Four Year Rotation of the Sciences

I have always followed the 4 year rotation as laid out in The Well Trained Mind for science.

1.) Life Science – animals, human beings and plants

2.) Earth science and astronomy

3.) Chemistry

4.) Physics

This has taken the guess work out of what our main science focus will be for a particular year. If you are worried about learning how you were taught in school, with small segments of different sciences each year, I want to share with you what I learned. You can not get very in-depth with a particular subject if you are skimming the surface each year. But, to do a thorough study, depending on the age of your child, you are able to dig deeper and understand more. Plus, the child has time to get into what you are studying. Often when you study something for a few weeks, they are just really understanding it when you are done and ready to move on.

The tricky year for me is the life science year. So, to be honest with you I have gone into the summer on that year and into a portion of the next year. If you are still worried about them getting bored, or them not learning a wide array of topics for that year, there are plenty of other opportunities to use other fields of science as you are teaching to one specifically. For example while teaching chemistry I have been able to also talk about physics, biology and earth science as we went very thoroughly through the periodic table and learned what each element was found in.

I don’t worry about missing something because I know that after four years we would have (theoretically) touched on all the sciences. I have children that took an interest in marine biology and now I send them to a marine biology camp during the summer, another child interested in robotics has a robotics camp to look forward to in the future. I also have one interested in archaeology and they ALL like to dig, so we are going on a local dig soon and on our next family vacation we are stopping to dig at a real site in VA, all day with a scientist. We also have started nature journaling which requires us to be outdoors observing each week and this will be an ongoing life science study for many weeks to come. So there are other times to pursue other science interests if we cannot “get to it” during our school time.

That’s what homeschooling is all about to me. It’s been a lifestyle change. We learn all the time, in everything we do. And while doing it, we enjoy each other’s company. If you are homeschooling for the long haul I would like to encourage you to keep some sort of cycle of the sciences. It lifts the burden of what to teach next and gives you the freedom to be creative within certain parameters.

Side note to moms not sure if you will homeschool next year: If you are not sure that you are able to homeschool for more then a year or two, I would stick with the traditional textbook style curriculum so that your child is not behind when they re-enter. That’s my opinion.

Written by Brenda, a classical eclectic mom of five. She blogs at http://thetiethatbindsus.blogspot.com, and is the founder of Our Lifestyle of Learning, an online community for homeschool moms.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.