Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding: A Science Curriculum for K-2 Paperback – Import, 16 November 2007

This book provides the best science education you could give your kids. It covers all the things they need to know in a gradually increasing complexity model. Even better, it alternates between topics so they don't get bored. It lays everything out...materials, discussion, ideas, suggested books to add on, etc

I did do my research before buying this. The reviews say that it is good. Best of the lot, and that's because there is not a lot of good, engaging Science curricula out there that is non-religious, especially not for home educating.I will say it certainly is a good book, in the sense that it lays out the sequence of knowledge a child should possess before moving on, and this sequence is much better than the school Science curriculum in my view. Children should learn about atoms, molecules, energy, etc. at the beginning of their Science education, not when they are in high school, after years of learning about oversimplified random scientific topics in Primary.What do I not like about this book? Well the denseness of the material actually. I found it really hard to teach from this book. It is not scripted, and yet it contains pages and pages, hundreds and hundreds of words of info for each lesson, telling me what I have to teach, what I have to understand. It certainly has been great for refreshing my Science knowledge. It has filled in gaps in my knowledge I never knew I had, even though I wasn't a poor student at school! It's kind of hard to put it in practice though. Reading and understanding it is one thing. How to present all that knowledge to children who won't sit still that long to listen to all that is another. This is where I feel the book really lacks. I do applaud the author's efforts at assisting the home-educators who use this though - he set up a Yahoo! Group for home educators to join and ask any question they want about the curriculum - how to use it, how to teach it, or if they simply need clarification about concepts which even they do not get. The author is a very experienced Science school teacher. Despite all this, I do feel that this curriculum is not the easiest to use. It certainly isn't an open-and-go type of curriculum. Parents always need to do quite a bit of prep work before presenting each lesson.I actually gave up on this curriculum for about a year and purchased some Science textbooks and workbooks instead, which sort of "lays it all out" for you, so far easier to use - I don't have to prepare the lessons that much. I can just open the books and teach, get the Science done, and then move on to other things. However my kids were noticeably less enthused about textbook learning. Not wishing to sap their natural interest in Science, I returned to this book again. This time I decided to modify the curriculum so that instead of me having to present the lessons entirely, I use appropriate Science videos sourced from the internet to do half the explanation work. There are so many videos to choose from, so I'm never at a loss. Besides, I find a video can often do a very good job of explaining Science concepts, since the visuals are animated so the kids can actually picture how the processes actually occur. Nowadays when I use this curriculum, my prep work consists of searching for appropriate relevant Science videos for each lesson, rather than having to somehow rewrite all that information he says I should teach in an easy-to-present and easy-to-digest way for the children. My prep work also involves printouts, or flashcards, or sourcing experiment materials.Our lessons are like this : I usually introduce my kids to each lesson's topic briefly, and then show a video, and then talk about the video afterwards, fielding questions, adding info that the video did not cover, and sometimes that leads to more exploration outside the scope of the book. Then when I feel we've done enough on the subject, we sit down and make our little booklets as advised by the author - it's a great way for kids to retain the information they've learnt. Honestly, better than any old worksheet or workbook. It particularly suits my daughters, who love drawing and writing, and already create a lot of little books themselves. I don't know why schools don't do this with their students! These booklets my kids make - I store them away in a folder so they can always look at their past work whenever they like. It's great for instant recall. If they've already forgotten about the topic, they need to just take a look at the booklet they did before, and they immediately remember what they've learnt. Such a simple way to help kids retain their knowledge, but very effective. It's like a kiddie version of lecture notes that older students write during Science lessons.

I purchased BFSU a couple of months ago with the intention of using it in the fall. After seeing the book, though, I ditched the $100 1st-grade science that I thought I loved, because BFSU was so much better. Dr. Nebel knows science and knows children, and that is a rare combination. And for a quarter of the price, I received three times the volume of lesson plans.What is BFSU?BFSU is neither a traditional nor a classical science curriculum. Rather, it is an entirely new approach to teaching science. There are two main ideas that drive this curriculum: (1) People learn more when it is relevant to their own lives, and (2) People retain more of what they learn if they are making mental connections. BFSU attempts to create and take advantage of "teaching moments," that is, those times when children are seeking to learn, asking questions and wanting to know. Although it is not marketed as using the Socratic method, I find the Socratic method used heavily to create these "teaching moments."BFSU covers the following general areas of science, called "threads": Nature of Matter, Life Science, Physical Science, and Earth and Space Science. There is not a specific schedule or order in which you have to teach the lessons. The lessons, however, are intended to be taught approximately in a spiral such that you are teaching one or two lessons from one thread and then moving on to the next. Each lesson plan tells you what lessons from all threads that are considered prerequisite. The earlier lessons are designed for the younger K level students, and the later lessons for the older students. In this way, the child learns to integrate the different areas of science. (For example, before teaching the distinction between plants and animals from the Life Science thread, the child should first have covered concepts of energy and making things go from the Physical Science thread, since how we get our energy is an important distinction between plants and animals.) As you spiral through the different threads, you continue to revisit what you have previously covered but just go into it in greater depth each time.BFSU is written for the classroom, but it is very easily adaptable to the home school setting (and even acknowledges this in the Introduction). It is not just "for" K-2 students, but there are easily enough lessons for three years of material, unless you have a child that is extraordinarily driven in the science category. To quote another forum post, "This is not a cutesy Kindergarten science program." BFSU tackles some very advanced concepts while managing to keep the activities and material on a young child's mental level. (For example, DH is a high school physics teacher, and he has remarked that most of his new students have never even heard of the difference between mass and weight, a concept that is dealt with in the Physical Science thread.)Is it secular or religious?BFSU is a secular text. But as a Christian, I have not found anything controversial. It does not address topics like the creation of the world or evolution.What kind of preparation does BFSU take?Each lesson is very thorough and lengthy, most covering 6-8 pages, single-spaced, with no pictures or diagrams. It is absolutely necessary to read the whole lesson carefully. Dr. Nebel is meticulous about giving you everything you might want to know, including what misconceptions children commonly have, and what answers you might expect to get out of them.A materials list is given for each lesson. Almost every material needed is something that you would likely have in your home, but occasionally you might find something that you need to pick up. As I browse through the lessons, I see that I will have to be prepared to acquire balloons for one lesson and an empty glass jar for another. My recommendation is to go through the materials lists for all of the lessons and make a shopping list of things you don't normally have and then store those things in an easily accessible location.Each lesson also comes with a list of reading books that you can use with the lesson. So if you are using these book lists to supplement your lessons, you will need to check those out from the library prior to the lesson, as well.The most difficult part of preparing for a lesson is that most of us will need to change how we teach and think about science. You have to figure out how you are going to make the lesson relevant to your own child. There are many ideas and lots of guidance, but BFSU recognizes that different children will be reached in different ways. It might be as simple as planning to talk about solids, liquids and gases in the bathroom as your child brushes his teeth or takes a bath. Or you might be inspired to elaborate on a given activity or go on a field trip. I do not personally like a scripted program, yet I lack the creativity to come up with my own activities and discussions. BFSU gives me just enough script with a whole lot of ways to tailor it to my own child, family and circumstances.But just let me warn that BFSU does take some preparation. I am spending at least 30-60 minutes reading the lesson and setting up the activities, with most of that time spent just wrapping my brain around the lesson plan. If I did not have a science background, I would want to write down the questions I was supposed to ask and the answers I wanted to elicit from the child.What about students older than K?Dr. Nebel has been saying on his Yahoo group that books for grades 3-5 and for 6-8 are due out by this summer. In my opinion, you could easily use this book for grade 3 unless you have a particularly savvy student. Even with an older student that is really into science, I think much could still be gleaned from these lessons. I would just go through it faster. If I had a third grader, I would get the K-2 book and start working on it now so that I would not have to worry about when the 3-5 book came out.

My kids (9&10)love reading this booking. They are learning a lot and it’s very complementary with their science curriculum.

I am a home educating mum. I have been working through this book with my now 8 year old son and it really is the best science curriculum there is out there! It requires some work and planning on the part of the parent or teacher, but actually that has been a positive for me, even though it seemed daunting at first. Working through the lessons and making preparations has meant that I have learnt so much myself and it has made me a better teacher and improved my son's science education.I really would recommend this book to any parent who wants their child to have an excellent grounding in science, whether they are home schooling or not. If only our schools were using this book!