He was awarded his Mile Swim badge at the closing ceremonies on Saturday morning. While this badge is not a Merit Badge and cannot be worn as such, it can be worn on the back of the merit badge sash where they are allowed to put any other Boy Scout-related badges/patches that they would like, so he wants to put it there at the top. He is also now allowed to wear it on all of his swim trunks, blankets, backpacks, and any other non-Boy Scout Uniform attire he chooses. I sewed one patch on his swim trunks last night so he can wear it today at the Wild Island Waterpark. We will probably not be putting it on his Lycra-based swim jammers that he wears for swim team practice because I don’t think the Lycra will hold up well with stitching on it. We’ll see.

In addition to earning the Mile Swim award, which required some work each of 3 afternoons to “prepare” for it and one afternoon to do the swim, he also earned 3 merit badges and almost completed a 4th one. He earned Mammal Study, Geology, and Woodcarving. He is almost done with Basketry, which he is finding much easier than when he tried it last year and hopes to finish at home this summer.

He wants to finish up his 1st Class Rank this summer, which should be doable since he only has 2 things left to do for it. Then he will be working on his Star Scout rank this fall/winter. He also plans to continue with the Sparks Piranhas Swim Team, as he really enjoys the swimming and the competition.

1. Coloring – they DO NOT like to color!
2. Most of it was to color, cut, and paste with no involvement with the information contained in the activities. The ones that did require writing, they didn’t like to do when it required writing by hand! Paradoxically, if there was no writing, they were just cutting it out and gluing it in – what’s to say they actually read it much less understand it?

While searching for a better way to proceed through our American Revolution Unit Study, I found kits from In the Hands of a Child that offer “Type It In” technology so that the boys can type in their descriptions, stories, etc. BEFORE printing them out. Since they are older, they know how to change the color paper in the printer and get things to print the way they want to on their own, so it has become a much more feasible project for them. And I like that they still have to “respond” to the information they are reading in a way that helps them assimilate the information.

Here are pictures of their American Revolution lapbooks. The blue one is Dragon Rider’s and the red one is Alex Rider’s. They still don’t always care how the things are put in the folder, hence the rotated items, but at least they did it!

Last week, we started our volcanoes unit study using another lapbook (we now alternate between history and science units – it’s easier on all of us to manage on a daily/weekly basis.) Now that I know they kind of like doing these activities, I bought plastic pouches for them to store their cutouts (foldables) in during the unit. This is so they can wait until the end to decide on the layout of the folders/cutouts and make sure there is room for everything before gluing it all together. I also bought some new folders since we were down to about 2 left unused from my file cabinet.

Since I didn’t suddenly start one of these in the middle of the unit this time (like happened in the American Revolution unit), I was able to plan things out better so I think they will enjoy it even more. Basically, I used the lapbook kit as an outline and structured a 4-week study around it. I gathered a selection of books, both non-fiction and fiction, for volcanoes, earthquakes, and plate tectonics. I kept the reading level of the books somewhat easy, but insured that they cover the necessary topics of volcanoes. I spread them out over a 4-week period, including 1 or 2 that I have/will read in the evenings.  I reduced the numbers of cutouts from 3/day to 2/day (feedback I received from the boys seemed that 3/day was too much for them and often didn’t get completed) and only have them doing them 3 days/week. On the 4th day (Wednesday), I have them viewing various videos, most of them fairly short (~25 minutes each.) The 5th day (Friday), they now do a mini-report (50+ word paragraph) on a topic chosen from the books from that week. Then I thought that for fun at the end of the unit, I would have a family movie night and watch Dante’s Peak with Pierce Brosnan!

On Wednesdays, our “lite” day of the week when they only have a short movie to watch for this unit study, they also are doing a live online web class with Science Jim. We tried one of these in January and they really liked him, so we signed up for another 2 classes! January’s class was The Physics of Flight. On Wednesdays, they will be doing Electrifying Electricity (4 weeks) and on Tuesdays they will be doing The Physics of Energy (9 weeks.) Since these don’t require a lot from them other than attendance, they are not a huge burden on their schedule. Science Jim sends us eBooks with the lessons and the materials lists so that we can replicate most of the demonstrations that he does in class if we so desire.

Maybe sharing this will give others ideas for their homeschool!

So why did I become interested in integrating the high school math topics for my boys’ math education? Well, it first started because Alex Rider was beginning to hate anything to do with algebra just because he reached a point in his pre-algebra book where the algebra was beyond his “math maturity” level. Originally, I had the idea that maybe in the fall we would try geometry first, allowing him time and distance from algebra while allowing his “math maturity” time to grow to be ready for it. Plus, that meant he could do algebra 1 and 2 back-to-back, making it much more efficient and easier because he would not be interrupted after algebra 1 to do geometry and then have to spend the first 1/3 or ½ a year of algebra 2 reviewing all of the algebra 1 that he had forgotten. It was in the process of researching geometry programs to find one that was appropriate to use BEFORE algebra 1 that I started reading about how other countries integrate the math. I thought, gee, maybe that would be the best of both worlds for Alex Rider! A course for 8th grade that includes algebra and geometry, integrated in such a way as each supports the other, and provides some variety of topics throughout the year so he doesn’t get burned out on just doing algebra (or geometry) all year long! This really started to interest me, so I started researching the popular math programs used by homeschoolers that are from other countries. The 2 that are most used and considered the top programs are:

1. Singapore’s Secondary Math Programs

2. The Mathematics Enhancement Programme (MEP), designed and used in the United Kingdom

For those not familiar with Singapore Math, all of their courses are taught in British English and their Primary program has recently been adapted (slightly) and approved for use in California public schools. Prior to that, the biggest “issues” with using Singapore’s program was that the Singapore dollar looks different and that they use the metric system exclusively, so standard measurements would have to be taught separately by the parent. (To meet CA standards, they did have to move a couple of topics from one grade to another and add some probability sections that are not taught in Singapore until middle school.) These are the same issues that we encounter when considering a British math program – the use of the British Pound symbol instead of the US dollar sign, and the use of the metric system (though I know that the British also still use standard measurements, too, I just am not sure if they are in this particular math program done by MEP.)

Of the 2 programs, the one I first decided to pursue was the British MEP program. For one thing, the entire program is available online for FREE! There are the student books, detailed teacher’s lesson plans, teaching notes, overhead slides, activities for developing concepts, mental math exercises, extra exercises for those needing more than provided in the student books, solutions books, chapter tests, and periodic diagnostic (cumulative, 3 times/semester) tests with answer keys! All of the files are PDFs, and they have even implemented the Year 7 and Year 8 books as an online program that Alex Rider can do on the computer. Some of the more advanced lessons, those usually reserved for their advanced (or “honors”) track students, are not in the online system, but are complete in the PDF files. As for the Singapore programs, I like the Discovering Mathematics series the best because it appears to build up the concepts a little more incrementally for the student and it is the only series that have solutions manuals available for all levels (versus answer keys which don’t show HOW to work the problem.)

I presented my findings to Alex Rider to get his input on whether to pursue a modified American sequence of geometry, algebra 1, algebra 2, or to try one of the foreign programs. Right away, he wanted to do the British program because he just likes “all things British” right now. He has several online friends in his online game RuneScape who are British because the game itself is created and run by a British company. He has often told me that he has found when playing RuneScape, it always seems to be the Americans that have the worst sportsmanship in the game and act like jerks, while the British folks are there to have an honest good time. So he has a much better image of the British than Americans. As for the Singapore math programs, he has no familiarity with anything related to Singapore, so kind of discarded it at this point as not being an option (but I haven’t. )

So, MEP it is! I found a Yahoo Group specifically for homeschoolers using MEP in the US and have learned more information there about how to use it. It appears that much of Year 7 is pre-algebra, with about half of the topics being review for Alex Rider. I also learned that if he does one lesson/day with it, that he will probably finish it all by the end of this year, even though we are past the half-way point. If it weren’t so much review, he wouldn’t be able to go as fast as one lesson/day, so normally it would last a full school year. Then he will be able to start Year 8 in the fall, which will be mostly algebra 1 and geometry topics. If he continues with MEP, he would do Years 7-9 and then have another decision to make:

· Switch back to a US program and pick up with Algebra 2 (using placement tests to make sure he is placed appropriately)

· Take the placement tests from Singapore’s Discovering Mathematics to place appropriately there to continue their series through pre-calculus, or

· Start the MEP GCSE 2-year math program which would pretty much take him through algebra 2 and pre-calculus, as well as some other topics not normally covered in US high schools.

At this point, we are doing the Year 7 program as a “trial” to see how we like MEP in general, and how well he does with it, before making any real commitments for the long term. It will provide him with a thorough pre-algebra foundation while giving his brain time to mature some more before jumping into higher math too early. If he isn’t doing well by the end of the year with MEP, my backup plan at this point is to use the Singapore Discovering Mathematics program. I plan to periodically use their placement tests to gauge how his learning in MEP is coming along and to compare the 2 programs. Incidentally, even though the Singapore program is not free, it is still much less expensive than an equivalent program by one of the major publishing firms here in the US.

In the fall, Alex Rider will either be doing MEP Year 8, Singapore’s Discovering Mathematics 1, or perhaps, Key Curriculum Press’s Discovering Geometry: An Investigative Approach. We’ll just have to wait and see what works out best for him!

Let’s start with Dragon Rider. I never thought I’d be saying this, but I have moved him into a math book that actually spirals instead of spending long units on one overall topic! When he was younger, most spiral-based math programs jumped around too much for him and confused him. So the book he recently finished up, Making Math Meaningful, Level 3, was the exact opposite of a spiral program, and it is what he needed at the time. It had 5 units that covered an entire year, and each unit focused on one major topic set: Place Value, Addition/Subtraction, Multiplication/Division, Fractions, and Problem Solving. When we got to the Multiplication/Division unit, we backed up and did the equivalent unit in the Level 2 book first, to give him a good foundation, and then moved into the Level 3 unit. It took him 6 months to complete this unit! Granted, it was a long unit, designed to take about 3-4 months, but he also dragged his feet quite a bit and would say he could only finish 1 page in the 30 minutes I assigned him to work. This would have been fine if it had been true, but he was just getting lazy and bored with math. So I had to change how I assigned his work and require him to complete 2 pages/day. After finishing that unit, it only took a few weeks to finish the last 2 units that were much shorter (and easier for him.)

That’s when I decided we needed a change. He was hating math because each day was computation-intensive with no change or variety in subject matter. Now I know that I could have provided this myself by having him spend 2-3 days/week in MMM and the other 2-3 days/week doing something else in math, but that would require more work on my part. As a full-time working homeschooler, I didn’t need to add that to my weekly planning load. I needed something that does that for me, but that also works for him. About that time, I stumbled across a review of Mathematical Reasoning from Critical Thinking Press – a full math curriculum from the company that specializes in logic and critical thinking products! We already use several of their logic books – Mind Benders, Balance Benders, and Balance Math – so I was quite intrigued that they came out with a full math curriculum for the elementary grades. (I just noticed that they just released the Grade 5 book. I think I read somewhere that they intend to take it through 6th grade.) I did my research, reading as much about it as I could, and ordered 2 Levels to review – Levels D and E. After reviewing it thoroughly and deciding that he should start with Level E, I presented the idea to Dragon Rider of using this new book. Of course, he likes new things and he was bored with the old program (and becoming fed up with math), so he jumped at the idea!

Now, even though this is a spiral program, it is not the kind that also includes continuous review on every page and jumps around from page-to-page. Rather it spends 2-4 pages focusing on a topic, then moves to another topic for the next 2-4 pages. It mostly alternates between arithmetic topics and other math topics that he finds more fun and interesting – measurement, geometry, fraction concepts, and probability. Because of the way the topics are presented, he never goes more than 2 days before returning to one or more of the 4 operations of arithmetic for practice and more instruction. This is giving him a little break from the “hard stuff” every few days, but keeps returning to it often enough that he doesn’t forget how to do it. The book is pretty much self-teaching, with the lessons and instructions at the top of each page. It is colorful with some graphics without being too busy and distracting. He enjoys how much more “fun” the pages look compared to the pages of MMM. He has been using this new book for about 3 weeks now, and still likes it better than MMM. I cut out the answer pages from the back of the book and put them away so that I can still use them for faster grading, but he is not tempted to cheat. He is doing 3 pages/day in this book and finding that means that some days, math is short, and other days, math is kind of long. But he accepts that now and is OK with that. We are trying to keep him on a good pace so that he can move a little faster, hopefully while still understanding the math, so he can achieve his goals for math by the time he finishes high school. I have caught him trying to skip his math a couple of times so far, but all it took was making him do it before going to bed at night, when he is tired and just would rather watch TV or read, and he has decided it wasn’t worth trying to get away with it anymore! And about that time, the “fun” math showed up for the next day’s work, so he didn’t mind so much!

Alex Rider has reached a point in the last 2 weeks where I have had a hard time getting him to do his math, he has complained about how stupid solving algebraic equations are, he says they are confusing, and he is struggling overall. He is about half-way through his Life of Fred: Pre-Algebra 2 with Economics book and has, I believe, reached the point where his “math maturity” level isn’t quite ready for the work. I have been tutoring him at night on the work, but since he is struggling with the lessons, there are not enough practice problems to cement the ideas into his head. I am of the mindset (for him) that if he is mentally ready for the work, then he won’t need pages and pages of repetitious problems in order to “get it” . That is why the Life of Fred books have worked so well for him thus far (this is his 4th book in the Life of Fred series.) Add to that the stress of some Boy Scouts activities last week (prepping and going to their annual snow campout/competition), and he was a basket-case by last Friday!

So when he got back from his campout (and had a good night’s sleep), I talked to him about taking a step back from LoF and doing something else for a while. I asked him if he thought spending some time getting better at his pre-algebra skills and building back up to solving algebraic equations a little later would be what he needs. He readily agreed that he wanted to do that, because he just isn’t ready to solve algebraic equations involving distance and rate variables! While he was gone camping, I had spent some time perusing Amazon.com and the library online catalog for some options. I also revisited the idea of some of the video-based homeschool curricula for pre-algebra. By the time we had sat down to have our little talk, I had some examples of both to show him. He still is adamant about not liking video-based instruction, so that’s out. (It’s OK with me since those would have run $150 or more, and I really don’t think he needs an entire year-long program for this math curriculum “side-trip.”)

He has some experience using Barron’s Painless series of books since he has been working one day/week in the Painless Fractions books. I also showed him books like the “Idiot’s Guides”, the “For Dummies” books, the “Easy Way” series, and the “Demystified Series”. These are the kinds of books that he likes – straight, to-the-point, show plenty of examples, and then have some problems to practice with. Except that he doesn’t want to actually USE a book that says it’s for idiots or dummies! LOL! So with my help, he has chosen to use a combination of Math Word Problems Demystified and Pre-Algebra Demystified. I think these are going to be perfect for him! It will review stuff that he mostly knows, while cementing some of the processes more (like fractions, percents, and ratios), and give him new instruction on solving equations for ‘x’ that may help make it “click” for him when we get to those chapters. All while giving him more time for his brain to mature a little more and “get ready” for the more abstract stuff. Also, thanks to Tracey at Learners at Home, I just learned of a web site that we might also use for pre-algebra skills and practice: Free Ed.Net’s Pre-Algebra: A Complete Course of Study. This will give us plenty of resources for his study in pre-algebra! Once he is through Pre-Algebra Demystified, he should be much more solid on his skills and be ready to crank through the rest of the Life of Fred Pre-Algebra 2 book without much difficulty.

I think it is a good thing we are doing this now so that he doesn’t move right into regular algebra before he is ready. This is what I believe the year of pre-algebra is for – reviewing and expanding on all the previous math skills, making sure that the student has a firm foundation, before moving into the upper level, abstract math. I have seen time-and-time again where kids struggle in algebra all because there is something missing in their foundation of arithmetic (usually fractions) that is causing them to trip up on solving the algebra problems. That, and the introduction of letters in their math problems as placeholders for an unknown that they have been doing since 1st-2nd grade when they had to solve 8 + ___ = 19 kinds of problems! This seems to trip up many students, all because no one has sat down and shown them that the letter is serving the same function as the blank, or box, or whatever was used in elementary school! (OK, I’ll get off THAT soapbox now! LOL!)

I hope sharing our journeys with curriculum can help you or someone you know!

All in all, I think we made the right change!

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Just because we are using a curriculum that has worked for a year-and-a-half, doesn’t mean that it will continue to work for everyone. As the boys grow, they change, and what works from one year to the next can, and usually does, change. So, we are going to try dropping our current core curriculum, Trail Guide to Learning, which I loved for its simplicity and ease of use for me. I thought they liked the reading of living books for history instead of more dry history teaching methods, but they said they didn’t like it because it makes all of their school too history-focused and that all of their literature was history-based. Unlike so many other homeschooling families out there, our family is decidedly not as interested in history as in science – at least for the 3 guys in the family! (I am very good at, and have always enjoyed, math and the sciences as well, but I am also enjoying re-learning history.) So we are finishing up our current unit tomorrow and starting something new on Thursday. We are going to try using the Intellego Unit Studies as our core and see how it goes. I let the boys pick what they wanted to start with (a science core about animals, of course), but told them that we would alternate between the science-focused and the history-focused units (about a month at a time.) And that the first 2 history-focused units I will still be choosing because I still have the goal of giving them a good foundation in this country’s formation and Constitutional government before letting them loose to choose their interests.

These unit studies are not the traditional, literature-focused, lapbook- or notebook-focused studies. Instead, they are based on the multiple intelligences of how children learn, utilizing the Internet to their advantage, providing pictures, videos, animations, games, as well as textual learning online combined with the addition of books your family chooses to enhance the unit. They encourage the children to choose the types of activities that most appeal to them (encouraging exploration of all 8 intelligences) to integrate/reinforce their learning. They also encourage following their interests sparked by the unit study, and choosing which topics they desire more in-depth study of instead of being told which topics are more important. The boys and I have talked about this for about a week-and-a-half, and they are quite excited to try this, partly because it means they don’t have to do the other curriculum! LOL! But, they are loving the idea of having more choice and they loved the looks of the studies with their full-color images and more modern learning style of using the Internet’s vast resources (I bought a 5-pack of them through the Homeschool Buyer’s Co-op and they are delivered as PDF files on CD instead of printed manuals. Allows for much more interactivity with the Internet links to click right in the file!)

They are also loving that they will now choose, from my approved list of literature, their own literature books! So now they don’t have to read history all the time. They know that they can choose any Newbery book and that it will automatically be approved. And they know that many of the Newbery books we have read in the past were very good, so they aren’t complaining about that at all. (My list encompasses much more than just Newbery books and is an ever-growing work in progress, but that is a good starting point for them and something with which they are familiar.)

As for language arts, they will continue this month working on writing their novels as part of the Young Writers NaNoWriMo. They have been so excited to write what they want to write and are progressing nicely this month! Another clue to me – integrate more creative writing in our homeschool! The more they get used to writing every day, even creative writing, the easier it will be to teach them the academic writing skills they will need later on. We will continue to discuss writing and grammar skills in our read-aloud time in the evenings. When NaNoWriMo is over (the end of November,) we will spend some time learning about revision, and then, editing. When all of that is done, I plan to integrate their writing practice into their unit study, having them apply different skills that we are learning in the evening to their writing for that week. And it occurred to me that it wouldn’t be that hard to have them write “stories” about their unit study topics which would make it more interesting for them and still show me that they are integrating their learning through writing. Writing doesn’t have to be boring!

The unit studies incorporate vocabulary study as well, so I told them that we can drop Megawords for those days that they do unit study vocabulary. We have a formula for equating pages in the Megawords workbooks with vocabulary study in their units. I will probably still pursue roots and stems study in the evenings as well, just not right away.

I really hope that this idea works – at least for the most of this year. It all sounds good on paper, both to me and to them, but only time will tell how well they actually take to these particular programs. What is has really done for me, the researching and discussing of alternatives to our way of doing homeschool, is free up my concept that they have to study specific science topics determined as “must know” topics, or choose to study the same field of science for an entire year, or for history, that they have to cover everything in a curriculum right now, or even in a chronological fashion. I figure as long as I have them continue using a timeline and/or Book of Centuries, and discuss with them their choices for what they want to study in history, they will not only cover what is important to them over time but also be able to make the connections between the different time periods they study. I had felt like I wanted to do this before, but because the boys are not yet mature enough to pursue studying of topics on their own without a structure of some kind, I didn’t think we could do anything like this until high school. Now I feel like I have a framework and structure that I know they can follow while I am gone during the day, but will perhaps train them to do this kind of thing on their own when they are older. And I think I have made it through another stage of letting go of “gap worry”.

If this major change-up in our schooling doesn’t breathe some life back into my son’s (or sons’) motivation, which it might not considering his (their) age, I don’t know if there is much else I can do to help him (them) find that motivation. If he doesn’t have much important to him right now, not even what used to be considered most important, then what kind of “carrot” can I dangle in front of him to make it worth his while?!

I’m off to check out a book from the library: “Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men” by Leonard Sax…

As Lisa feels, I also feel that I am somewhat creatively challenged, so here goes!

Here they are:

1. If you had one super power to wish for (X-ray vision, invisibility etc.), what would it be and why? I would love to be able to teleport anywhere in the world and take my family with me just by us all holding hands.

2. What is the one book, resource or homeschool curriculum that you feel you will not sell or give away, and maybe even want to save for the grandkids?I’m not sure I have one of these. I am the kind of person who, once I know that we are done with a resource, I will resell it or pass it on to another family that could really use it. However, I would pass on what I have learned about teaching young children to read and learn and explore and discover and pass that on to my grandchildren!

3. If you had a chance to learn one European or Asian language, which one will it be and why? I really enjoyed learning German while I was in Germany and found it much easier for my mouth to say than the French that I learned in high school. For a real challenge, though, I think I would like to learn modern Greek. As a young adult, I took a Greek Cruise, and while most of the staff on board knew how to speak English, listening to the Greek was fascinating since it was so different from English and German.

4. When time is short and/ or when chaos reigns in your home, what is the one task, family routine or household chore you prioritize? Eating dinner together, even if it means going out to each to take a break from the chaos. If time is short, we would heat up some soup and grill some cheese sandwiches and still sit down together to eat.

5. What does your dream learning environment (study/ den/ school room/ kitchen/ outdoor space) look like? If you’ve found something similar online, post a link! If you have broken the bank remodeling your home to achieve it (lucky you!), post a photo! I have seen a really cool learning space on another blog, though I am not sure my boys would really like it anymore than what we do now. Here’s the link for that: http://satorismiles.com/2010/08/08/not-back-to-school-blog-hop-school-room-week/ As the boys get older, I have visions of them sitting outside in the spring/summer, barefoot, under a nice tree, reading their classic books or using a laptop to do their work.

Wow, now I have to come up with 5 more questions, AND 5 more bloggers?! Hmmm. OK, here’s my attempt at this part:

1. If you could go back to when your kids were younger, whether you were homeschooling or not at the time, and you could change how you did something knowing what you know now, what would it be?
2. Where have you always dreamed that you could live, and would it be a place you would want to live for the rest of your life, or just a few years, settling down for the long haul someplace else?
3. What was the one book or concept that was the most important for developing your family’s homeschooling methods/style?
4. If you could have any car you wanted (a rich great aunt that you didn’t know about left you a fortune), what would you want?
5. What sport or activity have you always wanted to try if you had the money, time, place, and no fear?

OK, it time to tag 5 of my blogging friends! Tag, you’re it!

Angela at Satori Smiles

Theresa at La Paz Farm

Cori at Wonder in the Woods

The Zen Witch

Sarah at Quarks and Quirks

Downriver view from the Lower Falls Brink	The Lower Falls
My gang of guys!	Uncle Tom’s Trail to the Lower Falls

And yes, I did get a picture with the boys, too!

A postcard-perfect picture of the falls from Inspiration Point!

See the people just to the right of the falls on the lookout platform? We were there for the first set of photos above, as well as all of the people shots!

Again, I will try to post a video of the falls to You Tube and update this post with the link! (The wireless access link here at the resort is very slow, so this will have to wait.)

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone:

We also did some “paint pots” and hot springs sight-seeing today:

We did see one “new” animal today – a couple of mule deer:

And a couple of final pictures of the boys:

See – they aren’t always having fun!

But this time they were!

Bull elk and 2 doe	Juvenile bison
Bull elk – Mammoth Hot Springs	Our first pronghorn!

We drove north of Mammoth Hot Springs for the first time ever and went through (and back through!) the North Entrance and into the town of Gardiner, Montana. Quaint little town, but not much there except motels, restaurants, and tourist shops. We had no idea that this entrance was marked with a rock arch! As a result of heading north out of the park, we found that we crossed the 45th parallel latitude and discovered an awesome hot spring-fed section of river that was open for swimming and “hot tubbing”. It was actually the merging of 2 rivers – the Boiling River and the Gardener River. You are only allowed to swim in the Gardner River since the Boiling River is, well, boiling! Since we had left the bathing suits back at the room (oops!), the boys were only able to take off their shoes and socks and wade into the warm water. However, even if we had our bathing suits, it would have been quite cold getting OUT of the water! Alex Rider did take a spash in the water when he slipped on a rock, but I was videoing another part of the river when it happened!

When we returned to Mammoth Hot Springs, we got our real treat of the day. We arrived to find 2 young bull elk practicing their fighting skills with their nice big antlers! Right in the middle of the village! I took about 6-1/2 minutes of video of the fight. I will post that video to You Tube and update this post with a link to the fight!

As we left the park at the end of Day 1, we were met with a gorgeous sunset, a perfect ending to our first day!

For those of you who want to see more from our first day and are patient enough to view more pictures, I have included a slideshow below with more images.

Click to view slideshow.

What is NOT working:

• Paul Fleisher’s book Objects in Motion: The boys have struggled quite a bit with this book. I have the complete set of 5 books that used to make up his single volume Secrets of the Universe and I still think there is a lot of good information in them. But the boys find them confusing and hard to understand. They would probably do much better with these if I were home teaching them, reading the book aloud to them and discussing the concepts more. It appears they are not quite ready to learn independently from these books. I still want to try having them read parts of the book on liquids, so we’ll see how that goes.
• Isaac Newton by Kathleen Krull: The boys did not enjoy this book. They said that compared to the other biographies we have done for history, that this science biography wasn’t very good. They finished the book anyway, and will move on to the next biography (Archimedes and the Door of Science) hoping for a much better experience. I will have to be more selective of biographies that we read, especially for science.
• Thinking Physics is Gedanken Physics by Lewis Carroll Epstein: This book didn’t last long. It very quickly went too fast and too advanced for the boys. This would work much better in high school and even early college. I also think the student needs to be more mature to handle this style of learning – they have to want to learn it and be willing to read it almost like a puzzle book with lots of puzzles to think through! The boys are not really there yet! J

What is working:

• Adaptive Curriculum’s Activity Objects: The boys are doing really great with these and they like them! I feel good that they are getting good exposure to important science concepts in an interactive way that they wouldn’t be getting from a textbook. I often ask myself “what did they do for science this week?” wondering if they are actually learning anything, and I usually forget that they are doing 2 of these activities every week. As soon as I remember, I suddenly relax in the knowledge that they are really learning something.
• K’Nex Education Kits: We are using these every week, and even though the boys find the building of the models often a bit tedious (because it takes time and they aren’t used to exercising patience!), they are enjoying the use of the models to explore the relationships of distance, velocity, time, and mass. This week they built a model called “half-pipe” which we will be using next week for a lab. What I will be changing with these is to spread out the building of the week’s model over the course of the week, almost like homework, instead of assigning it all for one day of science.
• The Cartoon Guide to Physics by Larry Gonik: The boys said that this book has been much easier to read than either Paul Fleisher’s books or Thinking Physics by Lewis Carroll Epstein. While I don’t feel that it really explores the concepts as much as I think it should, it is much more straight-forward and easier for them to manage. So I have them read it once/week hoping that at least they are getting some idea of the laws of physics.
• The Great Motion Mission by Cora Lee: The boys are enjoying this book, one more so than the other. It presents various physics concepts in the premise of a story which makes it easier to read than most and shows how physics affects our lives. We will continue to use this books as each chapter applies to the aspect of physics that we are studying.
• How to Think Like a Scientist by Stephen P. Kramer: This was a wonderful little book that introduces the student to the idea that science is all about asking questions. It is written in story fashion as well, and is a great book to get kids thinking like scientists, understanding why the scientific method is used, and how to formulate questions for investigating. The boys liked this book a lot.

What we have already changed/added:

• The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way by Joy Hakim: Since we have finished Objects in Motion and Isaac Newton, I have decided to have them start reading this book. I have wanted to use it for a while, but felt like I had to wait until both boys could read it fairly easily and be able to get something from it. It approaches science from a historical perspective, chronicling how science has evolved over the many centuries that man has been asking questions about the world around them. I have some reservations about its format because of the number of “sidebars” that are on most pages. However, it also has lots of pictures with captions to help with my very visual-learning boys. I plan to take it somewhat slowly (one chapter/week and it has short chapters of 8-12 pages.) It’s not a specifically “physics” book, but it is a good, general science book and I hope will serve as a good living book. It is designed such that you could create an entire year’s science course with just this book and the teacher’s supplement. Instead, we will just read it as a supplement to our course.
• The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay: I already had planned to use this, starting about now in the school year, and I am so glad that I did! I am hoping that this will breathe life back into their science readings during the week! They were already fighting over the book the other night when I pulled it out and they found that it shows how the internals to a lock work! LOL! We will be using this on a very regular basis from now on.
• The Way Science Works by Robin Kerrod: I am considering adding this to the year’s books because it looks like it will better cover some of the other physics units this year – heat, sound, light, electricity, and magnetism. It’s a great-looking book by DK that is full of color pictures and lots of hands-on activities! I think it will be a great pairing with the Macaulay book.

So even though I have all of this going for us and most of it working, I can’t help but second-guess my entire approach to science this year! I made the leap to introduce science as physics this year, chemistry next year, and biology in 9th grade (counting as one of their high school science credits) because that is how science should be taught to build on itself from one year to the next. However, I keep wondering if I should have done a more traditional approach of middle school physical science, even using a textbook as a spine. Then doing earth science next year. They haven’t really done much earth science, and while I told myself we would cover a lot of it matched up with our other studies, I wonder if that will be enough. We will be doing astronomy this year with our physics study, and geology next year with our chemistry, but I wonder where I should put in there the other earth science topics – continental plates, earthquakes, volcanoes, weather and atmosphere, and earth composition. (Yes, I am second-guessing myself.)

I am also stumbling across resources that would have been great approaches to middle school science. For one thing, the science being covered in our core curriculum, Paths of Settlement is earth science with some chemistry (apparently) and probably would have been just fine to use and not even try to do a separate course this year! Aagghh! I could just have supplemented that with some videos from Discovery Channel and maybe a couple living books/biographies! But last year, the science in Paths of Exploration just wasn’t enough in my opinion for our boys because it was too elementary, being beginning life science and geared for the 3rd and 4th grades. So I went through all of this planning this summer to make sure that we had a good, age-appropriate science program for them and now I am almost wishing we just did the included science! (I am also discovering that much of the work in Paths of Settlement has been bumped up quite a bit in expectations! Had I known that earlier, I probably would have just used it in its entirety! Ugh! I guess I will try to remember that next year when I start my planning!)

I also just stumbled across a book I had put on my Amazon.com wish list called Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy by Robert H. Hazen, which I also had noted would be a good middle school science book coupled with The Joy of Science DVD “course” offered by The Teaching Company. It would also have been a general science approach to middle school, but perhaps one that the boys would have enjoyed. Though coming up with labs and projects for them using this “course” would have been harder.

Looking back over this post, I am seeing that we are really doing OK, especially after making some minor adjustments to our books. I think I need to add a more formal science journal for all of their labs, but I am not as interested at this point in having them do formal lab reports/write-ups. We should just start getting in the habit of recording all of the measurements and calculations in one place, and I should have them add drawings of various items as we go to increase understanding. Writing up the hypothesis and all the details of how they did the experiment is a little overkill just yet, when they aren’t even used to writing anything down while doing science! I also have decided that on the day that we are not doing labs, they need to do little “mini-reports” of their readings. Call these narrations, summaries, reports, paragraphs, or whatever, but they need to be writing once/week about their science readings. As they get more into The Story of Science, I think that would be a good book to use as source material for their writings. I also think some weeks we can make it a summary of what they read in the more visual books (the “Works” books listed above), supplemented with some reading from our Usborne Internet-Linked Science Encyclopedia, working more on a report style of writing that requires them to merge what they have read from 2 sources. We will have to take that gradually, as it is a new thing for them to be doing. (I have read that the Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia goes a little more in-depth and is more appropriate for middle school, but we already have the Usborne book and have not used it nearly enough so I am hesitant to spend more money on another book to replace it. Besides, I am finding myself drawn more to the DK books than the Kingfisher and Usborne books as they seem to bridge more from middle school all of the way to adult but are still full of images and diagrams for explanations, so that is where I would be more likely to spend my money.)