So, we're now a month and a half in.

[conuly]

We are doing less science than I thought... and waaaaay more history. Turns out I think history is the most important subject ever. I don't think I knew that about myself before starting out on homeschooling.

The girls are somewhat less enthused than I am, though they are certainly learning a lot about prehistory. We're actually just emerging this week from the pre- part of history into the more established ground. I haven't told them yet, but this probably signifies that we're going to be spending even more time on history.

Now, if I could only combine science and history in an effective manner, I would be a very happy Connie.

Comments

[redbird]

At some point you can do history-of-science and history-of-technology stuff, and some of how science lets us know more about history.

[bessemerprocess]

History of science and technology! We're an awesome field (I, uh... may be in the middle of a hist of sci/tech dissertation at the moment).

If you're interested, the textbook we used for freshman survey is McClellan and Dorn's Science and Technology in World History. It's currently getting edited for a third volume, but the second one is pretty decent, even though it suffers a bit from being written by white guys who were young in the 1930s. (Though one was a leftist union organizer before he entered academia and the other engineer, I think, so you sometime whiplash between really progressive and progressive for 1930.) On the other hand, its section on the Maya is still the standard of scholarship for Mayan science and is pretty good. It starts with the technology of the Indus river valley civilizations, talks about China and the Islamic States, does the Middle Ages (and kids could totally watch the PBS special Cathedral all of which is up on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZpOd2pHiI0 It's by the guy who wrote How Things Work, which is totally kid friendly), Renaissance, Enlightenment and so on to the post-WWII world.

I think most of it would be easy enough to turn into something kid friendly.

[conuly]

Fascinating. I was just toying with The Story of Science, but Joy Hakim is annoyingly chatty at times.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

I studied history of medicine, which could blend history and biology to an extent. But I was 14-15 so it's probably not right just yet.

You could definitely look at science in a historical context though, I'm sure. You might need to build your own course though.

Is the problem that they're not interested in science, not engaged, too far apart in ability or something else?

Which areas of science should they be studying right now? (I only have dim memories of science at primary school - I remember circuits when I was 6-7, growing beans in coke bottles and something with a plant in water and putting oil on top when I was 10-11... and that's basically it. I'm sure we did loads more, I just don't remember what any of it was. Sex ed contained some biology, I suppose.)

(If I'd known this, I'd have bought Horrible Science books not Horrible Histories. It was a toss up and I had trouble choosing ;0)

[conuly]

To be honest, there is very little that they "should" be doing in science right now. The school system expects them to start from scratch in high school anyway. (Same with history, actually, but I said fuck that.) So we're just working on a foundation. But if you're interested, standards are here for grades 4 and 6.

I don't know. Maybe I just need to get a different focus here. It's not a them thing, it's definitely a me thing.