Science

I have quite a few materials for science and this is what we're trying out. So far, no clear-cut winners but I just started with the girls today and Pike has his pick of books but seems to simply gravitate towards a simple experiment.

I've looked at Noeo and RS4K and simply reading books and think we'll try a mixture and see what works best. We'll start first with chemistry and then biology and then physics (depending on how chemistry works out).

For the girls, we're going to try Real Science 4 Kids Pre-Level I Chemistry. We've done Chapters 1 and 2 and will do lab 2 this week. I wasn't really impressed with lab 1. I also have two volumes of the "moon" books on order, Winter Moon and Summer Moon, and hope the girls enjoy them.

I'm going to try RS4K Level I Chemistry with Pike in addition to his pick of a science experiment. We have the Earth Science VanCleave book which I'm not all that impressed with. Pike likes it for experiments but I'm not sure he's actually seeing anything from it. Google Books has some of the engineering book and we much preferred it so we'll see about that too. We also have the following (that he hasn't really looked at) Science Experiments You Can Eat; Chemical Chaos; Blood, Bones and Body Bits, as well as 2 TOPS books and one more Sonlight science experiment book. None of these have really resonated with Pike though. I'm hoping the RS4K, Tiner's History of Medicine and a Usborne book I have on order will flesh things out.

Boys Africa

African culture to come

Boys Japan

Read "Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun"
Read "Sadako and the 1000 Paper Cranes"
Consider "The Rape of Nanking" but not for Pike
Read "Japan: The Culture"
Read "Japan: The People"
National Geographic overview
National Geographic videos
Japan music

hmmm...need to find more resources

Boys China

(after India - China)
read PRC book (ordered 1-Feb)
Read China History from Usborne World History
Read The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen
National Geographic overview
National Geographic videos
China music
Explore constructing rice paddies
Photos of the Forbidden City
Sightsee in China
Read about Chinese New Year
Explore Mr. Donn's Ancient China site
China map project (maybe)
Read China History or this site and this site
Explore China site
Explore The Great Wall or Great Wall
Read Homesick My Own Story (China)
Read Yung Fu of the Upper Yangtze (China)
Watch The Last Emperor (ordered 2-Feb)