Middle School Transitions

Since our 7th grade daughter thinks she wants to pursue a science based career we decided to be more intentional with her studies and get her off to the best start possible. 

These past four years, science has been more of a general science. I felt like we were all over the place until I sat down and made a table of everything we've covered these past 4 years.

We've covered a broad range of topics using Sabbath Mood Homeschool's curriculum, several topics in "special studies" and even Earth science during geography.

I wanted to make sure we covered what was typically covered in a curriculum and looked through the table of contents of several texts. I think we've done a pretty good job covering general science but feel like we need to be a bit more "specific" in a few areas. We will cover these gaps with a few living books this summer.

GENERAL SCIENCE
Scientific Method
   Inquiry
   Limitations
   Science/Christianity
   Analyze & Interpret
      Experiments/Variables
      Series of Experiments
      Not obvious variables
      Interpreting Results

To address our shortcomings in "Scientific Method" I ordered a book written by Stephen Kramer, "How to Think Like a Scientist." It was listed on Guest Hollow as one of the books their son enjoyed. I will have to post a review later.








SCIENCE/APPLIED SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY
Simple Machines
  lever, wheel & axle, pulley, inclines, planes, wedge, screw

We will include this in our studies of Physical Science. I will find an online lesson for her to review.

ARCHAEOLOGY/GEOLOGY/PALEONTOLOGY
Fossil Record
Life
  Classifying: Kingdoms
  DNA, Energy, Adaptation, Reproduction, Human Body Systems

As far as the last part (Fossil Record/Paleontology) I haven't decided yet. I was thinking of using some books from Master's Books or even using the actual section from the Apologia General Science textbook to fill in.

We were looking at the Apologia books for a couple of reasons.

1. Christian World View
2. Encourage Independent Learning
3. Teach Note Taking
4. Comprehensive
5. Tried and True

Depending on the load of work we would still want to add living books alongside the course. Treat the textbook as the spine and add biographies or special studies to spice it up a bit.

So our plan (so far) is:
7th: General Science (almost finished)
8th: Physical Science
9th: Biology
10th Chemistry
11th: Physics
12th: Biology 2 or Chemistry 2

That of course could change at any given time.....