Elementary Science Curriculum - Building Foundations for Scientific Understanding

[hmrt]

I'm looking for a new science curriculum, and wondered what thoughts were to be had on "Building Foundations for a Scientific Understanding" for those of you who have used it?  Pro's - cons? Would be used with a first grader. 

 

I want a secular science curriculum that is challenging, rigorous, and uses real scientific terms and concepts from the beginning. This is what I have tried so far and didn't want to continue for various reasons...

 

R.E.A.L. Science 4 kids. 

Biology for the Grammar Stage 

R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey  (This one I did like, and will go back to if I don''t find something I like better....)

 

Thanks for any advice!

[Syllieann]

We love it.

Pros:

Secular, rigorous, inexpensive, good book recommendations, Socratic discussion is great.

The logical sequential order is a rare find in elementary science curriculum. I also consider it a mastery curriculum, which is my preference for homeschool. I do not need to re-teach the basics each year to accommodate kids from other districts or kids that were sick that day, etc. It does review though, which is more efficient than re teaching. The demonstrations and experiments are elegant. They demonstrate the concept without a lot of showiness. As much as possible, bfsu brings the child to the science instead of trying to package the science into a bag and bring it to the student. Strong support from the author with website for discussion with other users.

 

Cons:

No kit. Easily remedied by going through the supply list ahead of time and creating your own kit.

Not independent. You will need to be involved. You will need to read ahead and be mentally present for lessons. You can't read off a script and hand your kid a worksheet. Vocabulary/memorization- to be fair, the author clearly intends to focus on the conceptual, but I really think both are important. We get this from our memory program. You could easily put together science memory work from twtm or living memory. For example, I want my kids to be able to list the classes of vertebrates and the planets of the solar system in order at the k-2 level. Bfsu teaches these things, but they aren't memorized.

[FarmingMomma]

BFSU is a really solid program.  We used Vol. 1 in 2013-14, with my then 1st grader and 5th grader (first year homeschooling, 5th grader had NO science in PS).  I feel like they learned a lot without being overwhelmed.  The main drawback was planning time...the book is written to the parent/teacher, not the child.  On a good week, I had scanned the lesson ahead of time, made some notes, and kind of prepared how I would present the lesson.  Other weeks, I didn't plan ahead and kind of had to wing it.  This school year (2014-15), I thought the grass was greener elsewhere, and did Biology for the Logic Stage from Elemental Science.  It had a lot of positives, namely that the kids look at the list of things they need to do in their student book, they do them, and then we just discussed it.  But, they both feel like they got more out of BFSU, and they got kind of tired of spending the whole year on Biology.  We all really liked how BFSU ties all the different threads of science together.  So we are going to do BFSU Vol. 2 for the 2015-16 school year.  I've already started looking through the lessons and planning so that I'll be ready for next year.  For example, for each lesson, I found the corresponding pages in our Kingfisher and Usborne Science Encyclopedia, and wrote those page numbers right into my book.  Next I will go through and note any other books, videos, etc, that pertain to that lesson.  

[desertflower]

Yep, Syllieann said it all.

 

FYI, Dr. Nebel is speaking at the WTM summer session. The first session was a few days ago, but it's recorded. I don't know if you can still register for it.

[Jackie]

Agreed with the previous posters. In addition, in what could be a pro or a con depending on your outlook, the lessons are easily turned into full unit studies. We use some resources in addition to the ones in the book and love that it is open to going far more in depth than is explicitly laid out.

 

I think of BFSU as the curriculum for those who kinda would like to unschool science but want a forward-moving path. You can do BFSU in minimal time as a background to unschooling. Or you can focus on the BFSU and flesh it out with additional books and demonstrations or experiments and make it really robust.

[Slache]

How often did you work on it and how long did it take to get through it? Would it take longer than a year to really soak it in?

[Rosie_0801]

My dd has learning challenges, and we found the book a little too rigorous. I still like it though, and am using it as a guide while actually working from GEMS books. I expect her to grow out of her need for this eventually. I also expect to reteach lessons from the BFSU book when too much time has passed between prerequisite lessons. Science is taught on a block schedule around here though, on a rotation with a few other subjects. So, not as often as I'd like, but it is necessary for now because she can't handle a longer school day.

 

BFSU sounds like what you want. 

[Miss Tick]

How often did you work on it and how long did it take to get through it? Would it take longer than a year to really soak it in?

I try to do science about twice a week with summers off, and going into book three we have spent about 2 years per book. Normally we spend about an hour per session, but I don't watch the clock, since it is the end of our day, so that is just a rough average. I try to check out books on the subject, so sometimes my dc come into a lesson with all the insights and it is more of a discussion time. In any one lesson we usually go through 1 or 2 "parts" per class time.

 

Starting with book two, I have been putting together pseudo-worksheets with pictures and space for some written work. With the books' intentional lack of pictures it can be dry and tricky to describe. So now I go through the lessons a few weeks ahead and think about what I want them to get out of each lesson, and what might be useful to have on paper. Google Image is my crutch for this. This also makes it more open-and-go, which makes it easier for me to tackle during the week. I didn't need that in book 1.

[sagira]

We've been using BFSU since day 1, and DS11 is now finishing up Elementary Ed and on Middle School Education. We take our time, discuss, do the activities, read extra books, and at the end of each thread he creates a page in his science notebook about what he has learned. Sometimes it's mostly drawings, but between our robust discussions and his explanations I know he gets the concepts. I also make use of videos, either by Bill Nye, NeoK12, or Crash Course. DS11 prefers CC for history.

 

With BFSU I have really learned to grasp concepts in my own science discussion, and appreciate it very much. I'm taking the science teaching through the WTM online conference too. I was so happy to finally get to "meet" Dr. Nebel after all these years!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Syllieann]

How often did you work on it and how long did it take to get through it? Would it take longer than a year to really soak it in?

We are on our last lesson of volume 1 right now. We spread it over 2 years. My child is a very advanced and avid reader so he gets a lot of science via interest led reading. Dh and I have bio/chem degrees. Dh works in Chem r&d, as did I in my former life. So one could say there is a lot of science talk going on in our house during regular daily activities. Last year I planned about 30 min per week of science activities, letting the rest trickle in as teachable moments showed up. This year I planned 3 shorter days of about 10-15 min per week. This time includes at least one living book for each lesson. We did not make the books, but instead used the discussion questions, so that cut down the lesson time a bit. We took a week off to make the Ellen mchenry t-shirt with intestines during the relevant bfsu lesson.

 

We're moving to volume 2 next year, which I plan to spread over 3 years and add some kids health lessons in. I think the first volume just took a little less time because we were kind of past the first handful of lessons before we started.

[Miss Tick]

All of you past the first book might be interested in the free American Chemical Society middle school chem curriculum that Farrar introduced me to. Sorry I can't link on my phone, but it is easy to find, or pm me and I'll log on from a regular computer. It is one huge document with activities and worksheets (we all tweak these things to suit ourselves, right?). There are six chapters and they align well with some of the chemistry chapters in BFSU books 2 and 3. My dd has expressed an interest inchemistry, so I'm happy to spend some extra time on those chapters.

[hmrt]

Thanks, everyone. That is most helpful!  It sounds like it may be a program we would really like.  For those of you who added memory work (This is very important to me - I'd love to have a sequential list of assignments so I don't have to create on my own) - where did you get your lists/resources?   How much time did you find it took to prepare each week?  I have twin two year olds and work part time, so my prep time is in short supply!  Will I be having to spend an overwhelming amount of time gathering and planning in order to implement each lesson?  Does it rely on many external books/library resources?  Unfortunately, our library we have access to is to a nice library, but it is VERY small, and rarely has anything I am looking for.

 

 

[Miss Tick]

For the first book, when we finished a lesson, before I put the book away, I flipped through the next lesson to get a feel for it and whether I needed anything. That was it. Of course there were occasional surprises, but worst case we just delayed the next lesson a couple of days.

 

There are no external books that are required (I don't remember any). Look for subject books that are appealing to your family, for general interest and background. I think I bought a magnet set that included iron filings and a rock and mineral kit. The internet can be your friend, too! Don't miss the website The Kid Should See This.

[hmrt]

Thanks, Susan, for the thekidshouldseethis.com link, that is fantastic!

I think I will definitely buy the book. It's pretty inexpensive, so I'm convinced it's definitely worth $25 to try. Thanks, all, for the advice.

[daijobu]

What eveyone else wrote, and: It really helps to have access to a good public library system.   You'll be checking out many many children's picture books on specific science concepts, but you don't want to buy all these books.  

[Tanikit]

I did BFSU1 through K and first grade with my DD and then moved on to BFSU2 with my now second grader, but we have slowed down a lot. She absorbed the topics really well and is now teaching her 4 year old sister some of the basics which gives her revision. I now combine the 2 teaching the pre requisites from BFSU1 to the 4 year old and the rest to my elder. However at 4 my youngest will need to do this more in depth at some point so I will only formally introduce BFSU1 in K.

 

I have been amazed how much the eldest has retained and how, from the basics, she can easily understand the more advanced topics. It did take a while to prepare initially til I found out what worked for us - now we do any experiments, read a few books on the topic and watch some short videos (often care of youtube). I usually make her draw or do some art work of the concepts we have discussed or write out a few basic sentences of the key concepts. Occassionally I may find a worksheet where she can fill in the results of the experiments she has done.

 

I found reading the entire thread and understanding what the main point was that I wanted to get through to my child helped greatly as it is a detailed curriculum and it is possible to miss certain in depth concepts without neglecting the main thread. I know I have taught my second grader concepts that were never taught to me in school even though I did science all the way through and have a science degree.