I have been digging deep into this book, and realized that its not as easy to follow the threads in an organized matter as the flow chart led me to believe. With that being said, I started to do some research on BFSU, and found there is a wealth of material organized on using BFSU. It deserves its own thread so I started one.
This link takes you to a pinterest board that has been organized by the different threads (a, b, c and d). Its really kind of great.
More flow charts and resources on BFSU. The flow charts are better here as they allow you to see the sequential order of which thread to do first and what comes next. Its much easier for me to see it like this than on the flow chart in the book.
I put this pinterest board together to start organizing materials that compliment BFSU k-2 curriculum. Its not completed, but its a start. Its organized by the way I plan to follow the threads, but the threads can be followed in a variety of different ways. I listed the threads that coincide with the lessons (which is the order in which I plan to follow the threads) after the lesson number.
Some lessons/threads have lots of materials out there that compliment a particular thread while other threads I have yet to find suitable worksheets or additional projects. The curriculum is so complete that it isn’t even necessary to add worksheets and/or projects, but there are so many great materials out there that strongly reinforces a thread concept it would be sad to not include it.
The second one is the sequence we follow I think. We liked it because gravity came right after matter. I liked sticking to physics just a little longer before switching over to biology.
can you help me please mums who are using these books with advice on how best it is working for you , how much preparation time you need to spend before giving the lesson , how much extra resources needed …
xxx
viv
I have been using this book for a while now. I am in a science profession and so is my husband so it is relatively easy for me to point out what is important to my child. What I normally do is go to the library and choose a few books on the topic I plan to teach - I go to the baby section of the library first and choose at least one book there as my 2 year old does join us for these lessons and I want her to get something out of it too, but also because these very easy intro books tend to give the absolute basics of the lesson very quickly and with bright pictures which my 6 year old enjoys. It is then easier to move on to the more detailed books.
We do not do much writing but when I have finished a section I will often print out a colouring page or worksheet or we will build something and she copies one sentence that sums up the most important idea in the lesson. Sometimes we do experiments or even have a field trip, but this is not often and only when I can it it in.
I also try to find things that link to the lessons later on - for example we are now on holiday and have found the exoskeletons of various insects lying around so we collected them and will use them to add to this lesson in the book (my daughter thought that was disgusting but still learnt a lot by seeing them)
I do not follow a set plan for the order - I basically chose a lesson I wanted to do, checked what the prerequirements were and did those lessons first and then later when we had done the whole necessary series I picked another that looked fun and repeated - doing all the prerequisites first.
Preparation time varies according to how much time I have and what I want to accomplish. I can spend hours when I have the time, but when I am very short on time then less than an hour can get a section done and it will be fine - not as detailed or as busy, but she will get the point.
We use BFSU. we don’t complicate things. I read the topic. Jot down things to add into our daily discussion. I then borrow relevant books or DVDs from the library. I use discover streaming and YouTube if need be.
We don’t do experiments much. Right now we are just building a knowledge base. At the end of the week James dictates a few sentences about what we learnt in science this week.
Currently we are deviating a big and focusing on the systems of the body more deeply than BFSU does.
