Seventh Grade Science: More Fleisher and TOPScience Analysis, Oxidation, and Electricity (Seventh Grade)

Mater Amabilis™ Level 3 Year 2 science is a continuation of the physics and chemistry in Year 1.

The study includes two books by Paul Fleisher: Matter and Energy: Principles of Matter and Thermodynamics (Bookshop or Amazon) and Waves: Principles of Light, Electricity and Magnetism (Bookshop or Amazon). These two books are as wonderful as the sixth grade ones by Fleisher. Even better, Living Book Press has reprinted all of the Secrets of the Universe books with revisions by the author and the original illustrations. This is one of the few instances where it's worth it to find a new copy.

First Son identified sugar with a burning test

The third book scheduled for the year is The Mystery of the Periodic Table by Benjamin D. Wiker (Amazon). I love this book. It covers some pretty difficult scientific topics in an engaging way. Describing phlogiston ("the element that wasn't") in a way middle school students can understand is impressive.

Essential to the course of study in seventh grade are the activity cards from TOPScience: #10 Analysis, #11 Oxidation, and #32 Electricity. I love these cards! With a box of materials, most of the activities can be done with limited input from parents, though I always stay near-by, especially when flames are involved.

The cards are available as books, but I think the PDF files are the best value. The purchaser has permission to print cards for every student and you can just open the file and print when you have another student in seventh grade without holding a book open over your printer for every page.

You can also purchase kits from TOPS with everything you need for the set. (Choose the starter kit in the dropdown on the order page for the book.) I bought the kits for all three sets when First Son was a seventh grader and they made everything really easy, though most people probably have everything they need for electricity. For First Daughter, I ordered just a few things to refill our kits. You can see the complete lists on the TOPS website so you know exactly what you need and what's included when you buy the kit.

Every activity card has an "answer" card that includes not only the answers, but explanations that actually helped as I talked with my students about the activities.

First Son's alcohol fire

The one and only problem I had with the TOPS cards in seventh grade was the instruction to make limewater using garden lime. I bought garden lime and tried twice to make limewater. Kansas Dad tried to make limewater. We just couldn't get it to work. So we skipped all the limewater activities with First Son. I later found instructions at Home Science Tools using actual calcium hydroxide that work perfectly, so that's what we did for First Daughter last year. (I bought the calcium hydroxide at Home Science Tools.)

The Mater Amabilis™ site contains a schedule of lessons for the year that we followed almost exactly. Activities from the TOPS cards and readings are intermingled so well you might even think the TOPS cards were designed for the Mater Amabilis™ books.

The only difference I made was to combine some of the activity cards for Electricity (which is the easiest set, a nice way to end the year) so that we had time to do some of the reading and activities on electricity from Simple Machines and Fantastic Physics (Wildflowers and Marbles). We do most of that study in fifth grade, but it turned out to be a bit too long for my students, so I moved some of the electricity, magnetism, and computing to seventh and eighth grades.

I have received nothing in exchange for this post. Links to Bookshop and Amazon are affiliate links. Links to TOPScience, Home Science Tools, Living Book Press, and other sites are not affiliate links.