Can someone explain 'My Pals are Here' to me?

[HootyTooty]

I'm trying to figure out how much I should be budgeting for next year's curriculum. I am thinking about purchasing My Pals are Here for our science. Looking at the Rainbow Resources site I was left a little :confused:.

So I need at minimum:
Student Text 3A and 3B
Activity book 3A and 3B

Do I need to buy the Teacher text and the Test manual as well? I'm pretty confident in my primary science if that makes a difference.

Thanks.

[training5]

May I suggest posting your question on the Singapore forum or emailing them directly? They have been very prompt and helpful in the past.

[KAR120C]

We did without any of the teacher's editions and were fine.... The only things I see you're missing are the workbooks. Basically you read from the text, do the labs in the activity book, and do exercises in the workbooks. Some of the activities are workbook-y, but that's the general idea... and they all go together very neatly. There are also "Higher Order Thinking Skills" books for some levels, but they came out after we were finished with the series, so I don't know any details, except that they look great!

Hope this helps!

[Linda...inOwasso]

We use the textbook and workbooks. I bought the activity guides as well but haven't used them because I feel the other two sources are enough. HTH!

[Pam "SFSOM" in TN]

I'm trying to figure out how much I should be budgeting for next year's curriculum. I am thinking about purchasing My Pals are Here for our science. Looking at the Rainbow Resources site I was left a little :confused:.

So I need at minimum:
Student Text 3A and 3B
Activity book 3A and 3B

Do I need to buy the Teacher text and the Test manual as well? I'm pretty confident in my primary science if that makes a difference.

Thanks.

I'm not sure exactly what one needs to buy for Singapore Science nowadays, but I thought I would mention this little tidbit from my experience.

When I looked through MPH the first time five or so years ago, I thought, "What the heck?!" It looked to me like something you could buy as a workbook from Walmart. Way too little meat to be science.

And then I used it. And then I "got" it. And then I remembered that I had thought almost *exactly* the same thing when I got hold of the much-lauded Singapore Maths books. "Um, couldn't I have gone to Walmart and bought a cutsie little workbook that is pretty much the same thing as THIS??"

But after I used it, I realized -- no. Not even close. And when I got through MPH 5 & 6 and then started to do Interactive Science I in grade 7, I realized that the slow and steady approach was a deliberate, slow, higher-level thinking prep for their later grade science. Same with the math. It ramps up slowly, but once you hit the meatier, faster-moving texts, you really appreciate the deliberation with which the foundation has been laid.

Also, it isn't meant to be used daily. It's enough material for once or twice a week science. Or, you could do as we did and do an activity one day, a worksheet another day, and read in the text another. About ten minutes of science per day, but definitely line upon line, precept upon precept-type building.

As to what to buy, I do know that if you want speed in checking, go ahead with the teacher manual. Sometimes, there's a suggestion or two about questions to ask or viewpoints to ponder or a further prod of thinking. And I really liked the workbook, but I'm not sure that's available. The thing is, unless you're really watching the pennies, the texts aren't terribly expensive and it's great to have all your resources at your fingertips. Obviously, if you don't test, it doesn't really matter. I didn't test a whole lot. But when I had tests available, my kids loved to use them as a game to see how much they could remember. So I would have found them valuable had they been available to us. And we DID use the test books when we used the grade 7 text -- they were much more rigorous than tests I would have developed myself and were a learning experience in and of themselves.

[KAR120C]

We use the textbook and workbooks. I bought the activity guides as well but haven't used them because I feel the other two sources are enough. HTH!
I don't remember which years/book it is (it's been a few years! LOL), but in some cases there will be questions in the workbook that refer back to activities in the activity book.... So I would at least buy them to have on hand, myself.

[HootyTooty]

We did without any of the teacher's editions and were fine.... The only things I see you're missing are the workbooks. Basically you read from the text, do the labs in the activity book, and do exercises in the workbooks. Some of the activities are workbook-y, but that's the general idea... and they all go together very neatly. There are also "Higher Order Thinking Skills" books for some levels, but they came out after we were finished with the series, so I don't know any details, except that they look great!

Hope this helps!

We use the textbook and workbooks. I bought the activity guides as well but haven't used them because I feel the other two sources are enough. HTH!

Thank you both for your help. :)

[HootyTooty]

Thank you so much for your post Pam that helped a lot too. :)

[Closeacademy]

You need the text, workbook and activity guide for each semester. For levels 4 and 5 you will want the Higher Order Thinking Skills books as well.

My dd loves this science. 3a/b is mainly biology but 4a/b is very meaty and you will want to make sure that your child is at least doing Primary Math 3a/b to do this science.

Hope this helps.:)

[KarenNC]

You need the text, workbook and activity guide for each semester. For levels 4 and 5 you will want the Higher Order Thinking Skills books as well.

My dd loves this science. 3a/b is mainly biology but 4a/b is very meaty and you will want to make sure that your child is at least doing Primary Math 3a/b to do this science.

We've been working fairly quickly through Singapore i-science level 3 (into 3b now) as a review this year in prep for going into MPH 4 next year. I have the workbook, text, activity guide and have ordered the higher order thinking skills and tests. My daughter is about halfway through with Primary Math 2b now and will be working on PM 3a/b concurrently with the MPH 4---do you see any problems with that, given the material or should she have completed 3 (either a or a and b)?

[Closeacademy]

My dd is working on PM 3a as we start MPAH 4a. There is some math that I have had to help her with.

Because the book starts talking about mass, in the workbook there are a few problems that we've encountered in the beginning that deal with mass. The big one is where they have to add a string of one and two-digit numbers. The other math we've come across mainly deals with weight.

As I went through the books to make my schedules up, I really only saw math in the beginning. Both books spend a lot of time on water (states of matter), water cycle and water conservation.

If you dd is strong in math or you are willing to help with the math you should be ok.