The Private Eye

A friend of mine recently started a workshop based on The Private Eye: "5x" Looking/Thinking by Analogy and I am hooked! The process is very simple yet quite powerful. The product is designed for the school market but really could flourish in homeschools.

The idea is this: look at a natural object using a 5x loupe. Just that alone in fascinating because objects look so different magnified, revealing detail one never imagined was there. It also focuses a child's attention on that small piece of the world. Next, make a list of analogies for the object thinking about of what other things it reminds you. Similes and metaphors work well here; try to come up with a list of 5 to 10 of them.

After examining the object for awhile, draw what you see. This is ideal material for any nature notebook, of course. We draw a circle to simulate the loupe and then draw the object in it.

Finally, kids ask themselves why something looks the way it does, why it has the structure it does. Because so often form follows function, this line of questioning is really a scientific investigation. The first steps are to ask a question and form a hypothesis. Most often the answers will come from a book or Internet search, but as kids get older they may be inspired to carry out some investigations themselves.

One can easily imagine applying this simple process endlessly throughout years of nature study. Yet what I found even more intriguing are the suggestions and projects listed in the book to extend the analogies and investigations, especially for writing. By thinking in analogies, the natural objects more easily become the subjects of poetry, short stories, expressive journaling, as well research. The book gives ideas "across the curriculum" as one would expect from a school-based curriculum. I find it to be a fascinating way to look, think, and write about nature.

Spiral Science & Math Manipulative

Fibonacci numbers are practically unheard of outside of math circles, and yet the math, science, and even art concepts that tie into them are many. Spiral Science & Math Manipulative is an elegant and inexpensive way to extensively explore these relationships.

Ds#1 and I have been trying out the many acitivities available at the web site. Middle school or above students with a good understanding of fractions, decimals, and percentages will get the most out of this neat kit, though upper elementary kids can use it for simpler activities. Ds#1 does not have that much math under his belt, but enjoyed the activity on hand bone ratios nonetheless. He was able to figure out the pattern of the Fibonacci sequence after a bit of thought--and that made it all the more wonderful for him.

The 13x21 cm kit consists of 7 magnetic sheets that have numbers and a spiral-forming curve on one side and examples of spirals in nature on the other, a magnetic sheet to work on, and a thick vinyl pouch to keep it in. The Teacher's Guide is included, containing six lessons, and the web site has another 8 activities all aligned to national standards (if you keep track of them.) You can also buy class packs for your co-op, but these are significantly more expensive.

Some of the vocabulary and concepts you will explore with this kit include logarithmic (Archimedes) spiral, tessellations, ratio, proportion, golden mean, interval scale, X and Y axis, controls and variables, histogram, average, and more. With a cost of less than $15, this kit certainly offers a lot of science and math exploration for the dollar.

A New Game Favorite With A Science Theme

So maybe your kids will learn more geography than science from this game; still its science theme could lead to some interesting science and math rabbit trails. And it's a great game.

See my full review of Pandemic at Games for Homeschoolers. I was never a fan of cooperative games because they never really had much gaming aspect to them. This one is clearly different and is considered by many to be one of the best cooperative games out there.

Blood and Guts

For science this winter and spring, we are using Blood and Guts: A Working Guide to Your Own Insides by Linda Allison. This is A Brown Paper School book, a series that also includes some great math titles like Math for Smarty Pants, The I Hate Mathematics! Book, and The Book of Think.

Blood and Guts covers the major body systems and has a nice handful of experiments and activities to do, including dissections. The physiology is good, though the simple line drawings don't really capture anatomy well.

I am pairing this up with The Body Book by Donald Silver. This book is filled with reproducible pages to be used to make large organ models. This book better covers anatomy, especially if you decide against dissection. It has more activities and some physiology as well.

Together they make a nice middle school human body unit.

Game Review posted for Totally Gross

I just posted my review of Totally Gross! The Game of Science at Games for Homeschooling.
The boys and I certainly laugh a lot and learn quite a bit of trivia playing this game. It does have a good measure of the gross and impolite.

The game ends with a little hands-on experiment, I feature I really like. Today, ds#1 had to weigh himself and figure out how much he would weigh on the moon (the card tells you that it would be 1/6th of your weight on Earth.)

As you will see on my gaming blog, I gripe a bit about the cheap components of educational games. I buy many other board games in the $20 price range with far more durable and aesthetically nicer parts, and they are more interesting games to play. Unfortunately, we pay for the educational value alone, which, in some cases, can be achieved with a home made game for far less money. I can't imagine writing up all those trivia questions, though.

Math, Science, Art, and Fibonacci

Science, Math, and Nature are so closely related one can scarcely separate them. So while this is a science blog, and not a math blog, math will come up from time to time.

An excellent example of the intertwined existence of Science, Math, and Nature are Fibonacci numbers and the Golden Ratio. And yes, there's Art, too.

The Fibonacci sequence is easy to construct. Starting with 1 (one) and 1 (one), you add the previous two numbers to get the next in the sequence. 1, 1, 2 (from 1 + 1), 3 (from 1 + 2), 5 (from 2 + 3), 8 (from 3 + 5) and so on.

You can then construct a spiral by creating squares with each side the length of a Fibonacci number and put them together such that they go around in a circle, as in the picture to the left. See the two 1x1 squares stacked one on the other in the center? There's a 2x2 box attached to the left of those, a 3x3 box below that, a 5x5 box to the right of that, an 8x8 box above that, and so on. Using a curved line through each box, a spiral is created.

It turns out that these numbers and spirals occur frequently in nature. A nautilus shell and flower seed head exactly spiral in this way. The number of petals on a flower are almost always a Fibonacci number. Wild Fibonacci by Joy Hulme is a wonderful introduction to this connection for young readers.

Also notice that with the addition of each new square, the final drawing forms a rectangle. The ratio of the long side to the short side in this rectangle (which is the ratio of two consecutive Fibonacci numbers, a Fibonacci number and the number before it in the sequence) is the Golden Ratio, or Φ (Phi) and equals 1.618. O.K., enough math.

Besides appearing so much in Nature, this rectangle seems to be appealing to people, too, for we often use it in our art. Check out Fibonacci Numbers and Nature and Fibonacci Numbers and The Golden Section in Art, Architecture, and Music, both full of more details, pictures, links, and fun activities.

This is a great way to combine Nature Study, Math, and Art Appreciation.

Living Science Series: Magic School Bus

Magic School Bus Series by Joanna Cole

Most homeschoolers are familiar with this highly popular series. My boys very much enjoy both the series and the videos, reading and seeing them so many times they know well much of the information from them. The format appeals to even preschool children, yet they cover upper elementary, lower middle school science topics.

We prefer the books written by Joanna Cole and illustrated by Bruce Degen; they are the cream of this crop. The books based on the TV show are good, too, but fall short in writing and illustrating as you would expect from a knock-off. The chapter books have the science content without the wonderful illustrations.

Because the series is so popular, the books are readily available from either the library, used book sales, or any book store. We have just about all of them on our book shelves.

Noeo Science review revision

Please see note for Catholics...

http://athomescience.blogspot.com/2007/09/review-noeo-science-curriculum.html

Stokes Bird Guide

I really like this pocket-sized, concise bird guide. Despite it's diminutive size, I have easily identified all the birds in our yard. it is organized by bird color, making it very easy to use.

We have a window feeder with a one-way glass that allows us to observe the birds up-close. Here's a sample of the common visitors to our feeder:

Living Science Series: One Small Square

One Small Square series
by Donald M. Silver, illustrated by Patricia Wynne

This is a great series for biome and nature studies. In each of the twelve books you are observing a “square” (a cube, really, except for Night Sky) over time to watch all the happenings there. The books collectively cover a wide variety of biomes, like the African Savanna, Cactus Desert, and Arctic Tundra, as well as areas near where we live, like Backyard, Night Sky, Pond, and Wood (for our family, anyway.) Each book shows many of the common flora, fauna, and changes that are likely to occur in the square if you were you able to observe it over time. The books also include activities in the margin (which I like because they don’t interrupt the flow of the story) to gain a better understanding of the environment. The illustrations are colorful, if not highly detailed. I have my son choose one or two to draw in his notebook each week. So far we have only studied distant biomes, but I plan to do a live exploration of a local small square this summer.

Review: Noeo Science Curriculum

Noeo Science
http://www.noeoscience.com/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/noeo_homeschool_science_forum/

Minimal cost: $29 dollars; Cost for complete program: up to $175

Please see note for Catholics at the bottom!*

This excellent program is a great Charlotte-Mason-style science curriculum. The program does not use a textbook, but rather a collection of wonderful living science books along with the Young Scientist Club experiment kits. Lessons are short and include oral, written, or drawn narrations. It is very flexible and can be done inexpensively since most of the books are readily available through the library.

The company currently has 6 programs available: Biology I & II, Chemistry I & II, and Physics I & II for kids ages 6 to 12. (Level III is currently in the works.) You spend an entire year learning different aspects of one subject rather than a smattering of all subjects (or details of a narrow subject as in the Apologia series.) The Teacher’s Guide contains lesson plans divided into 4 (short!) lessons per week for 36 weeks, which includes the readings and the experiments.

My only criticism of the program is regarding their third-party experiment kits by the Young Scientist Club. The kits do have interesting experiments that fit well into the overall program, making them a great choice for busy or science-shy parents. They are, however, quite expensive for what you get for $10.99 per kit! The kits do not contain everything needed, and most of what is supplied is easy to obtain anyway. The experiments are great, though they, too, are commonly found in most children’s experiment books (like the Janice VanCleave or Williamson’s Kids Can! series.) If you are even mildly comfortable with adapting science, pick up one of these books instead and insert experiments that correspond with the topics being covered in the readings. You could also buy them the first year you use a program and then just buy the materials to reuse them for subsequent children.

Physics I and Chemistry I each use one Ein-O kit. These inexpensive kits are a great addition to these programs.

Each program has excellent book choices that include at least one biography. At the end of each one, your child will have been given a good exposure to Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. You can buy just the Instructor’s Guide for $29 with shipping, or you can buy the complete set of books and kits at a discount from the web site.

With living books, short lessons, narrations, and integrated experiments, no program better fits a Charlotte Mason style science education. Our family highly recommends it.

*Note to Catholic parents regarding Starry Messenger by Peter Sis (Level I Physics.) This is a 1997 Caldecott Honor book about the life of Galileo Galilei. I could tell by the first page with the line, "They just followed tradition," that this book would be problematic. The theory that the sun revolved around the earth was originally from the ancient Greeks. Another page reads, "He knew that people had suffered terrible torture and punishment for not following tradition." The picture depicts a man standing alone surrounded by disturbing images. He was never tortured; he did spend the last 9 of his 74 years under house arrest, as the book states. Why mention torture and include this horrible image? The book then presents Galileo's pardon in 1997 as if the Church had just then accept his works and not as the tremendous symbol is really is.

For Catholic children this wording can too easily be mistaken for Sacred Tradition, which is one way the Holy Spirit continues to form our understanding of God. It is because of the lessons learned from Galileo that the Catholic Church has the most well-informed discussion of science and faith today, especially concerning Evolution and technologies. This book, IMHO, is a poor choice for young Catholics.

I will refer to the Noeo Science web site for reading ideas, but I will no longer buy their material until they replace this choice.