With all the great science materials that are now available to today’s homeschoolers, why was I so impressed by Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding that I spent an entire month compiling the review you are reading now, just trying to do this new book justice?
Why do we even need another approach to science?
“The best of both worlds” sums up nicely my opinion of the new science lesson plans put out by Dr. Bernard Nebel. (Though I apologize in advance to those of you who will now have the Hannah Montana theme song stuck in their heads for the next hour.)
Let me explain what I mean by “both worlds”:
Like many homeschoolers these days, I am often drawn to use “living books” in our studies, instead of the generally lackluster textbooks that are available in the science curriculum marketplace. I was homeschooled with traditional science textbooks as a child, and I have to admit: they didn’t do much for me. I’m not sure I ever related much of what I dutifully read in those books to the real world.
In my experience, textbooks, while technically thorough, often have a disturbing tendency to result in very little learning, retention, or (perhaps most regrettably!) enthusiasm for the subject.
Now that I homeschool my own children, I tend to gravitate towards living books for our scientific pursuits. (Charlotte Mason defined living books as quality works written by a single author who is passionate about his or her subject.) There are many interesting children’s books that speak to various aspects of science, so finding such resources has not been a problem. In fact, there are a number of curricula for homeschoolers that are primarily based around the living book concept. (Sonlight, Noeo, Living Learning Books, among others)
But, but, but, I still felt that there was something missing from that approach. You see, each of these living books on weather or constellations or animals or habitats was a valuable and worthwhile resource, but they were like numerous individual pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that never quite seemed to fit together in a logical and coherent way. To mangle another metaphor, I felt that we were seeing lots and lots of trees, but missing the big picture of how they all fit together into a real forest.
So what was I to do?
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