BFSU: Matter and Magnets Unit

Prerequisites: Foundational Units

Resources: None other than BFSU needed. We already had the Learning Resources Primary Science Magnet Kit, which provided more than enough magnets. We also had the Usborne Science With Magnets book on hand, which provided further exploration.

Lesson 1: BFSU A-4: Matter I: Its Particulate Nature, part 1
Lesson 2: BFSU A-4: Matter I: Its Particulate Nature, part 2
Lesson 3: BFSU A-5: Distinguishing Materials, part 1
Lesson 4: BFSU A-5: Distinguishing Materials, part 2
Lesson 5: BFSU A-5A: Magnets and Magnetic Fields, part 1
Lesson 6: BFSU A-5A: Magnets and Magnetic Fields, part 2
Lesson 7: BFSU A-5A: Magnets and Magnetic Fields, part 3

This post is part of my series on using BFSU as a science unit study.

Spanish: Beginners to Advanced Beginners

Last week I wrote my complaint about the lack of good foreign language programs for younger children. We tried several resources not listed below which ranged from ineffective to miserable, but that's not for this post. This week, I'm going to write about what has worked for us.

Little Pim. This is great for preschool aged children. It is vocabulary only, but there is quite a lot of vocabulary in each episode.

Vocabulary-focused books. We started with the My First Bilingual Book series and then moved on to the English-Spanish Foundations Series. The My First Bilingual Book series is one work per page, translated with a clear picture. Great for just starting on vocabulary. The English-Spanish Foundations Series is a bit variable on how much vocabulary and sentence structure is in each book, but they have quite a bit more than the other series.

Salsa Spanish. This program is deceptively simple and merits many viewings. We used it initially for solidifying basic vocabulary - colors and numbers are often emphasized within the episodes. However, once you have those down, go back and rewatch paying more attention to the words that aren't emphasized. They speak in full conversational sentences, with common verbs and verb tenses, and a lot more vocabulary than what they emphasize. We are still using this as more advanced beginners.

While I was doing the above with The Kid, I was also working in DuoLingo for myself. DuoLingo is not appropriate for young children due to the fast pace and requirement for strong reading and spelling skills. But it gave me the skills to use the vocabulary we were learning in the children's programs and work on using Spanish in our speech.

Immersion. This would be what moved us from "beginner" to "advanced beginner". There is simply no substitute. For us, immersion was three weeks in a Guatemalan homestay while I took Spanish language classes and The Kid went to a local Spanish-language preschool.


Next week, I will write about our plan to move from "advanced beginner" to "intermediate" level.

Why is Foreign Language So Difficult?

I don't post often about teaching foreign language. Actually, have I ever posted about teaching foreign language? I might not have. That's odd considering how big a focus it has been for us.

The Kid seems to have her dad's aptitude for languages. She certainly didn't get it from me. She has requested to learn Spanish, French, and any language with a non-Western alphabet (a squiggly language, in her words). We've been focusing on Spanish with a bit of French thrown in here and there.

If you ask about beginning Spanish material for young kids, you can get several resources - Salsa Spanish, Little Pim, a variety of vocabulary board books, Song School Spanish, The Fun Spanish...  So once you get through those, where's the list of intermediate/advancing beginner resources? I've researched, asked, begged, and so far the crickets are chirping in response. Nothing.

It's even worse for French, when even the suggestions for beginner level materials are scarce. I'm glad we decided to wait on anything else, as I doubt Arabic or Mandarin would yield better results.

This is really just a little mini-rant. I'll come back in the next few weeks and post what we have done and are doing for Spanish, just in case it is helpful to anyone else. If anyone wants to write a good foreign language program that starts around kindy level and progresses through fluency, I'll buy it. I don't even care what language it teaches.

BFSU: Sound and Vibrations Unit

Resources: Magic School Bus episode (this one was very basic, may be good if this is the first time this topic has been introduced to your child, otherwise just for fun)
Science in a Nutshell kit: Sound Vibrations
Blood and Guts by Linda Allison

Lesson 1: BFSU C-2: Sound, Vibrations, and Energy (I covered this in one day due to my plan to use a kit for demonstrations. If not using the kit, cover in two lessons and do demonstrations.)
Lesson 2: Magic School Bus In the Haunted House
Lesson 3: Science in a Nutshell kit: Sound Vibrations, activity 2
Lesson 4: Science in a Nutshell kit: Sound Vibrations, activity 3
Lesson 5: Science in a Nutshell kit: Sound Vibrations, activity 4
Lesson 6: Science in a Nutshell kit: Sound Vibrations, activity 5
Lesson 7: Science in a Nutshell kit: Sound Vibrations, activity 6
Lesson 8: Science in a Nutshell kit: Sound Vibrations, activity 7
Lesson 9: Science in a Nutshell kit: Sound Vibrations, activity 8 and 9
Lesson 10: Science in a Nutshell kit: Sound Vibrations, activity 12
Lesson 11: Blood and Guts by Linda Allison, read pages 97-104 on Ears/Hearing
Lesson 12: Blood and Guts by Linda Allison, do any chosen demonstrations on pages 97-104

This post is part of my series on using BFSU as a science unit study.

Ancient History: Stone Age

We started the unit by reading:

• Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History pages 108-109
• Story of the World: Chapter 1

Nonfiction books we enjoyed:

•  It's Disgusting and We Ate It!: True Food Facts From Around the World and Throughout History by James Solheim (641.3 So) - pages 16-25 cover some foods eaten in Ancient and Medieval times 
• You Wouldn't Want to Be a Mammoth Hunter! by John Malam (930.12 Ma) 
• Horrible Histories Savage Stone Age

Fiction books we enjoyed:

• Magic Tree House #7: Sunset of the Sabertooth by Mary Pope Osborne
• Ug: Boy Genius of the Stone Age by Raymond Briggs - silly cartoon-style book about a boy who keeps trying to invent things that won't be invented for thousands of years after the book is set, and the people around who think he is ridiculous for doing so
• Stone Age Boy by Satoshi Kitamura - a modern boy falls into cave times. Light reading with brief factual bits about what people did and ate.
• Boy of the Painted Cave by Justin Denzel - tells the story of a boy who wants to be a cave painter even though his lineage doesn't allow for it. This one is a longer, more complex story aimed at ages 8+ but worked well as a read aloud for us.

Documentaries we enjoyed:

• Cave of Forgotten Dreams - a little lengthy for The Kid, we watched about half of this. She and I both liked seeing the video of the pristine images from so long ago.

Activities we enjoyed:

• Cave Painting 

Following along in history? Go back to the main Ancient History page.

Cave Paintings

We are getting underway studying Ancient History, beginning with a unit on cave dwellers and the Stone Age. We took advantage of a lovely spring afternoon to get a little messy with this project!

Our "cave" was a large piece of packing paper taped to the shed:

Our painting materials:
- A large bowl of mud mixed with a bit of Crisco (in place of animal fat)
- A bowl with a bit of crushed charcoal. We added some crumbles of charred wood from the fire pit once we took these outdoors.
- A bowl of blackberries to smush up to add some color

And some cave paintings!