BFSU for middle school?

[TheAttachedMama]

I am researching science options for my rising 5th and 6th-grade kids.   

 

My 6th-grade son is very advanced in science (mostly because he LOVES it and reads a lot in his spare time.)   My 5th-grade daughter is not very interested, so she is mainly tagging along (or being dragged along depending on your viewpoint) for the ride.  :)

 

I wanted to get some more information on using BFSU for middle school.

 

Is it possible to just "start" with the middle school volume?   How hard is this program to teach?

 

Edited March 18, 2018 by TheAttachedMama

[Porridge]

The program is layered, meaning each lesson builds upon knowledge or principles from prior lessons. I am only midway through book 2, so I haven't done the middle school book. However, if your child hasn't had a strong background in science principles prior to this, I think it may be hard to dive into BFSU. You may want to buy the previous books for reference, in case you need to fill in back-knowledge.

 

BFSU does not "look" easy to teach. I think a lot of people get frustrated because it lacks structure and requires the parent to figure out how to present the material. It took me a few years to find a system that is currently working for us. However, I need to do prep work. It is not open and go for me. (I have a very strong science background.)  I first figure out how many sections I want to cover per year, then break that into x sections per 12 week quarter.  Every 12 weeks or so (or when I can find time), I go through all the lessons and chunk them out into very bite size pieces -- I mean 10-15 minutes, 20 min tops. I present these chunks as "science question of the day." We discuss it in the morning over breakfast / morning time. Sometimes we plan for longer sessions if there is an experiment or demo that I feel would benefit the kids. We actually don't do any additional reading. I tried checking out the books referenced in BFSU but very few of them were compelling for my kids (but my kids have a strong science background, so alot of the books were review or the presentation was too dry).

 

This is working for us for now. I don't know about whether this system could work with book 3, though.

 

[Miss Tick]

I finished the third book with my twins last year and am midway through the second book with my younger dd.

 

You CAN start in the third book, but it might be difficult to feel confident you have covered all the suggested precedent lessons without some research. You could do the precedents on the fly if you are strong in science, but that may be tricky. If you have the desire, and some time for planning, you could group the lessons and their precedents and start each chunk of lessons with a diy placement test. Could be fun! "Is any one surprised to discover that air is made of matter? Takes up volume? Composed of different gases? Can you tell me what you know about how a stream engine works? An internal combustion engine works?"

 

I suspect you will have more of an issue, perhaps, that your dd doesn't have as much or as deep a background as your ds, and he may find it tedious reviewing prerequisites.

 

In the first BFSU book I could pretty much wing a lesson in the moment, but for the Second and third books I made up colorful worksheets to summarize and reinforce the lessons. It is totally not an open and go program, and I've seen enough people on the boards give up on it that I rarely bother recommending it anymore. My dc have comprehensive notebooks with all the lessons in them from all three books. We still occasionally refer back to them. I really liked the program, but it is not ready to pull off.

 

If I haven't talked you out of it, I would recommend buying the third book and then buying ebooks of the first two to have I hand for reference.

[daijobu]

For some reason, the thing that comes to mind is the part about the energies: potential, kinetic, chemical, etc.  I think that's introduced in BFSU at an early age, whereas I don't think I learned this until high school.  If you start BFSU you may want to make sure he's familiar with it.  

[TheAttachedMama]

I finished the third book with my twins last year and am midway through the second book with my younger dd.

 

You CAN start in the third book, but it might be difficult to feel confident you have covered all the suggested precedent lessons without some research. You could do the precedents on the fly if you are strong in science, but that may be tricky. If you have the desire, and some time for planning, you could group the lessons and their precedents and start each chunk of lessons with a diy placement test. Could be fun! "Is any one surprised to discover that air is made of matter? Takes up volume? Composed of different gases? Can you tell me what you know about how a stream engine works? An internal combustion engine works?"

 

I suspect you will have more of an issue, perhaps, that your dd doesn't have as much or as deep a background as your ds, and he may find it tedious reviewing prerequisites.

 

In the first BFSU book I could pretty much wing a lesson in the moment, but for the Second and third books I made up colorful worksheets to summarize and reinforce the lessons. It is totally not an open and go program, and I've seen enough people on the boards give up on it that I rarely bother recommending it anymore. My dc have comprehensive notebooks with all the lessons in them from all three books. We still occasionally refer back to them. I really liked the program, but it is not ready to pull off.

 

If I haven't talked you out of it, I would recommend buying the third book and then buying ebooks of the first two to have I hand for reference.

 

Your post cracked me up.   And you have totally talked me out of it!  ;)   (just kidding.)