Mystery Science units

[EmmaGM]

I was planning to use Mystery Science for my first grader next year but now that I'm looking at the units in the free trial I'm not sure if there is enough content there for a full year. Or maybe I'm just seeing a very limited menu because I'm on a trial?

 

Basically what I see listed for ages 5-6 or 5-8 is

• Force Olympics (2 mysteries)
• Weather Watching (2 mysteries)
• Animal Secrets (2 mysteries) - locked
• Spinning Sky (2 mysteries)
• Lights & Sounds (2 mysteries)
• Animal Superpowers (2 mysteries) - locked

That's only 12 mysteries for his age range unless there are more somewhere I'm missing. That would be awfully pricey for 12 weeks of lessons,

[mlktwins]

I got the free one year deal last year.  My kids are older, but let me sign in and see what is there for this age group :-).

[mlktwins]

That is all I see when I am signed in.  It does say all of the units you listed will be expanded for the 2017-2018 school year.  It is a good little program.  You could also supplement with additional books and/or activities.

[silver]

My PreK kid participates in all our Mystery Science lessons, regardless of the age range listed. She doesn't always completely understand, but she gets some tidbit out of each one and enjoys them (in PreK in our house, participation is the child's choice).

 

So you don't have to go by the age range. I'd use your free trial time to take a look at some of the mysteries for older kids to gauge if they'll work for your 1st grader.

[shawthorne44]

Look at the age level up too, and then only do as much of the writing as feel like (or none).   Grab some library books on the topic.  I did this for a co-op last spring, and it was a hit.  The other parent-teachers would tell me that the kids talked about it in the other classes.  

Also, the videos are in little segments.  If I remember right it was 30 minutes of videos total, three 10 minute videos.  So, if there was attention span limitations you could do one video and day and then an experiment on the fourth.  

 

eta:  we had ages 5-8, and I don't think we did any of the youngest group of lessons because they didn't look appealing.  

Edited April 17, 2017 by shawthorne44

[Vintage81]

I have a paid membership that I use for my 1st and 3rd grade DDs. Here's what's available:

 

Ages 5-6: 3 units, total of 6 mysteries

Ages 5-8: 3 units, total of 6 mysteries

Ages 6-9: 2 units, total of 7 mysteries

Ages 7-10: 4 units, total of 17 mysteries

Ages 8-11: 5 units, total of 18 mysteries

Ages 9-12: 4 units, total of 15 mysteries

 

The units for ages 5-6 and 5-8 are newer, so we haven't used those, but the website says that they will be expanded and revised for the 2017-2018 school year. I contacted them recently and was told they'd be adding 20-30 mysteries this year (in all age ranges), so there should be plenty of mysteries to get you through the year (maybe two years). I also agree with others that the age range isn't too important. My first grader has done mysteries in the 8-11 age range without any problems. 

[Insertcreativenamehere]

I have kids ages 7, 10 and 12 and we do all the mysteries regardless of age. My 7 yo gets a lot out of the mysteries targeted to older ages even if she doesn't do all of the writing.

[mlktwins]

I have kids ages 7, 10 and 12 and we do all the mysteries regardless of age. My 7 yo gets a lot out of the mysteries targeted to older ages even if she doesn't do all of the writing.

 

My almost 12 year olds have enjoyed watching and learning from the younger mysteries.

[Sk8ermaiden]

The age level up will be perfectly fine for first graders too.

[EmmaGM]

Thank you! Another question: for those of you using Mystery Science again, are you repeating the mysteries this year or are there enough new ones that you haven't had to repeat any?

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Insertcreativenamehere]

We've used it for the full year and have not repeated anything. There are plenty of extension activities for each mystery.

 

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[mykidsrmyjoy]

Chiming in to agree that the age level really doesn't matter. I did one today with my 3 DDs who are 4, 6, and 8. It was for the upper age range (8-11? Or something similar) but I feel like my two younger DDs understood a lot. My girls beg to do science since we started using Mystery Science.

[bwdiaz]

I have a 6 year old kindergartener who has done almost all of the mysteries for the 7-10 year group with her older second grade sister with some writing adjustments. We do them once every other week because BFSU is our main science curriculum so I consider Mystery Science "fun school". She likes it, looks forward to it, and I think we have Mysteries (as they stand) for another 3 or 4 months. If they add more we'll do more.

 

I guess if I were to do it as a full curriculum, I think I'd make an effort to either check out the library books they recommend for each Mystery or substitute their selections for what's in the library. And I'd certainly look ahead and do some Mysteries over two weeks instead of one, some benefit from it, like weather observation for example.

 

To be honest, I'm not personally of the opinion that a first grader needs 36 weeks (an academic year) of "official" science instruction, but you could easily get 30 weeks just out of what's available now, plus library, plus stretching a few out more than one week. I didn't have Mystery Science when my older daughter was in first, we just did BFSU and child-led Astronomy, but my current Kindergartener will probably do 14 BFSU lessons spread out over the year and 10-12 Mysteries and that will be plenty.