Science

[Condessa]

Do you have any recommendations for a science that can be done without intensive teacher involvement by 10-12 year olds, that is actually worth the time?

We have done Dr. Nebel's books in the past, and loved them, but recently I am maxed out.  This past year the olders did some of Ellen McHenry's The Elements independently, we did a few MEL science kits, and memorized the periodic table song.  For the entire year.  And that was okay, for crisis mode, but I don't want my kids' science education to stay in crisis mode long term.  I think I will enroll my youngers in a fun online class from AAA, but I need something that doesn't involve a lot of teaching time for my olders.  (My 7-year-old is on chemo and I am having a baby this Fall.)  Is there anything like this that they will actually learn from?  I know it's a long shot to find anything that is largely independent and still quality academics, but I don't want to bother if it is just going to be fluff.

This is for 5th & 7th grades.

[Slache]

Would you consider a reading list with no labs? Perhaps Beautiful Feet Books History of Science?

[8filltheheart]

My kids' science educations all the way until high school level science courses are designed around reading books and watching documentaries on a wide variety of science topics.  I don't do science experiments with them when they are younger.   We do things that we normally do as a family anyway like hike and make observations, etc.  My 6th grade dd and 5th grade granddaughter are currently studying navigation.  My dh and oldest ds (granddaughter's dad) will be taking them camping doing orienteering with them. 

FWIW, never having used a science textbook, science program, or elementary labs has not hampered my kids at all.  3 of them so far have gone on to pursue science fields (chemE, physics, and atmospheric science.)  Reading/documentaries have provided them solid science foundations for tackling high school/college science courses.

[kristin0713]

If you are ok with buying supplies and if your kids are independent enough to watch an engaging teacher and do experiments pretty much on their own, I highly recommend Supercharged Science.  My son did the live classes last year and loved them.  Prior to that, we just subscribed to e-science and worked through the recorded videos.  Aurora Lipper is an amazing teacher and my son learned an incredible amount from her. It can be hard to wrap your brain around the options in her program. The main website is kind of poorly designed and hard to navigate.  It was worth it for me because the instruction was excellent and it kept my son excited and engaged.  I did supervise him for a lot of experiments because he wanted to do advanced stuff, but she teaches the kids in a way that they can take ideas and run with it.  

[Clemsondana]

I have specific goals for 8th grade and one of the 2 other middle school years, but this year my younger is in their flexible year.  Since we added a greenhouse, potato bags, and an asparagus bed  to our usual large garden, we decided to do a horticulture class with a bit of cooking chemistry in the winter when it's too cold to be working on garden things.  It was a flexible plan.  We're finishing our first week, and so far kiddo has decided to investigate a different topic each day and do a little bit of drawing/journaling about it.  Kid either looks through a book (some illustrated garden books, books that we use for garden advice, seed catalogs, etc) to get an idea or takes a question that they have asked and then they use books or the internet to learn about it.  They then fill a page in a small sketchbook with some sentences and drawings.  The topics that I remember from this week involve some research after reading that hair can be a component of compost, research into the propagation of the sweet potato after asking why they flower if you start them from sets, some research about how to grow green onions after wondering why ours didn't sprout (they need deeper soil), and, after asking why yogurt with fruit was an OK breakfast but peach ice cream isn't, kid looked up probiotics and then made fruit-and-yogurt popsicles so that they could feel like they were having dessert for breakfast.  It's not deep research, but I figure if they learn a bit about 150 topics over the course of the year, we'll consider it a victory. 

[PeterPan]

4 hours ago, Condessa said:

Do you have any recommendations for a science that can be done without intensive teacher involvement by 10-12 year olds, that is actually worth the time?

https://www.creativeteaching.com/products/power-practice-physical-science

I found this series at the education store today. The physical science 5-8 might work for your kids if they're on the advanced side. I'm thinking I'll get the gr 3-4 and the gr 5-6 books for my ds. (He has language issues, so I want to fill in holes with the language of science.) And honestly, for him the physical science, life science, and human body books, all marked gr5-8, will probably be vigorous enough to be his high school. 

The series comes as both ebook or print. It's not a textbook, more of a workbook. For the elementary books (3-4, 5-6) I think it will be easy to use general books on the topics. Really, we've probably read them and I just want to throw pages at him so he can focus on the language. If you want some kind of spine, you could probably throw at them physics 101 and chem 101 (the dvds) or just anything general and it would be adequate. Or don't bother and tell them to use google and figure it out, lol. Wikipedia probably has everything they need.

[Not_a_Number]

We've been phenomenally lazy with science, because we're pretty maxed out with math/Russian/music/DD9's amazing ability to not do things she doesn't want to do 😛 . So while we've dabble with BFSU and will probably do so again, most of our science is really just reading fun books. We've spent the year reading graphic novels about evolution and DNA, for example. 

I honestly think that this kind of "building of general knowledge" approach isn't a bad way to go. There's very little real science kids can do before their math is up for it, anyway...

Now, my kids is younger than the ages you're aiming at, but I can absolutely imagine doing the same in middle school. 

[Moonhawk]

I am a champion of Creek Edge Press cards for science topics. They have been a great way for me to get the kids doing their own researching in a directed and planned out way. You give them the cards, which tells them a topic, what to research, and then usually some type of "make a booklet" or "make a poster" or "list 5 types..." etc. Each card takes about a week (or 4-5 hours). It can be flexed to the level of your kids; we started with these cards 3 years ago, so ages 7 and 9. This method still works, just higher expectations of their writing and research. I review their work once a week, it doesn't take long, and ask them verbal questions about what they learned as well just to make sure they got some depth to their understanding. This year I'm requiring MPA type works cited and a few other things to level up their work.

The main thing with this method is you have to supply all the research materials. I have a whole shelf of books related to their science topic for the year. Last year I also provided a few apps. They have some basic computer access also. Sometimes the cards have an activity they can't really do on their own, I usually cross it out. 

I don't recommend chemistry in this method if you aren't able to supervise an experiment once a week. We did cards + MEL science kits and it worked, but I still have like 3 or 4 science kits we never got to. 

 

[cougarmom4]

We like the ScienceFusion work texts that I purchased on Amazon. 
Kind of “textbooky” but I loved how it included tips on how to learn from a text….it would have you read a section and then have questions to help you think through what you just read.

[Condessa]

12 hours ago, Slache said:

Would you consider a reading list with no labs? Perhaps Beautiful Feet Books History of Science?

 

12 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:

My kids' science educations all the way until high school level science courses are designed around reading books and watching documentaries on a wide variety of science topics.  I don't do science experiments with them when they are younger.   We do things that we normally do as a family anyway like hike and make observations, etc.  My 6th grade dd and 5th grade granddaughter are currently studying navigation.  My dh and oldest ds (granddaughter's dad) will be taking them camping doing orienteering with them. 

FWIW, never having used a science textbook, science program, or elementary labs has not hampered my kids at all.  3 of them so far have gone on to pursue science fields (chemE, physics, and atmospheric science.)  Reading/documentaries have provided them solid science foundations for tackling high school/college science courses.

I would be okay with a primarily-reading approach w/ documentaries added in, but feel like we need more of a plan/structure than last year to make this approach work well for us.  I will look into Beautiful Feet science, I am not familiar with those.  8, do you have any recommendations for which books and documentaries you would recommend?

[Condessa]

10 hours ago, kristin0713 said:

If you are ok with buying supplies and if your kids are independent enough to watch an engaging teacher and do experiments pretty much on their own, I highly recommend Supercharged Science.  My son did the live classes last year and loved them.  Prior to that, we just subscribed to e-science and worked through the recorded videos.  Aurora Lipper is an amazing teacher and my son learned an incredible amount from her. It can be hard to wrap your brain around the options in her program. The main website is kind of poorly designed and hard to navigate.  It was worth it for me because the instruction was excellent and it kept my son excited and engaged.  I did supervise him for a lot of experiments because he wanted to do advanced stuff, but she teaches the kids in a way that they can take ideas and run with it.  

This sounds like a good option, but we can't afford to add another online class this year.  (In either our time or money budget.  Oldest is taking a number of online classes this year.)

[Condessa]

10 hours ago, Clemsondana said:

I have specific goals for 8th grade and one of the 2 other middle school years, but this year my younger is in their flexible year.  Since we added a greenhouse, potato bags, and an asparagus bed  to our usual large garden, we decided to do a horticulture class with a bit of cooking chemistry in the winter when it's too cold to be working on garden things.  It was a flexible plan.  We're finishing our first week, and so far kiddo has decided to investigate a different topic each day and do a little bit of drawing/journaling about it.  Kid either looks through a book (some illustrated garden books, books that we use for garden advice, seed catalogs, etc) to get an idea or takes a question that they have asked and then they use books or the internet to learn about it.  They then fill a page in a small sketchbook with some sentences and drawings.  The topics that I remember from this week involve some research after reading that hair can be a component of compost, research into the propagation of the sweet potato after asking why they flower if you start them from sets, some research about how to grow green onions after wondering why ours didn't sprout (they need deeper soil), and, after asking why yogurt with fruit was an OK breakfast but peach ice cream isn't, kid looked up probiotics and then made fruit-and-yogurt popsicles so that they could feel like they were having dessert for breakfast.  It's not deep research, but I figure if they learn a bit about 150 topics over the course of the year, we'll consider it a victory. 

I love the idea of doing gardening/horticulture with a journaling component, especially for my dd10 who loves her plants and art.  This might be a wonderful option in the spring that could be pretty independent.

[Condessa]

8 hours ago, PeterPan said:

https://www.creativeteaching.com/products/power-practice-physical-science

I found this series at the education store today. The physical science 5-8 might work for your kids if they're on the advanced side. I'm thinking I'll get the gr 3-4 and the gr 5-6 books for my ds. (He has language issues, so I want to fill in holes with the language of science.) And honestly, for him the physical science, life science, and human body books, all marked gr5-8, will probably be vigorous enough to be his high school. 

The series comes as both ebook or print. It's not a textbook, more of a workbook. For the elementary books (3-4, 5-6) I think it will be easy to use general books on the topics. Really, we've probably read them and I just want to throw pages at him so he can focus on the language. If you want some kind of spine, you could probably throw at them physics 101 and chem 101 (the dvds) or just anything general and it would be adequate. Or don't bother and tell them to use google and figure it out, lol. Wikipedia probably has everything they need.

I'll look into these more.

[Condessa]

2 hours ago, Moonhawk said:

I am a champion of Creek Edge Press cards for science topics. They have been a great way for me to get the kids doing their own researching in a directed and planned out way. You give them the cards, which tells them a topic, what to research, and then usually some type of "make a booklet" or "make a poster" or "list 5 types..." etc. Each card takes about a week (or 4-5 hours). It can be flexed to the level of your kids; we started with these cards 3 years ago, so ages 7 and 9. This method still works, just higher expectations of their writing and research. I review their work once a week, it doesn't take long, and ask them verbal questions about what they learned as well just to make sure they got some depth to their understanding. This year I'm requiring MPA type works cited and a few other things to level up their work.

The main thing with this method is you have to supply all the research materials. I have a whole shelf of books related to their science topic for the year. Last year I also provided a few apps. They have some basic computer access also. Sometimes the cards have an activity they can't really do on their own, I usually cross it out. 

I don't recommend chemistry in this method if you aren't able to supervise an experiment once a week. We did cards + MEL science kits and it worked, but I still have like 3 or 4 science kits we never got to. 

This one doesn't really sound like our style.  The "make a booklet" and "make a poster" type projects drove me crazy when I was in school.  Thank you for the idea, though.

[Shoeless]

Did they like the Ellen McHenry unit? If so, I'd do more of those but cherry-pick or drop the activities you don't have the energy to deal with. The botany course is good; the content is solid and it's very interesting. There are activities, but you don't really have to do them if you don't have the time or energy for it. 

You could also look at Guest Hollow's jr Anatomy course; both kids could do it. It's on sale with code wow35! until August 21st. Guest Hollow Jr. Anatomy

[8filltheheart]

5 hours ago, Condessa said:

 

I would be okay with a primarily-reading approach w/ documentaries added in, but feel like we need more of a plan/structure than last year to make this approach work well for us.  I will look into Beautiful Feet science, I am not familiar with those.  8, do you have any recommendations for which books and documentaries you would recommend?

What do they want to learn about?  I would start there.  For example, say they want to learn about astronomy.  I do a web search for astronomy for older kids and see what comes up.  I go to Amazon and search astronomy for kids.  That will then allow  me to refine my search by age (9-12).  I go through those.  I I also have the library extension on my browser, so when I search for books, the extension lets me know if my library carries that book.  I would let the kids look through the online previews (or sometimes Hoopla will have the entire ebook) and let them decide if that is a book they want to read.  

For example, a quick search brought up this list: Space & Astronomy Books for 11-13 Year Olds | Scholastic | Parents I would then quickly browse the titles and look at individual books that I thought might work.  Or this list which has a middle school list about 1/2 way down the pg: 30 Space and Astronomy Books for Children – Science Books for Kids (growingwithscience.com), etc.  Finding book recommendations is definitely not hard.  

(ETA: My other go-to source for book lists is NTSA award winners.  Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K–12 | NSTA  Last year we read through several and they were great.  All in a Drop All in a Drop: How Antony van Leeuwenhoek Discovered an Invisible World: Alexander, Lori, Mildenberger, Vivien: 9781328884206: Amazon.com: Books was excellent and led to all sorts of discussions and looking things under our microscope. )

I would then search for best astronomy documentaries for children and go from there. (FWIW, finding books and documentaries only takes me a very short time.  With the library extension on my browser, it makes it incredibly easy if I want to control costs by limiting to what my library has.)

If you want to be organized, you can ask them now what sort of things they want to study and go ahead and do a search of the topics.  You can search for titles and then put them in an Amazon wishlist or save for later so that you have an easy way to access the titles in the future.  

I have my kids write reports on whatever I specifically decide I want them to focus on in greater depth from their science reading.  So, say for astronomy, I might pick missions to mars and have them research what is going on right now and why.  Or I might choose something like types of stars or black holes.  With kids your ages, I might assign them each a different topics and have them work on a PP presentation together and do a family astronomy night where they present their PP before astronomy-based movie night, etc.  They could create an astronomy kids magazine with a bunch of smaller topics and write small "articles" and print up pictures to accompany them.  The options are pretty unlimited.

Edited August 7, 2021 by 8filltheheart

[kristin0713]

Exploration Education might be a good fit. It’s a physical science course and there are three levels. My son did it in 5th/6th grade very independently. He’s pretty advanced in this area so I bought him the highest level. It has an online textbook with short video clip demonstrations and comes with everything for all experiments. 

[Moonhawk]

6 hours ago, Condessa said:

This one doesn't really sound like our style.  The "make a booklet" and "make a poster" type projects drove me crazy when I was in school.  Thank you for the idea, though.

Yeah, we typically change all of the poster and booklet things into "write a paper" or "summarize." I don't have room for posters, lol. So the kids do a write up instead and print it out. I'll ask for a drawing on the back side of the paper, though, if it's something like label the parts of a plant. 

But, understand it's not for everyone. Good luck finding a good fit!

[Condessa]

14 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:

What do they want to learn about?  I would start there.  For example, say they want to learn about astronomy.  I do a web search for astronomy for older kids and see what comes up.  I go to Amazon and search astronomy for kids.  That will then allow  me to refine my search by age (9-12).  I go through those.  I I also have the library extension on my browser, so when I search for books, the extension lets me know if my library carries that book.  I would let the kids look through the online previews (or sometimes Hoopla will have the entire ebook) and let them decide if that is a book they want to read.  

For example, a quick search brought up this list: Space & Astronomy Books for 11-13 Year Olds | Scholastic | Parents I would then quickly browse the titles and look at individual books that I thought might work.  Or this list which has a middle school list about 1/2 way down the pg: 30 Space and Astronomy Books for Children – Science Books for Kids (growingwithscience.com), etc.  Finding book recommendations is definitely not hard.  

(ETA: My other go-to source for book lists is NTSA award winners.  Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K–12 | NSTA  Last year we read through several and they were great.  All in a Drop All in a Drop: How Antony van Leeuwenhoek Discovered an Invisible World: Alexander, Lori, Mildenberger, Vivien: 9781328884206: Amazon.com: Books was excellent and led to all sorts of discussions and looking things under our microscope. )

I would then search for best astronomy documentaries for children and go from there. (FWIW, finding books and documentaries only takes me a very short time.  With the library extension on my browser, it makes it incredibly easy if I want to control costs by limiting to what my library has.)

If you want to be organized, you can ask them now what sort of things they want to study and go ahead and do a search of the topics.  You can search for titles and then put them in an Amazon wishlist or save for later so that you have an easy way to access the titles in the future.  

I have my kids write reports on whatever I specifically decide I want them to focus on in greater depth from their science reading.  So, say for astronomy, I might pick missions to mars and have them research what is going on right now and why.  Or I might choose something like types of stars or black holes.  With kids your ages, I might assign them each a different topics and have them work on a PP presentation together and do a family astronomy night where they present their PP before astronomy-based movie night, etc.  They could create an astronomy kids magazine with a bunch of smaller topics and write small "articles" and print up pictures to accompany them.  The options are pretty unlimited.

Thank you very much.  I’m tentatively thinking biology, but I’ll talk to them and see what they are wanting to learn.

Edited August 8, 2021 by Condessa

[LMD]

Paul Fleisher's Secrets of the Universe series. Very readable.

Sabbath mood homeschool has excellent lists of science living books and also lessons plans.

[Sarah0000]

Beautiful Feet History of Science uses The Way Science Works which does has lots of labs with household supplies that can be done mostly independently for students at those ages.

[Condessa]

So we've settled on life science, going reading-heavy with some documentaries, reports, and projects added in.  I'm building a long list of books and other resources to work with.  I think this format will really work well for fitting around the weeks when I am spending tons of time on medical stuff.  Rather than having the youngers do their own thing, I am going to have ds 9 (4th) do this with his big sisters, albeit with lighter writing assignments, and just let ds7 tag along when he feels up to it and let that be enough for his science.  Thank you all for your help.

[8filltheheart]

@Condessa best wishes for good year. Prayers for healing for your 7 yo and a healthy baby.

[Condessa]

1 hour ago, 8filltheheart said:

@Condessa best wishes for good year. Prayers for healing for your 7 yo and a healthy baby.

Thank you.

[Melissa in Australia]

I see you have found something

i highly recommend the readers digest how science works, how the earth works, how nature works, how the body works, how things work, how the universe works. They were recommended in the second edition of WTM. That list takes about 3 years to do. All my older children did them and it is what gave them their great love of science. They can be done semi independently. We didn’t do every single experiment. Some were too elaborate. But all the experiments work and most can be done with everyday household items. We absolutely loved it

[2_girls_mommy]

I got my 7th grader a Funschooling core journal for that year, and we set up a set of documentaries and a couple of resource books that she used.  So she would open up the funschooling book to whatever the page of the day was and did what it said.  The core journals are set up to be used as a full curriculum (or a set of notebooking pages that can be used with any curriculum,) so there is a math page too.  We had curriculum for everything else, so on the math page day, we had a math game we would do, so it was something different from her regular math.  But on the reading pages, she read from her books and wrote short summaries and drew diagrams.  On the film study pages, she watched an episode of her documentaries.  There are specific science journals that won't have math pages, daily journal pages, or whatever, but we liked the variety.  So she just did an hour of her journal each day, which created a little unit study around her science that year. 

Another one she did well with as a middle schooler was the Berean Builder series, just using the older student journal prompts.  She could do all of the little experiments on her own with that, all from the house usually. Don't think I bought anything special.

[kiwik]

On 8/8/2021 at 1:46 AM, Moonhawk said:

Yeah, we typically change all of the poster and booklet things into "write a paper" or "summarize." I don't have room for posters, lol. So the kids do a write up instead and print it out. I'll ask for a drawing on the back side of the paper, though, if it's something like label the parts of a plant. 

But, understand it's not for everyone. Good luck finding a good fit!

I am considering 'do a PowerPoint slide" for history.  Steal a picture somewhere, add dates and a few sentences/paragraphs.  It might work for science too.  At the moment our science is one episode of crash course history of science and 20 to 30 minutes of a random documentary from curiousity stream.  I think we won't do a formal course until high school (years 9 to 13 here)(grades 8 to 12 equivalent)

[Moonhawk]

7 hours ago, kiwik said:

I am considering 'do a PowerPoint slide" for history.  Steal a picture somewhere, add dates and a few sentences/paragraphs.  It might work for science too.  At the moment our science is one episode of crash course history of science and 20 to 30 minutes of a random documentary from curiousity stream.  I think we won't do a formal course until high school (years 9 to 13 here)(grades 8 to 12 equivalent)

Last year the kids used Powerpoint (Keynote) for some of their science reports. Well, the youngest did it for everything, the other two randomly. I think it works great and they tend to enjoy it. The one suggestion I have for this is that you limit the number of transitions/effects they are allowed to put on each slide LOL. It got to the point every slide had around 30 seconds of effects while changing: flames, 3Dcoloring, letters falling off or flying into place, LOL. But they enjoyed it so I didn't limit after the fact.  But yeah...be forewarned! 😉