Rough Draft Science Curriculum: pre-k - 3rd/4th grade

This is actually more a list of rescources than a day-to-day curriculum.  I think that what is covered in a day or week or trimester will vary greatly, so I'll leave it open for now.

Also, I think I have an advantage because I LOVE math and science so much.  Many people are daunted by these subjects.  I, on the other hand, cannot WAIT to get into these materials and teach (and relearn) such fascinating stuff, from a new perspective (natural history).


Nature Study:

The Handbook of Nature Study
One Small Square series
Let's Read and Find Out series
Burgess Bird Book for Children
Various field guides for our region
Learning to identify plants (emphasized) and animals
Keeping a nature journal, as per Charlotte Mason's methods
Vocabulary of plant and animal parts, plant and animal life-cycles

Science:

Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding
Simple machines experiments, and any others that come up and are appropriate
Science in Ancient Greece
Archimedes and the Door of Science
 The Librarian who measured the Earth
Science in Ancient Rome
Galen and the Gateway to Medecine
Blood and Guts (maybe, I'm not thrilled with this one, but will use it as a place holder until I find a human body book or medical history book for kids that I like better)
The Body Book
Something on nutrition
Inventing the Future

I expect this general curriculum outline to be sufficient material for pre-k through 3rd-4th grade or so.

There is a lot of flexibility here.  Many of these books are to be read like stories.  Some of them have very involved projects and experiments.  Some are actual science "lessons" to be taught in a more traditional format.  Hopefully this will appeal to many learning styles and intelligences, until we figure out how Eliot and Ivy learn best.

Things that will NOT be in our curriculum:
Random and disconnected science experiments.  (Unless, of course, we are on our third straight week of rain or snow.)

Science Heirarchy, Charlotte Mason and Classical Education

I keep coming back to the two methods mentioned above as my leading favorites in the homeschool style debate.  However, I don't think either one places adequate emphasis on math or science.  I should say, my two favorite CM websites, Ambleside Online and Mater Amabilis don't address math at all (up to the parents to find the curriculum) and science is, in my opinion, put in the backseat- 2-3 short lessons per week, in addition to nature study.  And I don't even want to get into religious biology texts... 



But, they do appear to approach science in a hierarchical manner, because they approach science as a history subject, and a lot of the science teachings correspond with the history books being read about Ancient Greece and Rome.  Not a bad system. 

As I already talked about, natural history seems to be an excellent start to a science education.  Here is the definition of Natural History, from wikipedia:

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals.^[1] Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms. That is a very broad designation in a world filled with many narrowly focused disciplines. So while modern natural history dates historically from studies in the ancient Greco-Roman world and the medieval Arabic world through to the scattered European Renaissance scientists working in near isolation, today's field is more of a cross discipline umbrella of many specialty sciences.

This seems to fit perfectly with the Charlotte Mason and Classical Education approach to science.  In terms of experiments, the child is doing mostly observational studies out in nature (nature study), which includes keeping a journal (for older kids) or a classification binder (my personal addition for the pre-writing crowd), and making collections (leaves, flowers, edible things from a garden, bugs...).  Starting in kindergarten or first grade, the child can add in science (not replacing nature study) as a formal subject.  After combing through the two websites mentioned above, and doing some research in the homeschooling forums, I feel ready to put together a very rough draft for the next few years.  See my next post. 

John Holt, Unschooling, and Tom Sawyer

John Holt is one of the big (if not the biggest) names in the unschooling movement.  I have just opened up his How Children Learn, and very uncharacteristically for me, started randomly reading as I flipped through it.

Something to think on:  A lot of his "experiments" with first graders involved him sitting in the corner of a classroom and doing some activity (making a huge number line, building boxes from paper, playing with balances and weights).  Inevitably, a child would wander over and watch for a bit, and maybe ask a question or two.  "What are you doing?" was always answered with something like, "Oh just messing around with these numbers/boxes/balances".  Eventually another child, or a steady stream of children would begin to drift by, stopping to watch, mostly silently.

Finally, a child or two would pick up some of the materials, or ask for some if they were not available, and then begin doing his own similar project, occasionally returning to Holt's desk if he got to a sticking point or needed to observe again.  Soon, the entire class would be industriously working at the project, and some would modify it, making number lines into the thousands, building houses with peaked roofs instaed of boxes, figuring out the basics of torque using balances and weights.

It reminds me of Tom Sawyer tricking his friends into not only whitewashing the fence, but paying him for the priveledge!

And it makes me reconsider if unschooling may be for me after all.  I think my main opposition, that certain materials might not be covered, or covered in an order that doesn't respect a certain information hierarchy, could be dealt with.  And in a way, life itself is simply unschooling.  Could we unschool for a portion of the day, and tackle a more structured method for the rest?

Can I create Tom Sawyer situations so that the desire and fascination to copy my task is a natural thing, rather than saying, "Ok, today we are going to build boxes"?  The problem here, is that it turns unschooling into something that require significant thought on the part of the parent for younger children- it's just not quite as easy as letting them loose.  And so I think unschooling might get a bit of a bad reputation when people like me have just enough information to be afraid of it, but no more.  So I'll put it back on the drawing board.

Charlotte Mason's quote along these lines,

"A child will have taught himself to paint, paste, cut paper, knit, weave, hammer and saw, make lovely things in clay and sand, build castles with his bricks; possibly too, will have taught himself to read, write, and do sums, besides acquiring no end ofknowledge and notions about the world he lives in, by the time he is six or seven. What I contend for is that he shall do these things because he chooses (provided that the standard of perfection in his small works be set before him)."

Montessori's thoughts:

The "prepared environment" is Maria Montessori's concept that the environment can be designed to facilitate maximum independent learning and exploration by the child.

Anyway, just a brief look at what I'm reflecting on this week