Physics in Grade 1 instead of Grade 4?

[arliemaria]

My son just spent weeks working on squishy circuits and won our local science fair.  You can check out the fair here: http://www.mastodonfair.org/ His experiment was fairly simple, but it was something we did work on.  He drew pictures of each circuit we built: open, closed, closed with insulator, series, parallel, with motor, with buzzers.  I think his notebooking impressed the judges the most.  

 

So now he wants to build a motor.  He wants to build a robot, but I told him we need to learn about all the parts and once we've completed that we can build a robot.

 

Please help me with how to make physics appropriate for a beginning/pre-reader on a 1st grade level.  

[Guest]

Oh man! We have this awesome kit that allows my kids to build various kind of robots. I can't remember the name right now, but I will find it and update back. It's with the grandparents because I don't have time or energy to tinker with it. My six year old can do the projects with some assistance, though she is fairly gifted in this particular area it sounds like your kiddo is as well.

[Arcadia]

Oh man! We have this awesome kit that allows my kids to build various kind of robots. I can't remember the name right now, but I will find it and update back.

Is it Littlebits?

http://littlebits.cc

 

ETA:

RadioShack carries Littlebits in store if anyone wants to look see.

[Guest]

Nope, but those look fabulous!

[displace]

It may be too basic but Lego education has some physics type of kits, also lego robotics, but they're $$.

 

There are robotic kits on Amazon but most are put them together types, not really making a motor, etc.

[OneStepAtATime]

Is it Littlebits?

http://littlebits.cc

 

ETA:

RadioShack carries Littlebits in store if anyone wants to look see.

If there is still a RadioShack in your area buy what you can.  As I understand it, they are closing shop.

[mmpmelmack]

Lego wedo is fun and very user friendly. My DS started it at five, no reading needed. He also enjoyed the how things work book, you could read it aloud. I also used elemental science's physics curriculum, picking and choosing as needed from the daily schedule. For my DS he needed physics first, bio and earth science were boring to him, so we flipped the schedule, he's doing bio next year as a fourth grader, and still doing robotics with Lego mindstorms.

[arliemaria]

It may be too basic but Lego education has some physics type of kits, also lego robotics, but they're $$.

 

There are robotic kits on Amazon but most are put them together types, not really making a motor, etc.

 

Christmas 2013, he got the Lego Education Duplo Early Simple Machines set.  We even used the propeller peice along with a wiki stick when we built the circuits so we could have something at the end of the motor besides another peice of play dough.  This was recommended to us by our local Lego League leader.  My son has wanted to do Lego League FOREVER.  He will be six in May and he knows he can join when he is six.  He thinks he will build a robot the very same day.

 

I really don't know if Lego League will be a good fit though because of the time commitments and ability level.

 

[smoore530]

Have you looked at Real Science 4 Kids' Focus on Elementary Physics?

[arliemaria]

Have you looked at Real Science 4 Kids' Focus on Elementary Physics?

 

I think our main focus will be electricity and magnets and unforunately I think this text is a bit weak or perhaps we have already done enough material on the topic to make spending nearly $100 for this bundle.  The electricity chapter is less than 10 pages same with magnets.

 

He wants to build an electromagnetic motor.  I think this will be our main science project based learning activity for the year, but we will do lots of mini projects on the way to our science fair next Spring.  I think some things we can do will be lemon battery, monopolor motor.  I would like to get circuit stickers and perhaps for his birthday a pooled resource family present to purchase a subscription to tinker crate.  I would love to hear some reviews of this if others have purchased this.  The two examples on their site are good, but actually we have a catapult DaVinci kit that was a Christmas gift.  I may call them to find out more about the kits.  I would love to notebook a lot of this exploration.  Perhaps a LONG reading list and a weekly project and notebooking page. 

 

[Arcadia]

The JFLL for the 6-9 years old is non-competition/show and tell.

 

For your child, maybe snap circuits kits if he is doing unsupervised. There is an electromagnetic kit.

http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-SCP-08-Snap-Circuits-Electromagnetism/dp/B003VKO584

 

If someone can supervise, RadioShack, HobbyTown and other hobby shops has small electronic DIY kits that need soldering. The one I am familiar with is Velleman kits for kids.

 

If there is still a RadioShack in your area buy what you can. As I understand it, they are closing shop.

I think RadioShack is in negotiations with Sprint according to news I read. I have quite a few in my area but they are all well stocked. I was hoping for sale on the make electronics kits which they have in store.

[arliemaria]

The JFLL for the 6-9 years old is non-competition/show and tell.

 

For your child, maybe snap circuits kits if he is doing unsupervised. There is an electromagnetic kit.

http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-SCP-08-Snap-Circuits-Electromagnetism/dp/B003VKO584

 

If someone can supervise, RadioShack, HobbyTown and other hobby shops has small electronic DIY kits that need soldering. The one I am familiar with is Velleman kits for kids.

 

 

I think RadioShack is in negotiations with Sprint according to news I read. I have quite a few in my area but they are all well stocked. I was hoping for sale on the make electronics kits which they have in store.

 

I just googled JFLL.  I am glad to hear that the early years are non-competition.  That might be more doable.  We live in St. Louis so we will definitely have to take him to the World Festival Expo.  I will make sure my husband takes him.  I am a bit sad though, it says JFLL is for K-3.  I am pretty sure when I talked to someone last year they said he had to be 6 so we waited.  I would be sad to find out that we could have participated all year long.

 

We have had two snap cirucit jr kits.  The first one I let him "play" with it and pieces got broken and lost.  I lucked out and found a second complete set at a thrift store for a few dollars.  I plan to have him work through the entire project book.  I added the electromagnetic kit to our amazon cart.  I think that would be a great extension.

 

I will definitely look into the Velleman kits.  We still have a Radio Shack that is open, but not sure how stocked it is.

[mmpmelmack]

for jrfll the bottom age is soft...meaning its up to individual leaders to decide if they will take 5 year olds. Our first team had 3 5 year olds and a 6 year old.  Jrfll is designed to be as simple or as complicated as the kids can do.  our first year the kids built a truck with moving wheels, this year ds's 4 th year his team built a working mine with a train and an exploding top controlled by an nxt robot.  if he is into physics and science i would really try and find a team for him, or you can always start your own!  we helped facilitate 6 teams this year, and coached two, lots of work but also lots of fun!

[Farrar]

We did physics for first grade. There were very few books, but in fairness to physics, there's very few books for physics for fourth graders too. And it was so hands on and intuitive.

[arliemaria]

We did physics for first grade. There were very few books, but in fairness to physics, there's very few books for physics for fourth graders too. And it was so hands on and intuitive.

Can I ask why you decided to do physics instead of the traditional WTM plan of biology in grade 1?

 

What was your plan or did you just follow the physics WTM plan?

[mamaraby]

We did physics for first grade. There were very few books, but in fairness to physics, there's very few books for physics for fourth graders too. And it was so hands on and intuitive.

This was our experience as well - well at least the few books being available in 4th grade.

 

There's nothing magical to the WTM progression. I can see where biology would be a good fit for most 1st graders, but if a child's interests align with another science topic, then following their interest makes sense.

 

Ds did magnets and electricity in K, the human body and the solar system in 1st, rocks and assorted bits in 2nd (public school), biology in 3rd, and physics this year (4th). Next year we'll do chemistry because I realized we'd missed it so far. Dd1 has had biology in K and 1st because that's her thing. This past summer it was all birds, all the time. Dd2 will probably get something else entirely her first grade year owing to tagging along.

 

That which gets done and gets done well is more important than "right" according to x list even if it's TWTM. I think what's most important is exposure to all of it at some point with an emphasis on scientific literacy.

[arliemaria]

This was our experience as well - well at least the few books being available in 4th grade.

 

There's nothing magical to the WTM progression. I can see where biology would be a good fit for most 1st graders, but if a child's interests align with another science topic, then following their interest makes sense.

 

Ds did magnets and electricity in K, the human body and the solar system in 1st, rocks and assorted bits in 2nd (public school), biology in 3rd, and physics this year (4th). Next year we'll do chemistry because I realized we'd missed it so far. Dd1 has had biology in K and 1st because that's her thing. This past summer it was all birds, all the time. Dd2 will probably get something else entirely her first grade year owing to tagging along.

 

That which gets done and gets done well is more important than "right" according to x list even if it's TWTM. I think what's most important is exposure to all of it at some point with an emphasis on scientific literacy.

 

Thank you.  That was nice to hear as I feel some anxiety about mixing it up.  

 

My son is currently K and I don't think I'll move him to first grade until the fall... mid Sept.  We have already spent some time doing electricity and magnets, but I'd like to explore this topic more systematically and in depth.  Could you tell me more about your experiences with this during K? 

[kiana]

That which gets done and gets done well is more important than "right" according to x list even if it's TWTM. I think what's most important is exposure to all of it at some point with an emphasis on scientific literacy.

 

This is so important. I don't think that kids should have no science education at all, but I really think that until somewhere between 7-9th grades it should be something scientific that the kids and the educator can get excited about, even if it means that almost nothing other than one specific topic gets formally done in those years. Any real gaps can easily be filled in with middle school science books.

[Farrar]

Can I ask why you decided to do physics instead of the traditional WTM plan of biology in grade 1?

 

What was your plan or did you just follow the physics WTM plan?

 

We had done a lot of biology related topics in kindy - reading about the human body, for example. I wanted to do something else and that's where we decided to start. I totally agree with Mamaraby that there's nothing magic about the WTM cycle and it's really just important that do something for science, not that you do it in any particular order. In fact, I'll go a step farther and say that I think the WTM cycle is a bit nonsense. It's a checklist and a way to organize things. However, the supposed reasoning behind it is really silly to me. The connections to the history are tenuous at best. And as for the age appropriateness, I can see arguments for having first graders do biology, but I can see just as many good arguments for having fourth graders do biology. That's when we mostly did it. And we were able to go into much more depth with it, that's for sure.

 

I followed my own plan. I was already blogging way back then so you can actually see what we did for nearly all our weekly science lessons along with books we used and so forth. Those posts are all linked in one place here. Old posts for me now to look back on!

[mamaraby]

My son is currently K and I don't think I'll move him to first grade until the fall... mid Sept. We have already spent some time doing electricity and magnets, but I'd like to explore this topic more systematically and in depth. Could you tell me more about your experiences with this during K?

Ds doesn't remember anything we did in Kindergarten. In fact, when he asked to learn about electricity this year, I mentioned that we had already covered it and he didn't believe me. I tried to give some of the examples of what we did and he looked at me like I was crazy.

 

Save the systematic and in-depth stuff for when he's older. Instead, keep it fun, hands on, and engaging. The great thing about the four year cycle idea in TWTM is that you'll be this way again more than once. :0)

 

In Kindergarten it was Magic School Bus videos, MSB picture books, a MSB chapter book, and a literature guide to go with the MSB picture book that had lots of activities. Oh, and snap circuits.

 

I had to look back to what all we did in Kindergarten. It looks like we also spent a lot of time looking up videos on YouTube to see how different things work or how they're made. For awhile ds was obssessed with toilets so we watched videos and went to websites to learn how toilets work, how the wastewater treatment plant works, and how toilet paper is made. Then we hopped from there to other topics like how crayons are made, how paper is made, or how glue is made.

[arliemaria]

mamaraby, Thanks.  We have done lots of MSB and Bill Nye.  LOTS of books.  There is a short video thingy on our Roku on National Geographic Kids called Making Stuff.  He loves this and could watch these short videos for hours.  http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/videos/making-stuff/ Really anything with a robot in it he'll watch for hours.  haha

 

I think my goal is to do some hands on project and a notebook type page either by him or a photo that I print with a description of our activity to put in a binder to then show with his science fair project next year.  He is a pretty consistent child.  He has talked about Lego League for more than 3 years.  If we plan on continuing with electricity/physics for his project then I'd like to do some type of systematic study just to show more knowledge base for his project.  

 

He watched the Adafruit Circuit Playground videos and tons of youtube circuit videos.  Plus the portfolio/documentation along the lines of project based homeschooling, will be good to show him if he asks about something and doesn't remember it.  We can pull out his journal and review the activities and see if we need to repeat anything. 

[arliemaria]

Have any of you used Apologia's Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics book? http://shop.apologia.com/79-chemistry-and-physics

[visitor]

following

[Curlymom]

My 7 year old worked through some of Elemental Science's Physics for the Grammar stage program about 6 months ago:

 

http://www.elementalscience.com/physics-for-the-grammar-stage/

 

The curriculum is mainly reading assignments and notebooking pages (which we didn't really do) but he really liked Gizmos and Gadgets, one of the recommended spines. He enjoyed making the projects and has a very beginning understanding of concepts like Newton's laws. You don't make a robot or anything like that, most of the projects use household things like plates and straws to explain the concepts.

 

To go along with the study, my mom bought him several of the K'Nex education simple machine kits. We really like those and they come with lesson plans that help explain the concepts in the projects.

 

He's in a Lego robotics class right now that uses Lego Mindstorms. We aren't ready to buy him his own Mindstorms set (he's still a little young) but he's loving the simple programming that they get to do in the class. The Lego technic sets are less expensive and still allow kids to make their own motorized creations.

 

And we don't really follow the WTM science rotation, either. He did chemistry last year (before physics) and now we are on earth science and astronomy. For science, I follow his interests and build around that.

[arliemaria]

I just added that Gizmos and Gadgets book to my amazon cart.  Thanks for the recommendation!

[arliemaria]

We've been reading quite a few books about physics mainly electricity lately and I thought I'd list some of the titles.

You wouldn't want to live without electricity! by Ian Graham

Magnets : pulling together, pushing apart by Natalie Rosinsky

A Magnetic Learning Kit from Lakeshore Learning

Benjamin Franklin (Animated Hero Classics) DVD (My son really enjoyed this short video and has watched it multiple times.)

 

a little off topic, but Ben Franklin's Big Splash: The Mostly True Story of His First Invention by Barn Rosenstock

 

Waiting for us at the library to pick up is 

Zap!: Wile E. Coyote Experiments with Energy (Wile E. Coyote, Physical Science Genius) by Suzanne Slade and Andrés Martínez Ricci

 

I am thinking of photo copying the front cover of all the books/videos we read/watch and put in a binder for the science fair to show as his background research.

[arliemaria]

I think our main focus will be electricity and magnets and unforunately I think this text is a bit weak or perhaps we have already done enough material on the topic to make spending nearly $100 for this bundle.  The electricity chapter is less than 10 pages same with magnets.

 

He wants to build an electromagnetic motor.  I think this will be our main science project based learning activity for the year, but we will do lots of mini projects on the way to our science fair next Spring.  I think some things we can do will be lemon battery, monopolor motor.  I would like to get circuit stickers and perhaps for his birthday a pooled resource family present to purchase a subscription to tinker crate.  I would love to hear some reviews of this if others have purchased this.  The two examples on their site are good, but actually we have a catapult DaVinci kit that was a Christmas gift.  I may call them to find out more about the kits.  I would love to notebook a lot of this exploration.  Perhaps a LONG reading list and a weekly project and notebooking page. 

 

 

Grandma purchased a year for the birthday present this year.  We have received one kit so far which was DrawBot.  

[wendyroo]

If you are looking for a spine, maybe you could look at Mr. Q Elementary Physical Science.  He lists it as being appropriate for ages 7-12.  It has a unit on electricity and another on magnets, but first it thoroughly covers a lot of fundamental physics concepts.  We are using his Life Science book, and my 6 year old really likes the humorous, conversational tone.

 

Wendy

[arliemaria]

If you are looking for a spine, maybe you could look at Mr. Q Elementary Physical Science.  He lists it as being appropriate for ages 7-12.  It has a unit on electricity and another on magnets, but first it thoroughly covers a lot of fundamental physics concepts.  We are using his Life Science book, and my 6 year old really likes the humorous, conversational tone.

 

Wendy

 

Thanks for the recommendation.  I might try to get this from ILL because I am not sure I want to invest in it.  Today I am having Robby illustrate something from the books/dvds we have recently had out from the library.  He decided to draw a Leyden jar from the Ben Franklin dvd.  Which had me doing some quick internet searches to make sure his picture had all the information it should.  Which then led to finding a ton of Leyden jar/Capacitor experiments on youtube.  We might need to build one of these, but this weekend is really busy with our new daughter's baptism and first communion and then the Renaissance Faire.

[arliemaria]

I think I need help with some output goals and expectations.  If we do one science book with journal/notebook page per week and an experiment another day during the week... Since he is still K until 9/15/15 when we will officially begin 1st, I have not started formal handwriting and he is not yet reading.  We have a speech evaluation next month. At this point I have mostly been trying to satisfy his interest to learn about electricity/robots and record the process.  How do you record science activities for record sake and how do you have output when they can't do much writing?   

 

His drawing of the Leyden jar was quite simple.  Then we had a discussion about it and I labelled for him all the parts as he described them.  When I asked him to describe the Leyden jar he said, "a contraption to capture electricity."  I thought that was a good description.  I got to show him how a circle with a + sign is positive and - with a circle is negative.  He told me he knew this already and we talked about the symbols on batteries, etc.  I think I might make a copywork page saying "Leyden Jar Capacitor."  If he does another drawing of the lightning rod I could have him do copywork of that too and place that before his drawing of said invention.

 

That gives me a simple copywork page, an illustrated narration (drawing of his choice from current book/dvd), and experiment.  I will take a photo of our experiments to include in the notebook as well.  At some point I need to add more math to our science.