Our Science & History Course

This year for science I wanted my kids to have a good foundation of the whole scope of science. I wanted to cover it by using lots of different resources that would help my kids make connections. I wanted a foundation that stayed with them and one that they enjoyed laying. Originally we had decided to start this year with a large amount of time and focus on Science and then for the second semester do History. When it came time to switch there was a loud outcry and I relented. We are now continuing our dive into science. I realized that all along we have been studying history with our science and so now have dubbed this year's history course as "The History of Science". Here is an overview of what we are doing:

1. Our main course is "The Joy of Science" from the Teaching Company which is a DVD course. Since the beginning of the year we have added "The Joy of Thinking". In the beginning when I tried DVD classes they did not work. Teens complain about school TV and they also sleep through them. So this time I started off by explaining that they were conditioned to expect entertainment from that TV sitting in front of them. THIS time they were NOT to expect entertainment but a fun version of LEARNING. I also started this year with sitting and watching every class with them. Not only am I ready to pause the class and comment I can see who looks "droopy" and needs to sit up and "practice their splits" (my kids are gymnasts).

2. After the DVD class I read outloud to my kids the book series "The Story of Science" by Joy Hakim. I like her books and find them to be easy to read aloud. We found it works best for me to read them out loud so that we all hear it together and then we can discuss it.

3. We also have hands-on projects going. Right now we are doing our Zome kit and building projects.

4. Everyone also has their own reading books to read by themselves. There are reading list suggestions from the books we are reading or they find some on their own. When we find a good one we pass it around like Hot Zone by Robert Preston. We also have a list of science websites that we read current science articles from.

5. I then suppliment with "fun" DVDs from the library. Wednesday is the day we watch a DVD from a source like NOVA or the History Channel that goes along with what we are learning. One of our favorites has been Einstein's Big Idea. We liked it so much we bought it. Today we watched NOVA's THE GREAT ROBOT RACE because it went along with what my son was reading: PHYSICS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE by Michio Kaku. J gave us more detail than was covered in the movie and that was fun.