Whole to Parts Ideas for History & Science?

[bnwhitaker]

I'm new to learning about this.  Can you guys give me ideas of what would be whole to parts for History and or Science please?

[Lori D.]

If you're thinking esp. of whole-to-parts because you have a visual-spatial learner, that also usually involves the other aspects of how they take in information (visually, and/or hands-on) and process information in the brain -- concrete vs. abstract; random vs. sequential; and then, of course the whole-to-parts vs. parts-to-whole, which is intuiting pattern/big picture first vs. needing step-by-step build up to the big ta-da conclusion.

What does that look like? It will depend on the specific student, and whether they have a high need for hands-on, an/or visuals, but... a lot of exploration and student-directed learning works great for History and Science in the K-8 range. For example: for Science, visual TV shows -- like Magic School Bus (gr. k-5), Bill Nye the Science Guy (gr. 3-6), and Mythbusters (gr. 5 or 6+) -- are great. Also kits for exploration. Integrated science programs. For History: unit studies; hands-on history projects or recreating (clothing, food, games, etc.). You can create a wall timeline to keep track of the units or to see those patterns/connections, and remember from year to year what was learned. For either History or Science take a look at Eyewitness books with 2-page spreads and loads of visuals and 'snippets' of info in the captions, and then when a particular topic strikes the student's interest, dig deeper with full-length books on the topic.

For my VS learner, it needed to be: concrete, visual or hands-on, and *have clear meaning and purpose* (so focusing on dates in history, not so much, lol), Also, there was much more success when it was a topic that had caught his interest (so when he developed a fascination for weapons, we could follow that trail through history and through various cultures, which also brought in other great History info and topics along the way).

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by Lori D.

[EKS]

Read history and science aloud.  Discuss.  Write about what is interesting.  Do a bit of hands on work in science.  Don't drill vocabulary or dates.  

Easy.

[Farrar]

I think whole to parts as an approach to content subjects is to cover them really broadly in the grammar stage (the whole) and let kids dive in once they get to the logic or rhetoric stages (parts).

If your kids do better with a big picture first approach, I would look for books and documentaries that give that big picture and follow it up with things that dive in with more depth. But I think you need to be more specific than this. Like, I can think of a few things - like that DK book A Street Through Time would be "whole" to me for history - massive sweep of centuries in a giant book. And then you'd follow that up with, say, a specific historical fiction read aloud about a specific time. But because of the nature and the age, I think you have to keep returning to those sorts of "whole" touchstones and then back to those "parts" as a sort of tension. Basically, I think it plays out differently than in skill subjects like math and writing.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

I wonder if various history/science through a particular lens type resources might also be whole to parts.  For example. I'm having my kids read through a book called "50 Plants that changed the world."  First, we read specific chapters that related to events in our chronological history- notably the tea chapter and the cotton chapter as we study early American history.  This book takes the topic of a plant, such as tea, and brings us from the first cultivators or tea through to the Boston Tea Party and beyond.  Following one theme like this is a great alternate approach and helps synthesize across long timelines.  Other books, like the Imponderables series (Why do clocks run clockwise series) are going to integrate across many topics as well.  Personally, I think this integration, as opposed to a whole-to-parts vs parts-to-whole makes more sense.  Approach your subject from two directions:

- step-by-step typical science or history approach

- integration texts that pull lots of concepts across the curriculum together

 

For science, we're doing The Story of Science- read independently- in addition to a standard science class taught by me.  We then add books like the two mentioned above for integration.  

For history, we are doing SOTW3, The Drama of American History, historical fiction, and books like the plants book that try to integrate single topics over large spans of time.  

 

Back to your actual OP.  I would imagine studying history by looking at the major stages of human development before diving into topics would be cool: hunter-gatherer to agricultural revolution to industrial revolution to digital revolution, for example.  

A course like Big History might also be an option for an overview of both science and history before deep diving.  Or a very short resource like "A Little History of the World" over the course of a month before attempting the 4 year cycle.  A book *about* history as a field of study is also a great top-down view.