Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding (BFSU) K-2 Lesson Plans

It is so nice to finally be writing this post. I have been working on these on and off for a while and have finally finished our plans for the upcoming school year. It really has been a joy doing it though because I have learned much from Dr. Bernard Nebel's book. Let me explain. It is not that I have learned a bunch of new information about science. What I have learned is how to teach coach/assist my children along in exploring "science" - God's amazing creation.

Dr. Nebel has given us a wealth of information broken down in to digestible pieces that our kids can understand and the tools so that they can retain it. I try as a homeschooling mom to unschool myself from my public school mentality but sometimes it creeps back in. Example above where I wrote teach and crossed it out. Of course we "teach" our kids but what we really want to do is guide/assist/coach our kids into true understanding NOT just teach them something abstract and move on. I do realize at this early elementary age it is more about giving them a "peg" to hang future knowledge on. Some foundation for the future aha moments. I do think that science is one of the more natural subjects to teach from an exploration or experimentation perspective but Dr. Nebel reinforces this concept again and again throughout the book. (which my thick skull totally appreciates)

This text has 391 pages, full of great information. I do not want anyone to think that because these lesson plans seem detailed that they are in any way a replacement for the text.  There is so much more material covered than this outlined lesson plan could ever touch. He begins the book with an intro and directions for using the text, followed by a flowchart for the lessons and an overview of topics covered. Then he writes two chapters full of great information for the teacher/parent on how to lead the child into discovery and it's importance. (once again great for me) These are the core chapters of the text explaining his philosophy about educating our little ones and it would be impossible to use these plans as intended without reading it for yourself.

There are many ways to purchase this text but the easiest way is to go to Outskirts Press. Here you will be able to purchase it in ebook format for $5.99 (viewable only- no editing or printing) or it has links to amazon and B&N as well. Amazon has it available in Kindle format for $9.99 or paperback for $24.99 at the time of this posting.

If you would like to learn more, Dr. Nebel has a yahoo group K-5 science which he runs and is available for questions. There is a wealth of info in the archives also.

Okay now onto the lesson plan outlines. I first found the idea for these from one of the members of the yahoo group, Marilyn Lewis, and she was gracious enough to let me tweak them for my family and then to share. {Thank you again Marilyn} I also received permission from Dr. Nebel to share these with you all. {Thank you for creating such a great resource for us}

There are 41 lesson plans in the text which can be spread out, as you see fit for your family, throughout the K-2 years. The plan I came up with for us, based on the flowchart, which will probably be different for everyone else. I am sharing the lessons we plan on using for this upcoming year. I hope these are helpful. If you use them I would love you to leave a comment. I do have these as a Pages file for any Mac users. If you would like them just leave me a comment and let me know. The link below is for the pdf file.

Click picture to download from 4shared or below to link in Google docs

Google Docs link click here.
Since this post sounds like an infomercial for BFSU (haha), I just want you to know that I purchased this book myself and was not compensated in any way for this post. I just really like this book and wanted to share a great resource with you all.