BFSU is calling my name. Help!

[PIE!]

I've never been completely happy with a science program. We usually end up using a variety of materials and doing our own thing, which works okay. But every year I try to find the golden program so dh and I won't have to make something up again.

 

All you folks make BFSU sound like the golden program, but I've got a few questions to see if it'll really work for us.

 

1. It sounds teacher intensive, but how teacher intensive is it? Can I read all the teacher stuff over the summer and have minimal prep-work to do during the school year? Or will it take me hours a week to get things ready all year long?

 

2. Next year I'll have a 5th grader (dd who is in ps right now decided she wants to homeschool again), a 2nd grader, and a Ker. Should I be doing both volumes 1 (for the 2nd and Ker) and 2 (for the 5th grader)? Is it even possible or will I go crazy trying to implement that? Can I have all the kids on similar subjects at the same time?

 

Or should i just give up on science curricula and do my own thing again?

[Roadrunner]

It is teacher intensive, but much depends on you. If you like worksheets, color pictures... BFSU will drive you nuts, because you will have to create it all. We took a different approach. I love BFSU because it turns our lessons into interesting conversations and only through thorough questioning do I really know what my kids understood. I read a lessons over the weekend to learn the material myself (sure, you can create lesson plans over the summer, but it's not really necessary if you don't have time for it). Then I highlight questions I need to ask my kids, experiments to do and what conclusions my kids need to come up with. You just need to lead the discovery. It's not hard to do. Instead of filling out worksheets, we summarize lessons into science notebooks. So far this process has worked beautifully. If you are bringing the fourth geader from PS, she probably knows a lot of material from Volume1 (my DS came home in3rd and he know a lot). If I were you, I would do a condensed 2 months course to fill any holes and move on to volume 2. I have no advice on teaching multiple levels at once.

[PIE!]

Thanks! We have very little interest in worksheets here. We much prefer interesting conversations and hands-on activities/experiments, along with a science notebook to keep track of information learned. So BFSU sounds like it would probably be a good fit.

 

How long does prep take you every week?

 

My fourth grader was homeschooled k-3, and what she misses most from homeschooling are science and history. Science in her public school class is mostly worksheets and tests. She did make one diaroma which she loved doing, but that was it. She misses thinking through problems and doing projects and experiments.

 

Any other experiences? Has anyone taught multiple grade levels with BSFU?

[Roadrunner]

Not much. I just read and highlight (30 minutes). I google Pinterest for notebook ideas ((15 min).

I have the highlighted book in front of me during the lesson to guide me. That's for book 1.

 

Now we are on the second volume and Bernoulli's principle frankly had me scratching my head. I didn't think that particular chapter was well written (we chose to start in a Thread C) and it took me a while to wrap my head around it. We have since completed two additional chapters effortlessly.

 

I love BFSu, but I do really wish it had an accompanying student book (my older boy needs to start reading more science texts). At the very list, I would love some well written science printouts from the web aimed at the middle school level per each topic. I found most information on aerodynamics online written for adults and not accessible for the younger audience. While I plan to use all three levels (unless the text stops making sense to me), I do plan to supplement in upper grades.

[blondchen]

 

Thanks! We have very little interest in worksheets here. We much prefer interesting conversations and hands-on activities/experiments, along with a science notebook to keep track of information learned. So BFSU sounds like it would probably be a good fit.

If that's what you want, then the approach of BFSU would work really well for you. I am not a science person (and my own science education was abysmal), so I am learning a lot myself, and we have had some wonderful conversations about our science topics, and not just during school time. There are so many opportunities to connect the lessons to everyday life, and I've found the retention to be really good so far. I do need to get into notebooking more. We've pretty much just done everything orally so far, but I think DD would enjoy making a science notebook.

 

I only have a first grader (and two younger ones), so I haven't taught multiple grade levels. The idea of teaching the next volume is rather daunting, but I figure I'll deal with it when I get there. But I love the approach of BFSU and consider the prep time to be worth it. It takes me an average of about 30 minutes to read the material and prep the lesson - I highlight stuff in the book and sometimes just type up some summary points as I go through the chapter and teach from those. I don't stress about preparing a perfect lesson or making sure I get all the nitty gritty in there, because I figure DD is getting enough exposure to the content even if I don't explain it perfectly, and we have lots of opportunity to connect what we're learning to everyday life. I will say that it takes more energy to actually TEACH the lesson compared to my mostly open-and-go other stuff, and that I need a break after teaching science - LOL!

 

The other thing that really helps me is the supplemental books. I find that if I struggle with explaining a concept in my own words, at least one of the books will cover it sufficiently, and then we talk about it further. One advantage I have that many do not, is that I have immediate access to a college library with inter-library loan that only takes two days, so that has been a godsend - I'd have a rough time if I had to buy extra books or were entirely dependent on our lame county library system for them. 

 

All in all, I love the approach. I wish it were less work to prep, but this is really what I want for science, so I'm willing to do it.

 

Hope that helps!

 

[PIE!]

That all helps very much - thank you for sharing your experiences!

 

I think I could handle 30 min of prep of a curriculum we all love. The only thing that I still don't know about is having multiple grade levels. anyone?

[jar7709]

My kids are not the age/grade spread of yours, but I combine my two in BFSU. I think much depends on how much science the older child has already had...imo a lot of the material is very foundational and easy to overlook in more whiz-bang or interest-led approaches you may or may not have used so far, and can be explored in some depth even if the child otherwise seems beyond the material. For example, my son loves and does a lot of research on his own time about planets and extraterrestrial life...He knows what the word "density" means in general, but in conversation today introducing BFSU2 unit A-14, it became obvious he didn't know how to calculate density, so there's still plenty of meat on the bone for him in this lesson. If he hadn't already done all of BFSU1 already, I am sure there would still be similar issues for him in that volume. We do a lot of the BFSU discussion over the dinner table, so for us it is fairly easy to feel out the understanding level of different topics, and which units deserve more or less time for us.

[PIE!]

So could volume 1 work for a 5th grader with supplementing wherever it seems a good idea? Or would it be too elementary for her? It would be easier to combine all kids, but I don't want to skimp on the older's education for the sake of the younger.

 

And does volume 1 need to be done before starting volume 2?

[jar7709]

I don't know your 5th grader so I can't answer that as an absolute. :) I am sure some of the Volume 1 lessons will be too simple for the 5th grader, especially if not supplemented, but that doesn't mean there won't be good stuff in there for her. Volume 2 does build on volume 1. If you're going to need both anyway, I would just recommend getting your hands on both and doing a little previewing to see what you think would be best. :)

[PIE!]

It does sound like buying both and looking through them would be the only way to really figure out how this will work for my family. Thanks for all the help. :) BFSU is just one of those curricula that I hear so much about, but have a hard time picturing. I just wish I could thumb through a couple of volumes before deciding to get it to be sure it'd be a good fit. But my shelves always welcome new science books, so I think I'll go ahead and take the BSFU plunge and see what we can do with it. :)

 

[jar7709]

They do have cheap pdf versions for something like $5, if you want to check it out first before shelling out for the hard copies. I prefer the hard copies for actual use in our house for ease in making it up and flipping around to the flowchart etc, but just want to put that out there. :) Good luck!

[Stuart]

We started with BFSU. It worked perfectly. Drawn by greener grass I left looking for less planning and something better. What I found? Nothing better and a lot of frustration. We will be returning to BFSU. I like the way it guides me to teach science and makes my son see science around him. So while there is planning it is worth or for our school.

[Tracy]

When I have used BFSU, it only takes me about 30 minutes of reading the lesson to plan the discussion.  I took a lot of science in high school, and my dh is a physics teacher, so I am accustomed to "talking science."  I just highlight the questions, the key points that I want to make, and the common misconceptions kids have.  But I don't think that reading it over the summer would be sufficient preparation for me.  I really need to do that weekly.  

 

What I have trouble with, personally, is gathering the stuff I need for activities.  Usually it is stuff I have on hand, but I don't always know where it is.  And sometimes I don't have it, and I have to either come up with a substitute, go out to buy it, or find an alternative activity (which doesn't always go well). Those are the kinds of things that get me completely derailed and make me stop teaching entirely.  But these are things that I could plan over the summer.  If teaching BFSU were important to me, I might even spend the summer putting things I need in ziplocs for each lesson.  

[Miss Tick]

So could volume 1 work for a 5th grader with supplementing wherever it seems a good idea? Or would it be too elementary for her? It would be easier to combine all kids, but I don't want to skimp on the older's education for the sake of the younger.

 

And does volume 1 need to be done before starting volume 2?

We finished vol. 1 last year and are into volume 2 this year. My thought is maybe alternate between the books somewhat. That would spread out prep, your older can use "off" weeks to fill in any holes, do independent, supplemental work, or watch a lesson from vol. 1. It could get out of hand if you don't have a plan, though.

 

Your older likely won't benefit much from lessons in volume 1 convincing students that air is a substance, or differentiating between living and non-living things. However, others, like the lesson that talks about the direction of the earth's rotation can be very informative, even for (much) older students.

 

I also recommend alternating, because it is possible to do the books in 2 years, even though the cover says 3. Don't rush it! Of course. I'm just saying that for some students the timeline is generous.

[sagira]

I just wrote a somewhat lengthy description on how we make BFSU work for us. I have used BFSU since 2008 off and on, only maybe a year or so off. And I missed it during that year! 

 

Here's the post:

 

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/503314-tell-me-not-to-buy-bfsu-vol-3/?p=5505890

 

Hope this is helpful to you!

[PIE!]

Thanks for all the help!

 

[Staceyshoe]

I think it's possible to make BFSU less teacher-intensive.  I used it with my older child, and he was highly motivated to learn science.  I didn't do any prep.  We opened the book together, I skimmed ahead while we took turns reading parts aloud and then took breaks to discuss the concepts.  If there were activities, we did them another day when I had gathered the materials.  I'm planning to start BFSU with my younger child soon, and I expect it to be a very different and much more time-consuming process.  He is not an auditory learner, so I can't just read aloud to him.  I'll need to learn the material myself first and present it as we do the activities for him to "get" it.  But if your child's age, motivation, and learning style allow for it, BFSU can be made somewhat open-and-go.

[daijobu]

 

What I have trouble with, personally, is gathering the stuff I need for activities.  Usually it is stuff I have on hand, but I don't always know where it is.  And sometimes I don't have it, and I have to either come up with a substitute, go out to buy it, or find an alternative activity (which doesn't always go well). Those are the kinds of things that get me completely derailed and make me stop teaching entirely.  But these are things that I could plan over the summer.  If teaching BFSU were important to me, I might even spend the summer putting things I need in ziplocs for each lesson.  

 

This is so, so true.  You can't wait until the night before your lesson to check the materials list.  Some lessons require nothing.  Some require an inclined plane, a kit of rocks and minerals, steel wool, triple beam balance.  It is imperative that you read ahead, at least a few lessons, so you have time to gather everything together.  

 

I'm an old hand at BFSU, now on book 3.  When I received my copy of BFSU#3, I immediately went through every materials list for every lesson and made up my shopping list.  Fortunately, I have a budget from our local charter to spend on curriculum materials, so that helps a lot.  

 

In addition to materials, since there isn't a student text, you also need to be on the ball about putting books on hold at the library.  You need to time it right:  place your holds too soon and they'll be overdue before your lesson.  Too late, and it's too late, lol.  

 

I'm fairly Type A, and I love planning, so this has been a good fit for me, but I definitely understand the frustration experienced by others.  

[amyrobynne]

I started BFSU vol 1 with my 3rd and 1st graders, who did a lot of science during their free time and have a lot of science-loving relatives. The suggested books were often simpler than was useful and I would do a library search for that topic, checking out harder books. I expected to go through volume 1 in 2 years, bringing us to volume 2 when they started 5th and 3rd grades. As it turns out, this year I've been pregnant and have let them do a lot of science reading on their own and not progressed much with BFSU, so I suspect it'll take most of 5th/3rd grades before we finish. Some of the lessons I can do as written (we just covered bones and muscles and they learned a lot from the demos but I found more difficult library books). 

 

I think if I was starting from the beginning with 5th/2nd/k, I'd use volume 1, accelerate it a bit, and focus on the two older kids and not worry too much if some things went over the kindergartner's head. I'd get him the library books listed as suggestions and find harder versions on the topic especially for the 5th grader, maybe requiring some writing only for her.