Kolbe Academy Reviews – 4th and 6th Grade Science

First thing to note: I 100% agree with Erin Arlinghaus’s seminal blog post on everything elementary science.  The way she teaches is the way we’ve done science in the past, though maybe not with quite such organizational flair.  Keep that in mind as you read my comments.

The Texts

Kolbe uses Harcourt Science 4^th Grade for 3rd and 4th grades, and Harcourt Science 6^th Grade  for both 5th and 6th grades.  [Both from Harcourt Publishing, 2005.] The units are divvied up so that you do half the units in each grade — if you have used part of one of the books on your own already, you’d want to figure out which course plans cover the sections you haven’t already studied (call and ask), or if you are enrolled with Kolbe,  just request a copy of both grades, and use what you need.

  

The textbooks are fine.  Colorful, informative, full of things you’d want to know.  I try not to read them too closely, and I’m sure that helps.  Each chapter opens with an “investigation” (like an experiment or a project), and these are almost always goofy.  If you’ve seen and felt and played with real tides in action, swishing around blue colored water pales.  We skip these 98% of the time.  Sure makes Mondays easier.

The chapters themselves just teach you science-y stuff, and in all the books are a nice compendium of technical facts and concepts.  Basic model science book, no complaints.  Does what we need it to do.  I have not felt the need for an answer key to the review questions, because it is very easy to quickly find the answer in the text if I don’t know it.

–> The textbooks are pricey – $87 (4th) and $95 (6th) retail.  It helps that you use the books for two years.  Also, these are very durable, school-edition hardbound textbooks, so there’s a good chance they’ll survive ten or more kids before they retire.  But if you are comfortable with handing your child a pile of library books and saying, “Write me a report when you’re done,” that is definitely the cheaper route.

[We’ve also had years that I handed my independently-reading child an ancient freebie textbook someone gave us.  I loved that.  Can I say Abeka was writing some nice stuff in the late ’70’s?  Yes.  Yes they were.  And back up to the ’60’s and you get some seriously good science books for children.  I honestly think something has been lost in the art of science writing lately.]

The (optional) workbooks are goofy and sort of annoying; neither of my big kids liked them.  But my currently-a-second-grader is begging to “do Kolbe,” and she loves workbooks, so we’ll save them for her.  The Kolbe course plans don’t call for the workbook; all the reading and assignments are from the text.

The Kolbe Course Plans

The Kolbe course plans provide a fair amount of guidance and instruction.  For each day, the ‘parent guidelines’ give a summary of the key points to discuss with the student — basically, how to teach the chapter day by day.   My kids just read the info themselves (or not), and do the assigned reading and questions from the book.  So far the only time I’ve needed to step in and explain something was when the 4th grader was studying the effects of the tilt of the earth’s axis.  We carried a globe into her bedroom and walked it around the big light on her ceiling fan until she got the hang of what was going on.

I bet the kids would score better on their exams if I sat down with them every day, but for now we’re satisfied with what they are learning independently.  My on-grade-level-for-reading 4th grader has no difficulty following the plans and studying on her own, though both kids do come up with interesting pronunciations for the new words they learn.

–> If you aren’t enrolled and would have to purchase the plans a la carte, you could just divide the book up by the day or week, type it up in excel, and thus tell your kid what page numbers which day.  Or do that a day-at-a-time with a bookmark.  The plans do provide some useful info, but you could live without it if you are comfortable just working through the book on your own.

(I would do that myself, though I like the ease of having all the typing done for me, which was a big reason we enrolled in the first place.  I also like that by following the plans, it stops arguments: The kids can’t accuse me of being the meanest, most slave-driving mother on the planet, when we have printed proof that I’m no meaner than the sadists at that horrid Catholic school in California.)

The course plans do include four end-of-quarter exams.  Answer key for the exam is in the course plans, not in the separate answer key book.  [That is, it might be also in the book, but if you own the course plans themselves, that suffices.  This is true for all the Kolbe course plans — if the plan includes an exam, it also includes the answer key for that exam.]

The Verdict

This science program is a good choice if either:

a) You aren’t comfortable teaching science on your own, and want a formal curriculum that walks you through a  traditional text step by step.

or

b) You need to just shove a formal plan in front of your kids and say, “Do science!”

You might get a very good science education, and worst case scenario, you won’t get a bad one.

I’d recommend purchasing just the textbook; for most people, skipping the workbook would be fine.  I’d skip the answer keys as well, unless you’re sure you’ll need an answer key — for example if your students are going to be checking their own answers, or you need to grade at maximum speed.  I’d be inclined to start the course with only the text (and course plans if desired), and only go back and purchase the optional extras if you felt something was really missing.

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Any questions?  Any votes for what subject to cover next week?