons. It seems fantastic but I couldn't figure out how to easily map it out. I just couldn't motivate myself to look at ll the information on the yahoo site. I just ordered REAL science Odyssey -Life. I am hoping to incorporate some BFSU lessons into RSO.

[Mukmuk]

I echo the sentiments of so many of the posters here. I love that the info in BFSU is so startling for me and ds. The discussion techniques are awesome - they always makes ds think carefully and deeply. But it's so hard to read, let alone implement. Ds was also resistant to writing or even my scribing. He loved the organic discussions though. And as a result, we'd bumble along for a few months every year. Ds picked up a lot during those periods!

 

Perhaps to the OP, don't feel like you have to continue with BFSU if and when it starts to feel onerous. For young kids, feel the flow of the organic discussions. They're great! (I wish I followed this advice when ds was younger) What we did when ds was 6 was, finish a chunk of BFSU till I'm saturated, stop (each time, I think it's forever!), then follow up with Noeo Science. I didn't tie it all together, but just let it all flow. Over the years, in between the bouts of BFSU, we've done quite a bit of other curriculums, like Ellen McHenry and the free one by ACS, and recently, Coursera. We're not averse to repetition in different ways because each time, a new perspective is added. Ds has also an avid science book reader, so there are long periods when he did no curriculum except read.

 

Ds is now 10. I had toyed with starting Conceptual Physics recently, but I would like him to have more science writing under his belt. So we've moved back in favor of BFSU. I now make writing part of the program and incorporate books that he's read/new books to be read. Prep time is significant in that I sketch out what leading questions to ask ds, and type up task cards for him to follow up on. For subjects that I'm particularly bad at and ds has also been avoiding (like biology and botany), I will replace with Ellen McHenry's curriculums. Meanwhile, if he wants to look at anything more advanced than what I cover, he has his reading. He conducts a few of his own experiments too. This formula is working for now, till the next saturation point. :001_smile:

 

BTW, I now carry a copy of BFSU's flowchart for each of the 3 books. It's a good, connected framework to have at the back of my mind when I think through about what to cover for science, at least through middle school.

[kirstenhill]

I think prep work is the key to success with BFSU. Even though i took some college-level science courses, I forgot most of it and certainly don't have the answers to my kids' science questions at my finger tips. But with 30 minutes or so looking through the lesson, taking notes and making an outline, I can come up with something pretty good. Having used it for three years or so at home, I started using it this past year for a co-op science class and it works really well for that. Check out the link in my signature for my BFSU Pinterest boards -- it's a great way to find more hands-on ideas, printables, videos, etc. Some of the experiments/demos I just can't picture from his description, but I can often find something similar Pinterest that helps me see what's supposed to be going on.

[Tracy]

BFSU is the perfect program if you, as the parent, want to do the teaching while your children are young. BFSU is designed to capitalize on young children's natural curiosity, but at the K-2 level, their reading skills are not sufficient to find their own answers to science questions. But you have to be fairly committed to reading through the lesson and understanding it before you teach it.

 

I have to admit that I got through most of the book, but I stopped teaching it last fall. The prep work started to feel burdensome, and I rationalized that since dh is a physics teacher, the kids still get more science at home than they would in a public school. I do plan to pick it up again in the fall.