10 June 2011

Home Educating Conference with Dr. Jay Wile and His New Elementary Science Course

Home Educating Conference with Dr. Jay Wile

Or, should that be titled: What On Earth Is Chelle Doing At A Traditional- Approach- to- Science Conference?

Freebie First - Dr. Wile is offering the first book in his new series, Science in the Creation Week, a creation based elementary science curriculum, for free to those that live outside the USA. That test pilot offer is especially good for Australian & New Zealand home educators with the download being ready for field testing in August 2012 .

Here's the web link for those interesting in following this curriculums development.

2013 update: Our quick review of the next book, Science in the Ancient World,  in Dr. Wile's elementary science book series can be found here.

Now back to the more current happenings in my small world: I couldn't really believe that I was willingly electing to go to a science conference - shudder - all those topics that just seem to delight only the males in our home and here I was driving, about an hour up the road, to sit through topics like echo-hysteria (which was actually very interesting) and science from the bible. I must admit that during the last lecture I quietly slipped out and headed for home - I think I was starting to shut down from 'science' overload.

Dr. Wile, author of Apologia Science is a very engaging and eloquent speaker - if you get the chance to attend one of his conferences, even from my slightly, ha, resistant to traditional science view point, go! You'll come away the better for it. Maybe not a convert to the traditional science approach, but like me - the better for listening to Dr. Wile expound on a subject he is gifted in and passionate about, and hopefully learn more about this wonderful creation we live in.... as well as come away encouraged by just being around other home educators for a day (without the washing to switch).

The hand out notes for the conference sessions held in New Zealand can be found here . I enjoyed two sessions more than the others: What are They Doing Now? (revisiting previous homeschoolers and seeing where they are now) and the second session was Teaching Critical Thinking.

Dr. Wile waved the "in favour" flag during his critical thinking talk for the math curriculum we use and like so much: Making Math Meaningful.

Makes one feel good about the choices they've made, though we'd still like & use it regardless of that comment (smile).

For the interested, before you ask (smile)... yes, I am still thinking about, and going through, the upper levels of Apologia for Bobs to start using midway through 2012, as I think, with a few adjustments, he may enjoy going through that.
(update:  We just slide right off the wagon with even 'trying' to use this course.  Ah well ...) 

2 comments:

rachaelnz said...

Hi Chelle,
We enjoyed Dr Wile's talks too!
It's nice to "find you" here on the web. It looks like we are up to about the same place in our SOTW3! I am very keen to look at your notebooking pages, thanks so much for sharing!
Rachael.

Chelle said...

Thanks for stopping by Rachael - your blog has re-inspired me to get a little more intentional with nature studies, again :)