Update on BFSU

For science this past year, we started (finally) using Nebel's BFSU (Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding) curriculum. I last wrote about this back in December of 2011, so I need to give an update.

I still really love this curriculum, and think it is wonderful and comprehensive and accurate. It is a good fit for a more exploratory, hands-on style of learning, and is easily adapted to add more (or less) writing, books, videos, etc. It does take a bit of teacher preparation, depending on how much you want to add and how much you already know about science. If you're fairly competent at basic science, at least, then you could probably just open it up to a lesson and go through it with your kids, finding materials as you go for experiments or demonstrations, at least for most of the lessons. A little more preparation, like reading through the lesson first, will let you be more polished and cohesive in your lesson. And with a little more preparation, you can find videos and books to go along with the lesson to reinforce things and offer a different perspective. A few lessons will probably need materials you might need to get at a store or even order ahead of time.

We have a subscription to Discovery Education (through the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op), and so I decided to find videos to link to each lesson, covering at least a similar topic. I made my list into a file and put it on the kids' computer, so they can just open it up, click on the link they want, and watch the video. Sometimes the videos cover more than the BFSU lesson, or cover topics in a different order, or in some way aren't a complete match, but it still was very useful for my kids. They really love documentary-type videos. I plan to put my list on here soon for others to use, for at least the lessons I've done so far. I'm sure there are other sources of good videos too.

We did run into some problems using BFSU, though. The main issue was that my oldest, who is 8, got bored too quickly when I kept things at a level my 5 and 6 year olds could handle. She considered most of it to be below her (and a lot of it was, since she's done a lot of science already), and didn't really appreciate being lumped together with her younger siblings. I ended up just focusing the lesson on my younger children, and let her sit in the background doing whatever she wanted. I found that even though I told her she didn't need to participate, she still listened, especially when we covered something she hadn't heard before, or when we did an experiment or demonstration. It still didn't stimulate her as much as I would like, and I think she didn't get enough science this year (other than the resources she searched out herself - our bookshelf, and videos).

So, for next year, I will split them up, and do 2 different science classes - one for my oldest, and one for the younger 2. They may still listen to each other's lessons, but that will just be their choice.

Another issue was due mostly to me. I had a hard time scheduling lessons. I guess I need more structure. The free-flow method of BFSU - just picking a lesson to do next - didn't inspire me to prepare well enough. I did good at first, but then, especially as Rebekah zoned out, we did fewer and fewer lessons. I even had made a list of what order to do the lessons in, but we got sidetracked by other subjects too much, and science got pushed out. I think only scheduling it once a week was not good for us, since it was too easy to say, well, since we're busy/tired/bored, let's just do it a different day.

So, another change for next year is that I'm going to use something else as the main structure of our science plans, and just use BFSU to fill in where relevant. I'd still like to use most of BFSU, but we're going to try it differently this year, at least.

For my younger two, we are going to follow the schedule of Sonlight Science A, since I will be doing the Bible and history part of Core A with them this next year already. I will try to find which BFSU lessons might fit in with different topics, or we might just do BFSU on the side, when desired.

For my oldest, I asked her what main science topic she'd like to study this next year, and she said chemistry. So, I have pulled together a plan that combines many different resources, and will will do that 2-3 days a week. I have gotten a few chemistry experiment kits for us to do, and I will also go over the BFSU chemistry-releated lessons from Book 1 and Book 2, covering pre-requisites as needed. Other resources I am using are the sample lessons from R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey's Chemistry 1 course, Intellego Chemistry 1 and 2 for grades 3-5, and a selection of books from NOEO and Sonlight chemistry courses. I've made a lesson plan for the year, scheduling which chapters from which books and which experiments to do when. (I do like planning, I think I've said before.) I will make this plan available at some point, but I think I should go through it with my daughter this year first, since I'm sure we'll make changes along the way.

So, that's the plan, and my updated review of using BFSU. I will try to write more posts about science this next year as we get into it!

The Shower Tile

Our shower walls have brownish tile with lots of waves and squiggles and color variations, and I often imagine seeing images in the tiles while I shower, sort of like looking for objects in the clouds. This morning, one section of tile looked like a little bird, maybe a sparrow or something. I observed it more closely, trying to determine what patterns made it appear that way, and noticed that a curve here, a protrusion of color here, and the overall shape and size just managed to convey the outline of a sparrow. It had just enough detail to draw the eye and brain into filling in the rest with the appropriate details. This is how graphic artists, or even all artists, produce the impression of an object with just simple lines and shapes and colors.

Then I noticed a collection of shapes just below the little sparrow, and saw, instead, an eagle soaring in flight. Wings outspread, talons grasping forward, head and sharp beak poised in solemn control – a perfect image of a bird of prey.

So which was it? A dainty sparrow, or an attacking eagle?

Well, neither – it was a shower tile.

I then had the thought that we view life like this a lot of the time. We see or hear the outline of something, some vague report of a new thought or philosophy or theological truth or conspiracy, and we fill in the rest with our eyes and minds. We see this, or we see that, and we attack those who see something different. While in reality, it’s more like a shower tile. It’s not a new thought or profound philosophical revelation. It’s just some basic, simple fact or observation which we have blown all out of proportion. We add so much of ourselves to simple observations that it is hard to back off and see just the basic truth. We like to make so much of everything (like me making a philosophical discussion about a shower tile) that we tend to obscure the truth.

Father, please grant me the ability to see simple truth, and not try to make mysteries out of everything!

There is simple, non-relativistic, truth out there, but generations of human thought have managed to obscure so much. Whether we are modern, old-fashioned, realistic, a dreamer, atheistic, agnostic, liberal, conservative, an all-encompassing tolerant, mystical, simplistic, or whatever other label people might put on us, we all have moments of non-truth. Now, imagination and speculation are wonderful things, I agree, and there is definitely a place for dreaming, but we need reality too. I long for the day when we will no longer see things dimly, but will see things plainly and clearly. Face to face.

100th Post

According to my blog account, this is my 100th post! It seems appropriate to talk about math then, for this post, since it is of numerical importance.

We have been doing a lot of math lately, actually. I recently ordered some math manipulatives - unit cubes and tangrams. I've also stuck the MathTacular! video into the computer my 5-year-old son uses, and showed him how to play it.

So he's been playing it, and playing it, and playing it. I think he watched it for about 2 hours straight the other day, before I realized he was just sitting there for so long and made him go outside. ("Stop doing your math! Go outside and play!") He is enamored with Justin (the main actor in the video). He thinks he's hilarious. And I think my son has just about learned every kindergarten math concept in the past 3 days. He's been spouting out addition and subtraction facts, declaring numbers odd or even, counting up, counting down, counting by tens, and so on. I have MathTacular 2 and 3 also, and so my son has also watched the 2nd one, and enjoys it just as much. I think it's a little above him though, and he's mostly just watching it for Justin. I'm holding MathTacular 3 in reserve for later....

I have been thinking I would consider my son in kindergarten this next year, which is where he would be in public school, since he has a November birthday. But he has shown so much interest and improvement in math lately that I think I may go ahead and start him in Horizons Math 1 in the fall. After all, that's still quite a way off. I have some kindergarten workbooks, leftover from my girls, which I was going to use, but he may be already past those. They will be good practice off and on throughout this spring though, when he's not in preschool, and then in the summer. Then I'll check the readiness test for Horizons 1 and see if he's ready.

And yes, I've decided Horizons Math might be the best fit for him, and maybe for my middle daughter too. I did try Mathematical Reasoning this year for my middle daughter, after she grew frustrated and tired of CLE Math, and she loves the color and variety, but it just seems too disjointed to me, and doesn't flow well. There is little direct instruction too, but just problems. It is good for a supplement, and the more tricky problems are good to get kids to think about math differently, but I don't really like it for a complete program by itself. And it is rather expensive for a supplement.

I tried Mathematical Reasoning for my oldest daughter this year too, to supplement Life of Fred. I was worried that my daughter's computation skills were declining with just Life of Fred, so I wanted to add more worksheets. She likes parts of it ok, but she is really set on doing Life of Fred only. She stopped liking IXL Math after a month or two also, and would only do the simplest levels without protest.

And you have to understand, my oldest is incredibly stubborn. If she doesn't want to do something, she will protest mightily (usually by silently pouting, not with any loud demonstration), and if I force her, she will still learn absolutely nothing, and I will have wasted my time. So it is best for everyone to find something she likes. The more fun pages in Mathematical Reasoning she will do, but it was still not her favorite.

So I let her continue with just Life of Fred, and observed her math skills. What I found is that her ability to add and subtract multi-digit problems was actually improving, and her speed was increasing too. I would leave her with a "Row of Practice" to do (from Life of Fred), and she would finish long before I expected her to. And I found her knowing the answers to multiplication problems I didn't expect her to remember. All in all, I think Life of Fred is really going to work for her, with just a few additions of some word problem work (maybe I should try Singapore's Challenging Word Problems?). She is a reader, and a story-lover, and overall, my Charlotte-Mason style girl, so I guess Life of Fred is a perfect fit for her.

I did try some Miquon Math with my oldest too, and that was a total flop. Then I tried it with my middle girl - and she absolutely loved it! She is very active, and very hands-on and kinesthetic, so I guess it is obvious that the hands-on aspect of Miquon would appeal to her. She loves the Cuisinaire Rods - she was actually play-acting with them when I left her alone with a worksheet one day, making the rods talk to each other like with her dolls! ("I am a 2 and you are a 4, and together we are a 6!") I had been hesitant to try Miquon for a while, since it seemed complicated to teach, but once I actually just started using it, it was simple. The Annotated Lab Notes can be a lot to read at first, but once I realized that the information at the beginning of each section was just for me, and that I didn't need to figure out how to teach it all myself (the worksheets do that themselves), then it was simple. Plus, I've even been learning some math tricks I hadn't known before! Subtraction by place value is pretty cool.

So we've been doing mostly Miquon with her lately, with a few Mathematical Reasoning worksheets thrown in, but I do want to try Horizons with her next year. For one thing, Miquon only goes through about 3rd grade, so I'll need something else soon anyway. For another, she will like the colorful pages in Horizons as a nice contract to the single color Miquon worksheets. She is very quick at many things, if not gifted, so I think these 2 math programs together will be good for her. I'll have to give an update on what I think of Horizons after we've used it for a while.

So, Life of Fred for my oldest, Miquon and Horizons for my middle, and MathTacular and Horizons for my youngest. I may try Miquon for my youngest too (he's the one I originally got it for, after all), but we'll see. He didn't seem nearly as thrilled with the Cuisinaire Rods as I thought he would be. You may think me crazy to be trying out all these different math programs, especially since at the beginning of homeschooling, I was set on using one program only from start to finish, saying that jumping from one to another was counter-productive. Well, my youngest two are still mostly at the very beginning anyway. And I really love math. If I were to teach anything to other people's children, I think it would have to be math (or science, but I digress). I am loving experimenting with all these different programs just for myself. And, it is letting me find the best fit for each of my very different children.