I’ve been starting to think about next school year, making a
list of materials that we will need, and how or where we are going to be able
to get it. I will have a 4th grader and a 6th grader, and
one very active pre-schooler to keep busy. Alongside continuing studies in
Math, English, Latin and French, we will move forward in History to cover ca.
400AD – the Renaissance and all that it entails, including the development of
the church, geographic discoveries, scientific advancements, etc. I have to
admit that the Dark Ages was my least favorite time period to study during our last
round (four years ago), and I’ve therefore decided to make an extra effort this
academic year to spice up our studies.
We will also go all in when it comes to Science, although I
have yet to create the curriculum for this upcoming year.
The idea that we have been following all along our
home-schooling time suggests you divide Science into four blocks, following the
history curriculum, so that you study one part of the subject every year. The
first year of the cycle, which involves the study of Ancient times, offers a
science focus on Life Sciences, since people during this time were discovering their
own body and the living things around them. Then during the Middle Ages,
scientists turned their eyes to the sky, discovering planets (Astronomy), and
inwards, exploring our earth and all that it entails (Geology). The Early
Modern period offer insights into more detailed studies of matter (Chemistry),
and finally the Modern period, during year four of the cycle, focuses on modern
science; Physics and Technology.
Last year we threw out this division however, deciding that
it was too slow; our oldest student needed some physics to go along with his
math, and really, since Chemistry is so much fun, why only do it every four
years? Also, after you’ve studied the body and cells, you want to turn to atoms,
and after your study of rocks and minerals, the periodic table actually seems
interesting, but if you wait two years to go there, a lot of knowledge will have
disappeared and you can no longer make the connections that would help you
remember in the first place. So, we decided that the boys would learn about all
four areas of science each year, in quarter sections. We created a great
curriculum and had it all planned out.
it turns out however, that when you are used to such
in-depth studies at a slow but thorough pace, as we have been pursuing over the
past few years, shifting gears to go four times faster is difficult. We only
ended up sufficiently covering Life Sciences and Astronomy & Geology,
leaving most of Chemistry and Physics hanging. A fair share of this was made up
for during our trip to Italy though, where we visited a lot of science museums
and talked about the discoveries of the great Italian scientists during and
after the Renaissance. There are still a few holes that need to be filled out
though, however at this point I’m not sure exactly what or where.
So, it’s a bit of a mess, really.
Do we try to pick up where
we were and cover Chemistry and Physics only this year? This would be
absolutely contrary to any plan we ever had regarding the structure of our
Science curriculum. We can’t start over completely though with Life Sciences
again, because what if we never get past Geology again? I’m thinking we will
attempt a quarter session division again this year, but start with Chemistry and
Physics, and then try to be stricter with our time.
What does your science
curriculum look like?
Our family has always been a major consumer of baking soda and vinegar, both of which are very cheap here, thankfully. The boys have had a lot of fun with just these two substances on and off for a long time. Now imagine everyone's excitement when Santa Claus brought a real chemistry set, complete with test tubes, pipettes, magnetic iron shavings, and chemicals, among other things. Together with the microscope that we bought in Italy last summer, we're really rockin' it now!
Notice the (almost) four year old's face - he - especially - loves every moment of it (he doesn't have to write a paper or a report on every science experiment we do), and asks to do science at any odd hour of the day.