Living books for science...more info about what we do...

 Below is a response I wrote to a friend on our local homeschool email loop about living books for science in the middle and highschool years.

Last year, when Zach was in 9th grade, we started the year using Apologia Biology. He hated it (couldn't stay awake...literally...while reading it each day). Zach was starting to hate science, so I wanted to do something to help him enjoy it as much as possible. Honestly, I know that if *I* am not enjoying something, I'm really not learning much. I figure that the college years will have plenty of those type classes, so why not make the most of the years we have at home.

A month or so into the school year last year, I found a website created by a mom who is into Charlotte Mason's teachings. She had listed all the living books that her highschool aged children had used to cover credits in your basic highschool science classes, biology, chemistry, physic and I think she's got earth science on there too.
http://charlottemason.tripod.com/

Some of the books she has listed have evolutionary content. Don't let that scare you away right now. By the time your kids are in highschool, they will be prepared to read this stuff, discuss it with you and think/agrue it for themselves. Also, we are finding that often times some of the best scientific authors believe in the evolution theory, BUT these same authors have the better info and better writing skills on other areas in their field of expertise.


Since Zach was working on a biology credit, I had him read from a few books from her list for biology and then one that I found on my own by the same author of one book from her list. By the end of the school year he had read...
-a few chapters in Apologia biology
-select chapters from The Way Life Works (the most textbookish in her list of books)
-Life of Mammals
-Life of Birds
-Of Wolves and Men


At the end of the school year, I called Homelife Academy to talk to their highschool counselor (I think her name is Lynn). She was SO helpful and reassuring in the path we are taking with science. She advised me to call his 9th grade year of science "Zoology I" instead of biology since he did so much reading about animals.


Zach *really* struggles in math. He is 10th grade this year, but after a year of pre-Alg. that was a FLOP last year, *he* wanted to go back and review fractions, decimals and percents. SO, this year he's been working through the Key To Fractions, Decimals and just this week started on the Percents books. When he finishes these books, he'll move on to the Key To Algebra. HE wants to continue with the Key To Algebra even though I've been advised that it is really only a pre-Alg with about 1/2 a year's worth of Alg. I in the book. BUT, he *really* understands the way the Key To books presents concepts, so that's what we are gonna go with. I had rather (and he feels the same) him fully understand a small amount of higher math than to be exposed to a lot of higher math, but barely understand any of it.

Next year he'll work through the Key To Alg. then in 12th grade he'll work through the Key To Geometry. Most kids are taking Chemistry in 11th grade, but he would be lost as a goose with a traditional Chemistry textbook since you need Alg. II in order to do the math in Chemistry. The math skills he needs for the upper level science is just NOT there and aren't gonna be there in time to get these credits in with your traditional textbooks.

I explained all this to Lynn at HLA. She agreed that this was the best route for him. Zach understands that he will not have enough math credits to go straight to a 4-year university and will have to go to a CC for at least a year because of his math. He's OK with that and we are too. He works VERY hard on his math and is doing all he can do. God made him this way and we are not fretting over it (anymore...used to fret over it!:)


Also, I feel that Zach is doing ALL he can in math. He's utilizing the brain God gave him to his best ability in math. I don't think this goes unnoticed by God. If God chooses for Zach to attend a 4-year universtiy right after highschool instead of 1 or 2 years at a CC, then GOD will work that out. Of course, God's plan may very well be for Zach to be at a CC for 1 or 2 years, but He also *might* want to show how HE can work things out the way He wants to no matter the circumstances. AND, of course, God may have a tee-totally different plan than college right away or at all. Right now, we (including zach) feel that God does plan for him to go to college, so we are planning accordingly as much as possible.

This year, he's read about 6-8 chapters in Abeka Biology and a book titled Microbe Hunters.

Here are the books that he'll be choosing from to read for the rest of this year (10th) and over his last two highschool years:

-Napoleon's Buttons How 17 Molecules Saved History (chemistry)
-The Double Helix (biology) (There's a PBS documentary that tells the other side of this story that we'll watch, but I can't find it in my favorites right now. UGH!)
-The Origin of Species (biology)
-Darwin's Black Box (chemistry/biochemistry)
-Darwin on Trial (biology)
-Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics explained by it's Most Brilliant Teacher (Physics)
-A Brief History of Time (Physics)
-The Mystery of the Periodic Table (chemistry)
-A Short Hisdtory of Nearly Everything (a little bio, chem and physics)
2 of the books listed there are from Ambleside Online's House of Education upper level years. Also, here's a link to a list that a gal posted on TWTM message board...

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1804511&highlight=Double+Helix#post1804511

I'm also not using formal science programs with my 7th grader, Jake,  either (he doesn't like Apologia Elem...I think she writes as to a younger crowd and he can hear that in some of her writing, although it is full of some new and interesting info!). He's my struggling reader and as you know, science is the LAST area our struggling readers are able to really comprehend when reading. Also, he struggles in math too (God love this child...no part of school comes easy to him), so there is NO reason to push, push, push to get to those higher sciences. I want him to ENJOY science. Science is about God's creation. I want him to have a love of what God created.

This year (7th) he did read a bit of one of the Abeka science books (not the 7th grade book, but I can't remember which grade). I decided to have him read CLP Nature Reader book 4 instead. It's an *easy* read for him, but he has to orally narrate everyday and then one day a week, he has to key word outline what he reads, then write a paragraph about it.

He's almost finished with this book. Here's the plan I have (so far) for the rest of this year and next year (8th grade):

-It Couldn’t Just Happen
-The Story of Inventions McHugh and Bachman (CLP)
-CLP Nature Reader book 5
-biography of Alexander Graham Bell, like Always Inventing by Tom L. Matthews, or Talking Wire by O.J. Stevenson
-Food and Nutrition for Every Kid
-Albert Einstein and the Theory of Relativity by Robert Cwiklik OR Ordinary Genius by Stephanie McPherson
-Archimedes and the Door of Science by Jeanne Bendick
-Galileo and the Magic Numbers

All of those books, except the Food and Nutrition for Every Kid book, are books listed on Ambleside Online's years 3-6. We might not get to all of these, but it's a good list to choose from for Jake.

I want to point out that just because we don't use textbooks for science doesn't mean my boys are just JUMPING for JOY everyday when they get to "science" on their daily check list:) They had much rather be watching wrestling (Zach) or shooting hoops (Jake).

I will say that when Zach complains about reading his science, I'll sometimes ask, "Do you want to go back to using a textbook like Apoloia or Abeka?" His response is always, "No, those are boring."

The upper level Apologia text DO have end of chapter questions that make the student really think. Abeka's upper level  science books do also. The problem comes for some students who are overwhelmed with the amount of scientific info crammed into each day's reading of a traditional text, then having to apply this huge amount of info. With the living books approach, we have found that *most* of the books we've used so far give you easier to digest amounts of info, which is in turn easier to apply.


Also, sometimes (about twice this year) pull out the textbook and find a section that pertains to what Zach's reading in his living book. I'll have him read it, then take notes using the Cornell Note Taking System....


http://coe.jmu.edu/learningtoolbox/cornellnotes.html

Since he has done key-word outlining, this system of note-taking was not hard to pick up.

Jake, my 7th grader, will complain about his science reading in a different way. He doesn't appreciate learning the way Zach does (I like to say "yet" about this:), so for school he wants to do things the quickest, easist, most non-thinking way. Reading a living book usually takes longer than the time you spend reading a section in a textbook. Then organzing your thoughts for an oral narration on what you just read takes more time than just giving short answers to end of section ?s and of course, key word outlining and writing a paragraph really takes more time and thought.

He often asks if he can go back to using the textbook. At first he didn't feel this way, because his reading skills were not to the point of being able to *scan* a page. But once he got to the point where he could scan the page for the answers to the end of section questions, then he prefered the textbook.