Science Choices

Are you Considering Homeschooling?  This is the next post in my series on selecting a curriculum.

Here's a confession.

I hated science in school.  It was my least favorite subject, and my score on the science portion of the ACT was low enough to bring my overall score down considerably.

CONSIDERABLY!

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest.  It has been bothering me for almost twen... um, three or four years now. ;)

My attitude started to change in college, however, when I was forced to take a course on teaching science.  I had a dynamic professor who truly loved the study of science and taught us how to bring the study to life.  Her enthusiasm was contagious, and I caught a little bit of that bug.

Then I gave birth to two inquisitive, deep-thinking, kinesthetic-tactile BOYS.

My daily routine became very much about science from the moment Orville could talk.

What makes the car go?

Why is the bottom of the refrigerator hot?

How does the light get in the light bulb?

The moment Wilbur became mobile was when I started calling the two of them Orville and Wilbur because suddenly everything had science experiment potential.  I felt like we needed to build a workshop on to the house so the "Wright Brothers" could tinker.

We did not build that workshop, but during The Early Years, science for us was all about them posing questions and mom and boys working together to find answers and conduct experiments.  In other words, lots of visits to the library, to the zoo (to observe and to talk to the zoologists), keeping a garden, watching the world around them and drawing pictures to explain observations, and any simple experiment I could find from a variety of resource books.  I will list some of those at the end of this post.  :)

During their elementary years, we have used three main resources:

1. Apologia offers a series of unit studies called the Young Explorer Series.  The author, Jeannie Fulbright, writes in a living-book style.  The text is an easy read and can be comprehended by early elementary students.  However, the study is not watered down.  My boys have learned TONS from these units.  In fact, the book on Flying Creatures sparked their interest in bird watching.  Each of the books focuses on one of the six active days of creation and presents information from a young earth, creationist perspective.  My boys' faith has been strengthened through these studies, and they are taking steps toward being able to defend their worldview as a result.
2. Christian Kids Explore: Chemistry:  We took a break from Apologia this year because Orville REALLY wanted to study Chemistry, and Apologia does not offer a course in Chem for elementary students.  CKE has been a good study.  It teaches from a creationist point-of-view, as well.  It also has a very readable text and has made a difficult study easy to understand (even when I flub up).  
3. Lyrical Life Science, Vol. 3: The Human Body:  This is not a study in and of itself.  It is a collection of science songs set to familiar tunes.  The lyrics teach important science facts.  It makes a great addtion to any science study because there are other volumes available to fit different science topics.

One thing that all three of these resources have in common is that they make the study of science fun, just like I experienced in college.  My boys are always sad when science time is over, and I highly recommend each of these resources.

Return soon to read about Our Year with Tapestry of Grace.

Happy Curriculum Hunting!
Dawn 
Other favorite resource (not all are Christian, so please use with discernment):

• Answers in Genesis offers a variety of science resources for homeschoolers.  Highly recommend them!

• Lakeshore Learning offers a number of great hands-on science kits and tools.

• You can find just about anything you need to teach science from pre-school through high school at Home Science Tools.  Their prices are good, too.

Disclosure:  I am an Amazon affiliate and will receive a commision from any purchases that result from the links to their site I have listed in this post or elsewhere on my blog.  I am not an affiliate for any other company listed in this post and will not receive a commission from them should this post result in any purchases of any of their products.  I have not been compensated for this article.