I picked up Real Science for Kids Chemistry Pre-level today and he loves it!!! He is busy making chemical molecules out of marshmellows and toothpicks.
That's so cool! My son loves science too - esp chemistry! Does that curr. have a religious leaning to it or is it completely secular?
I've been looking up info on it, but I'm wondering... does one volume last all year or are all 3 used for the whole year? Also, is there any place that sells all the materials together or is it easy to just take the list and find what you need? Sorry for all the questions... I just haven't settled on a science curr for next year yet.
It really does not last a whole year, but I have my own opinions on that. I do not feel any subject should be about the time spent but rather about what is learned. Which would you rather have, something that they go through quickly because they loved it and retain it, or something that drags on and on because they hate it, they never retain it, and they have to repeat it again the next year because they retained none of it? Most textbooky curriculums, the ones that have grade 1, grade 2, etc...will simply circle around and keep repeating itself because the children retain so little. Why even bother in the first place? Plus then, they end up hating those subjects.
I understand completely. I just wasn't sure if one volume was "supposed" to be a year's worth or if they set it up to use all the volumes during 1 year. Thanks for answering all my questions!
They never specified. You could do as you please. He was asking questions about chemistry topics from his many books we have here..so I picked this up today. He has been reading things like Usborne Science Encyclopedia. We have tons of resources around here and as long as he is interested in molecules and chemicals and such, we will keep providing him stuff. We have a lot already, but he really really is loving this. And he has not needed supervision really. He even gave his dad the shopping list and has been reading the book on his own. He even took the book to bed with him tonight so he is sleeping with it right now.
There are only 3 prelevel books. So if you did them all in one year, which you could do easily, then you would do something different on the other years. I would buy the one your child is interested in and from there, if they get done and want to move on to a different subject, then move on. If they want to continue with that one, find more resources, do more projects, etc. No worries about asking about it. I never would have posted about it in the first place if I minded answering. I just love these happy moments when a child is really learning and loving it. So I wanted to share.
That's absolutely fantastic that your child is so excited about learning this!!! I have a feeling mine will love it, as well. Thanks for posting about it and all the help with it, too!
I'm kind of curious what type of chemistry that you can really teach a 2nd grader. in my experience chemistry was really complex... do they learn all about how to tell how many bonds an atom can make and the prefexes & sufexes & all that or do you just tell them to make a carbon dioxide atom, tell them that it is a white marshmellow and 2 blue marshmellows and they just throw em together and eat em afterwards or what. haha i remember we did marshmellows in higschool chemistry. it was a blast. but besides that i pretty much hated chemistry. orbital molecular theory... UGH! basically a learn so you can take a test and then forget it cuz you don't wanna remember how much you hate it. lol.
