Ellen McHenry Elements with an 8.5 year old?

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Hello,

 

I know she recommends 8+ for The Elements.  My concern is that after completion, and even if we added in Carbon Chemistry, it would be a long while before he'd be ready for high school chemistry (right???).  So would all be forgotten?

 

I know the course is supposed to be enough to then go on to high school chem, but I don't see starting high school them at age 9...  So my worry is that he would just forget everything during a couple year gap until his next them course.  

 

Is there another level of chemistry that might fit between the two?  

 

DS loves chemistry, so I don't want to hold back too much, either.  

[waa510]

I definitely think an 8.5 yr old could do McHenry's Elements and maybe Carbon Chem! Carbon Chem stretched dd a bit but it was still very enjoyable. Elements was very approachable and Dd got a lot out of it and still has great retention. If I were concerned about longer term retention (Dd did Elements and CC 3 years ago I think) I'd probably play some of the games provided periodically, maybe a couple of the experiments or watch the videos that she schedules for each chapter on youtube from time to time. I also added in Hunting the Elements (app and show) and the Periodic Table of Videos, etc while we went through the books.

 

I try to add science books in the field we aren't studying currently into our library book runs. (Guesthollow has a great booklist for Chem.) This helps prevent a brain dump of previously learned info for my girls. 

[mumto2]

My son did them at about that age and loved them. We did Chemistry early also (9th grade) and he remembered a lot. We did some of the Georgia Public Broadcasting chemistry in between.

[EmilyGF]

I think I could have done it with my son when he was 8, but I had a 6, 4, and 1 year old too, but for us the pieces were too fiddly and it took too much time for what my oldest got out of it. I got books that were more approachable to him and feel that our time was better spent - he spent the time reading every book on birds our local library has.

 

(And yesterday I showed him a picture of a bird I took while kayaking and he said, "Oh, that's a kingfisher." We looked it up, and sure enough, it was.)

 

It might have worked if he were obsessed with chemistry, not wildlife. But for us it was a bust. I found it hard, too, to supplement, because most chemistry books at our library for kids are sort of lame while the bird books are amazing. DS8 read a book about raptors from the adult section (all 240 pages of it) that year, too.

 

Emily

[Susie in MS]

I agree with the other lady to simply do some of the games and vids every now and then. But also reading thru the book just before going into highschool chem would not be hard to do. It is not long, and is not a hard read. So a quick run-thru would be easy to do.

[SilverMoon]

High school chem will start at the beginning and not assume any previous courses, other than math anyway. :)

[stutterfish]

I had one tag along for The Elements age 9, but mine definitely got more out of it age 10+. If you don't mind doing it again, I guess it's not a problem.

 

Or you could wait a couple of years and fold in the next sibling (it's more fun to play the games in a group).

 

I wouldn't have attempted Carbon Chemistry with a child younger than 10. The content is, imo, more challenging than The Elements and there aren't as many games and fun stuff. Both programmes, however, are excellent.

[Susie in MS]

High school chem will start at the beginning and not assume any previous courses, other than math anyway. :)

 

True, but high school chem scares the living daylights out of me. The Elements is cool, fun, and easy to understand. If I would have had this in elem, I may have actually attempted high school chem beyond looking at the Greek-ish looking text. I am hoping to give all of the kids in my co-op an upper edge that I didn't have. 

[SilverMoon]

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Edited May 23, 2023 by SilverMoon

[hellen]

You could do the free American Chemistry Society (ACS) chemistry curriculum for middle schoolers in between the two.

[Susie in MS]

I haven't seen the other two Silver Moon mentioned, but adding Christian Kids Explore Chemistry I know would be great. I am actually considering this for my dd depending on all of our other curricula and being able to "fit" it in. If you want to google Susan Evans Christian Kids Explore Chemistry, you can see on her blog where she and her children did the experiments and demos. Really good. 

 

We have enjoyed the other CKE science we have used.

[vtamanda]

I am using it with my 7 yo this year. We are also using RS4K as a spine. I am pulling in several other books from the library and The Elements by Theodore Gray and Janice VanCleave's experiment book. I have a minor in chemistry and I am absolutely amazed at the wealth of online resources for chemistry now! I think my peers in chem 101 might have had an easier time of it with all of the videos for explanation. Check out Kahn academy, guest hollow and there was a thread on chem videos recently by Hunter.

[Susie in MS]

There is also The PT of Elements coloring book which looks awesome. The price sticker is a bit of a shocker for me, but it may work for you.

[SanDiegoMom]

My kids were 8.5-9 when we used The Elements. They loved it. They loved the games, they loved the stories -- it was a high point of last year.  We also added Nova's Hunting the Elements (2 hours -- we broke it into two sections), we watched Cosmos which had some chemistry addressed, we watched Brainpop videos and they played lots of Atomidoodle on the Ipad.  I'm looking at Carbon Chemistry for either this year or next. 

[apmom]

We used The Elements last year with our 13 and 9 year olds together. Our 13 year old got a lot more out of it, but it was not above the 9yo's head at all. Our 13yo is a huge chemistry buff, and we added a lot of other books and resources that he still reads just for fun. We used Fizz, Bubble and Flash, Atoms and Molecules, The Usborne Chemistry book, a really cool visual book on the Elements (can't exactly remember the title, but it shows up on the list from the post above about Guesthollow.  He loves the Basher science books, too.  If it's truly an interest of your student, don't worry, they'll find more things that they like, and won't forget!