Story of Science Plus Teaching Guide/Student Quest

[shburks]

I love the Story of Science books! I checked them out for the library to review before we started with them.

 

BUT has anyone used the NSTA guide or the Johns Hopkins Student and/or Teacher Quest guides?

 

If so, can you review them? If not, how did you use Story of Science?

[SanDiegoMom]

I just bought them for next year and I haven't even gone through them yet to plan... I'm still planning out OUP's year (using THEIR guides -- which I really like) and then I'll be moving on to the Quest guide! I bought Newton, as we are just reading through the first book this year. I heard the Quest Guide for the first book isn't nearly as meaty as the second. 

[deerforest]

I have the Teacher Quest teacher and student guides for the first two books. We ended up not using them for the first book, but DD was in 5th and very resistant to anything like that. We're going to do Newton next year (7th), and I'm not sure if we'll end up using the guides.

 

We tend to prefer verbal discussions after we both complete the reading, but I just have one child so it's easy for us to do things like that.

 

For comparison, we attempted several of the OUP middle ages guides this year, and we quickly grew tired of them. They ended up being as formulaic as every other study guide like this that we've purchased, and we were losing the joy of reading and discussing the material.

 

So, if I do use the Teacher Quest materials for Newton, I definitely won't be using them in their entirety. My priority for these materials is still on great discussions.

[shburks]

I just bought them for next year and I haven't even gone through them yet to plan... I'm still planning out OUP's year (using THEIR guides -- which I really like) and then I'll be moving on to the Quest guide! I bought Newton, as we are just reading through the first book this year. I heard the Quest Guide for the first book isn't nearly as meaty as the second. 

 

Thanks. Did you buy both the student and the teacher guide? Wondering if the teacher guide is necessary! 

 

And what is OUP?

 

 

I have the Teacher Quest teacher and student guides for the first two books. We ended up not using them for the first book, but DD was in 5th and very resistant to anything like that. We're going to do Newton next year (7th), and I'm not sure if we'll end up using the guides.

 

We tend to prefer verbal discussions after we both complete the reading, but I just have one child so it's easy for us to do things like that.

 

For comparison, we attempted several of the OUP middle ages guides this year, and we quickly grew tired of them. They ended up being as formulaic as every other study guide like this that we've purchased, and we were losing the joy of reading and discussing the material.

 

So, if I do use the Teacher Quest materials for Newton, I definitely won't be using them in their entirety. My priority for these materials is still on great discussions.

 

Agh...you both used OUP and I don't know what it is!

 

I have an only child, too, but he doesn't love to discuss much. I was hoping the guides might at least give us jumping off points for discussion! Do you plan to read a chapter and then just discuss the material?

[Garga]

I have the Student's Quest Guide put out by Johns Hopkins University and the accompanying Teacher's Quest Guide also put out by JHU.

 

I've been using this as our science this year for a 5th grader and an 8th grader. Some of the activities in the Student Quest Guide are a little too hard for my 5th grader, so I help him on those. I have the 8th grader do the pages alone.

 

I also use the book Teaching Science Processing Skills which teaches kid how to "do" science--how to observe, how to change only one variable, how to come up with a hypothesis, etc. It's been a good mix--studying the history of science and learning about the discoveries as they're made, but also learning about some of the technical sides of "doing" science.

 

We have only done Aristotle Leads the Way (the first book in the trilogy.). It has taken us a long time to get through it. In fact, we started back last year in March, took a summer break and here it is this March and we won't be done until May.

 

We do science 4 times a week. One class is the Teaching Science Processing Skills lesson from the other book. The other 3 science classes are SOS (Story of Science.)

 

For each SOS chapter, here's how it goes down:

 

I read the suggestions in the TG. Sometimes there's not a lot that I'll use from it. Other times there is. There might be an experiment (demonstration mostly) or maybe there will be a summary of the chapter that I'll want to read or maybe there will be thoughtful questions I'll want to use. I jot down notes ahead of time of what I want to use for that week.

 

After I've read through the TG and have an idea of what to do, then we look in the QG (the kids' workbook) at the page for that chapter. There is always a little cartoon and a quote to look at before reading the chapter. There is a list of names or places that will be discussed in the chapter and some vocabulary words to learn. It introduces what the chapter will be about.

 

We read the quotation and discuss it a lot. Sometimes the boys have pretty much no clue what the quotation means and I have to break it down into little pieces for them to figure out. I do my best to ask questions and make them figure it out on their own. These are quotes from Socrates and Plato, etc, so the verbiage can be a bit long-winded and convoluted to a 5th or 8th grader. I've never had trouble understanding the quotes as a 43 year old adult. :)

 

After looking over that page, we turn to the text book. I bought 3 copies of it--one for each boy and one for me, because we read it aloud together and it's easier if we each have our own copy.

 

We start by reading all the sidebars and captions. They are too distracting to ignore, so we get them out of the way first. We read them out loud. My guys are both slooooow oral readers and this can be a bit painful for me. We all take turns in order reading each caption or sidebar until they're all read. Science is a 45 minute class for us and it can easily take 45 minutes to read the sidebars. Oh, and there are usually more quotes at the beginning of the chapter that the boys have to figure out. We discuss as we read and there is often a lot of discussion. I'm always asking, "Do you understand what you just read?" Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I make sure they fully understand everything they're reading as we go.

 

After the sidebars are out of the way, then it's time to read the actual chapter. Again, this is out loud so that we can stop and discuss as soon as we read something. Before we read, I have photocopied one of the pages from the appendix of the TG that has a picture of the scientist that the chapter is about. As we read information about him (they've all been hims so far), we pause for one of the boys to jot down what we've read about him. We didn't do that in the beginning and all the scientists started blurring together. It's a really good idea to start off keeping track of which guy did what on those papers. I keep them in a binder.

 

Our slow reading of the chapter and constant discussion means that it often takes another full class just to read the chapter.

 

On the 3rd day of science we work on whatever activity is in the student quest guide. (Note: the one on page 7 and 8 about high and low tides just about made my kids burst into tears. That's the only one they hated, so you might want to be careful with that one and skip it or do the activity together if they're starting to unravel.).

 

We're not really on a tight schedule, so sometimes the reading of a chapter is longer than our 45 minute class and sometimes it's shorter than our class. We just work on the next thing to fill in the 45 minutes and when the time is up we stop, wherever we are.

 

My kids love history. For the past 7 years we did a TON of science. This year, my last year before I feel bound by college-prep science classes (biology, chemistry, blah blah), I wanted to take a step back from traditional science and use these books instead. It's been a great decision for us and we love the books. I'm just very, very sad that we only had a chance to do the first book. I wish we'd started 3 years ago so I could have done all 3 books.

[Garga]

P.S. The teacher's guide has the answers to the student quest guide. I needed that. Very much! It would have been such a pain to do the student quest guide on my own. Soooo much easier to look up the answers in the teacher's guide.

[Targhee]

Thanks. Did you buy both the student and the teacher guide? Wondering if the teacher guide is necessary!

 

And what is OUP?

 

 

 

Agh...you both used OUP and I don't know what it is!

 

I have an only child, too, but he doesn't love to discuss much. I was hoping the guides might at least give us jumping off points for discussion! Do you plan to read a chapter and then just discuss the material?

Oxford University Press?

[Garga]

OP, I see in your signature that your son is a voracious reader. That means you'll probably get through the book MUCH faster than my kids. I'm really not sure how I ended up with kids who don't care much about reading, being that I spend pretty much every waking moment reading, but they don't. They can take it or leave it.

 

That has had a big impact on how slowly we are getting through these books.

[SanDiegoMom]

Thanks. Did you buy both the student and the teacher guide? Wondering if the teacher guide is necessary! 

 

And what is OUP?

 

 

We use OUP (Oxford University Press)  guides to help me figure out what's important to discuss -- I tend still to be like my kids and just read the chapter and have no idea what I'm supposed to be finding important or making connections about! :-(  So I used the guides for the questions, for occasional worksheets and maps,  and once a week I have them write down their "Cast of Characters" or historical figures.  I also use one or two of the project ideas.  Everything except for the questions I could get elsewhere, but I like having it all in one place.  

 

 

[zarabellesmom]

You didn't ask, but I just thought I would throw in that the Gifted Homeschool Forum runs a year-long class for each of the first two books in series and they coordinate that with some work from the workbook, weekly lectures (which are great) and fun projects.  It's a little pricey, but it's been so worth it to me because the teacher is fabulous and I have to do very little except make sure project materials are available and homework gets turned in.

 

 

[deerforest]

I just went back to look at the ones for Newton, and I think there is a decent variety of content, certainly more than with the OUP guides. I can see us picking out some of them to work on for each unit but it won't work for us to do them all.

 

in general, though, we both read the assigned sections and then come together to discuss. We did Aristotle concurrent with ancients, and it worked well, and that's my plan for next year for Renaissance and Early Modern.

 

I just have one child, and we do science and history daily. I alternated what I counted this towards because we do a lot of both. We finished Aristotle without a problem in a school year including a longish break to focus on neuroscience last year.

[leeannpal]

Do you think it would be possible to do one or two of The Story of Science as both science and history? I would, of course, flesh out the history part with supplemental readings and documentaries.

[shburks]

I just went back to look at the ones for Newton, and I think there is a decent variety of content, certainly more than with the OUP guides. I can see us picking out some of them to work on for each unit but it won't work for us to do them all.

 

in general, though, we both read the assigned sections and then come together to discuss. We did Aristotle concurrent with ancients, and it worked well, and that's my plan for next year for Renaissance and Early Modern.

 

I just have one child, and we do science and history daily. I alternated what I counted this towards because we do a lot of both. We finished Aristotle without a problem in a school year including a longish break to focus on neuroscience last year.

 

Thank you!

 

You didn't ask, but I just thought I would throw in that the Gifted Homeschool Forum runs a year-long class for each of the first two books in series and they coordinate that with some work from the workbook, weekly lectures (which are great) and fun projects.  It's a little pricey, but it's been so worth it to me because the teacher is fabulous and I have to do very little except make sure project materials are available and homework gets turned in.

 

I didn't know this, so I really appreciate this information! I'm going to check it out!

 

I have the Student's Quest Guide put out by Johns Hopkins University and the accompanying Teacher's Quest Guide also put out by JHU.

 

 

Oh my gosh!! This is marvelous! Thank you so much for taking the time to explain so much in detail! Thank you, thank you! This will actually be an added subject for him as he's flying through our history. We'll outsource science next year and add this as a "fun" subject!

[Julie in Monterey]

My mother-in-law is using these three books to teach my daughter this year. We bought the workbooks and teacher's guides and to be honest, we haven't touched them. My MIL does ton of discussion and reads every little bit of the book to and with my daughter. We both feel the workbook is a distraction from the learning that is taking place from discussions.