Customer Reviews

Real Science-4-Kids Chemistry Level 1 Student Text

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am using this book to teach a study club with girls ages 8-12. I am very pleased with the format, it is easy for all of us to use. Teacher prep. time is minimal. The other instructor has a strong background in chemistry so at first we relied on her but that background is not necessary to sucessfully use this material. I appreciate that although the text is simplified for the age group it still uses proper terminology and is not "dumbed down". The page layout is attractive and easy to sort out. (Not too much crammed into the pages.) Because we have the time and flexibility we do add related experiments from other sources but the provided lab work stands on its own very well.

Before I tell you just what I think of this book, let me preface my remarks with the fact that I am a medical scientist, a member of the American Chemical Society who has taught science over many years to many people of all ages using a variety of textbooks. I am a firm believer in teaching science to the very young and making the ordinary housewife see that she knows a whole lot of chemistry once you drag it out from behind the language barrier. Let me be frank: this is the single worst chemistry text I've come across at any level.

Keller crams a great deal of definition into the few pages in this book, but she does so in a very disorganized manner, often omitting pertinent material and including things that are far beyond the scope of a chemistry text intended for elementary school students. Thus, in a chapter titled "Matter" she gives a one sentence definition of matter, followed by the statements that balloons, pancakes and baseballs are all made of matter. She complete omits from discussion the three states of matter, surely the simplest of concepts to communicate and illustrate experimentally. A chapter on molecules never mentions that atoms carry a charge and provides no explanation of why atoms might bother to form molecules. Worse, the bonding rules that she presents are both incorrect and unexplained. An entire page is devoted to pH indicators that the average adult will find both unpronounceable and unobtainable. While interesting, these are of little importance to the introduction of chemistry to a 10 year old. There is a glossary in the back, but there is no distinction between the word being defined and the definition. Everything is listed in the same typeface without bolding, making the glossary hard to use.

In short, this text is dry, boring and often incorrect. The fun of chemistry is obliterated. Worse, the book is markedly overpriced. By the time one purchases the Lab manual and the teacher's manual the cost of this 10-week program runs to about $70. A full year's worth of science using Real Science-4-Kids would necessitate the purchase of both the Biology and Physics curriculum.

If you do choose to utilize this series - and I certainly do not recommend that you do - be prepared to both provide a great deal of supplemental material and put in a good number of hours of prep time.

Not Recommended for those who do not have a background in chemistry themselves.

I learned more teaching my child using Real Science-4-Kids than I did in my high school chemistry class. The text is bright and colorful, and the lessons are explained in an understandable manner, using correct terminology. The text is great as a reference tool, but be sure to buy the Teacher's Manual and Lab sheets from the publisher for maximum benefit if teaching children!!

I have to agree with Grandma's assessment (in another review), and could add plenty more. I am NOT a chemistry professional, and, as such, needed a book that would be CLEAR. The chapter on bonding was horrid. I didn't know (or at least I didn't remember) that atoms had shells, which wasn't included in this book and should have been. Knowing about the shells (from another source) explained so much about bonding. We only found out because we were confused and weren't willing to gloss over it - we wanted to understand!

For the next chapter, on chemical reactions, I found much better information on the internet, which, again, we went to when we felt we needed a fuller understanding. There are too many holes in the explanations in this book.

As far as the lab book and teacher's guide, which are not officially being reviewed here, but are a necessary part of the curriculum, they are okay. However, there is not much guidance for the teacher - a lot of rewording of the student text. I am not happy with what the author is suggesting as acceptable hypotheses - I think they should be more precise. The same with the conclusions.

Perhaps I can be of some help, because we found some books at our library by Jenny Karpelenia. She writes a number of books for 9 to 12 year olds on chemistry, and they are VERY good. They are not dumbed-down in the least.

What these books have been good for is giving me a framework from which to work.

I think this series of books was rushed to print, and even after they could see areas that clearly needed improvement/correction, they didn't bother, because they were to busy coming up with add-ons to make more money. Sad. I was really excited when I ordered these, thinking I had finally found a worthwhile chemistry curriculum, but will not be ordering the other units now.

I bought this for my 3rd grade son, who is homeschooled. He loves science and I was a chemistry major in college. I do believe that you do NOT need a science background to teach well from this series. We are loving every minute. The curriculum does a wonderful job of bring complex topics down to a level that upper elementary children can understand. Use the lab book- it really cements the understanding of the topics and it is FUN! We had 2 other kids over when we did the marsh mellow experiment and they loved it! (neither one had read the lesson so we had to explain it to them- but it went over well!) This is a secular curricula, so for those who feel they want a religious based science curricula this may not be the one.

We are using this text, along with the lab manual, this year with our first grader. This book does what it says. It introduces young children to the concepts they will need in high school and college. Personally, I like the concept of this because I have never understood why students aren't exposed to chemistry until high school. And, my daughter has learned to love chemistry this year.

BUT (and this is a very important 'but'), I don't think I could teach my daughter chemistry using this book. I think most of the credit for my daughter's comprehension of the subject goes to my husband who does the lessons with her. He had chemistry in high school and loved it, and has a natural bent toward science.

To be perfectly frank, when I read this book, I have no clue what it is saying. And I consider myself to be a fairly educated person. I have two graduate degrees. But if I bought this book and attempted to go through the lessons with my daughter on my own, I would be extremely frustrated.

But if the teacher knows chemistry, I think this is a great basic introduction to the topic. I just wish there was a workbook to go with it.

As a home school mom, I was looking for something that would be easy to use, understandable for my upper elementary-jr. high kids, and have experiments that used simple items found around the house. This text was perfect. The teacher's manual explained how to give the information and how to conduct the experiments. The lower level Chemistry is great for my 2nd grader too, and follows the same information chapter by chapter that the 2 older children are doing.

Excellent presentation of High School and College Chemistry at the level elementary students can understand.
Way cool Chemistry experiments to go with each Chapter of the book. The student labatory worksheets are available along with the teacher's manual from the publisher's website: [...]

This book explains a lot of chemistry in a fun, simple, way. Excellent to read, especially if you are a beginner and want to know a lot. This book is one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read!

I bought the Level 1 Chemistry, Biology and Physics books and workbooks based on reviews of Keller's experience, etc. I did extensive review when the products were fairly new, and thought I was making a wise choice. I am sorely disappointed and wished I had acted quickly enough to return them for a refund. The books are extremely thin, with huge print, bad illustrations that look as though someone put them together in Microsoft Paint. I have a chemistry degree and thought this would be a good way to introduce my kids to chemistry, but principles are lacking in so many areas. I bought several 6th to 9th grade old science texts by Glencoe, Holt and McGraw Hill at thrift stores for under $3 each and found they were MUCH more comprehensive than this collection that is marketed as high-quality homeschool material. If the concepts in the 6th-9th grade books go too deep for my kids, we skip that part and move on, and the material will be there later when we're ready to revisit. I'm absolutely disgusted with this product and it's price.