I am amazed at the size of your cub pack!! How do you do it? My son's pack
is about 23 registered and 20 coming out on a cub night, and that is a
VERY healthy well attended group where we live. There is just too much
competition with other activities now and the numbers in scouting have gone
down(in Canada).
On another note, I am going through science curriculum
choices and I noticed you went from Singapore to Science Explorer and wondered
if you could tell me your opinion on the programs and why the switch to
Explorer.......and how easy it is to run the labs in both Singapore and
Explorer.
Thanks Zillions,
Robin
Robin,
We're actually not that huge for a pack in this area. There are several with over 100 Cubbies in them. There are 22 packs in our county, one for each elementary school and 2 LDS packs. We have about 20 to 25% participation in most schools. This area is very big on Scouting and I am so fortunate to have the District headquarters and Scout Store about 20 minutes from my house. It sure makes things easier for me. That said, sports are also big in the area which is big competition for Scouting. I just let parents know that it's okay to miss a scout event every now and then. I would rather have the boys in the scouting program than not. If they have to miss meetings for a month due to soccer practice, then Mom and Dad can work on achievements at home.
As for Science,
I use the Singapore Science through 5th grade and then switch over to Science Explorer. I don't have any experience with the middle and high school Singapore Science texts, but I'm sure they are good. I already owned the Science Explorer books and I enjoy them. Of course, every year is different and I may change my mind by the time the younger two get to middle school. But it works for now.
I use Singapore Science for 1st-5th because I think that's the time to teach scientific thinking and how to process and inter-relate information. Singapore is excellent for that. I like that scientific process and reasoning is the emphasis instead of science facts.
For middle school, kids are ready for a more meaty program. They can handle the vocabulary and the heavy science facts. That's when I switch to Science Explorer. I know that it is completely opposite of the Classical education model but it's just my experience from teaching public school, homeschoolers, and my own kids.
As far as running labs, I don't have any problem. But, big caveat here, I have a lot of equipment in my house....even before I started homeschooling.
Space is always an issue because we have to live in this house and I don't have a dedicated homeschool space. But there is always something growing over in a corner and you should check the food containers to make sure the contents are edible and not part of an experiment. (I have some eggs de-calcifying in the fridge at this moment for an osmosis experiment.)
In both programs, it is easy to substitute materials and the experiments themselves are not difficult to perform. Singapore is harder to schedule but easier to use. Science Explorer is easier to schedule but you'll have to write your own tests.
Neither is as easy as BJU or Apologia where everything is all scheduled, planned, and you can buy a materials kit.
But they are both excellent for those looking for a secular science text.
I hope that helps.
1 comment:
Well! Thanks for your blog entry and all the info!
We went to a regional cub event on the weekend and it was sad to see that most of the groups only had 3-8 boys representing their packs. We had about 12 boys out. It was an "Urban Quest" where they went by bus and train all over the main part of the city to do tasks and answer questions at each station. Scouting is dying.......my father was a cub in the 1930's, then a scout during the war, later a scout leader in the 1950's.
We decided to go with Science Explorer a few weeks ago and I ordered a lot of the books second hand and have been pouring over them. I have to track down a lot of the materials.....one difficulty we have with the physical science is that we don't have easy access to some of the chemicals needed, especially in small amounts. Also, difficult to find some of the cultures and such for biology. We are going to start with the motion, forces and energy unit, then the cells and heredity unit. Looks like fun and we can't wait to get started. I see tests in the end of each unit in the texts....not sure what you mean by "you'll have to write your own tests".......
We don't have a science background, but some of the info is familiar and we'll learn as we go.
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