Today, I'm joining in another collaboration! This will be an ongoing collab, where we share what curriculum we used this year for each subject as well as our thoughts on that curriculum. This collaboration is hosted by April at The Simple Rugged Path, Michelle at The Brave Homeschooling Mama, Ashley at Joyful Noise Living, and Ingrid at Mommy & Mia Homeschool Chronicles. Check out these channels if your looking for mom, homeschooling, and faith encouragement! The subject we're sharing about this week is Science. Make sure and check out the playlist at the end of this post to see what others are using for their science this year!
What We're Using for Science
Since we school year-round and take breaks as we need to, we're still in the middle of our current school year. The first half of this year, we've been learning about human anatomy. And we are just about to wrap this up, so I have a pretty good idea of how I feel about the books and materials we used.
Our core curriculum is from My Father's World. For science, we pretty much stick with their recommendations. In addition to the actual curriculum spines, we check out additional books from the library for whatever we're studying that week. The kiddos are then free to look through these books during our Book Basket time, to enrich and solidify their learning.
Anatomy
For anatomy, we used the following.
The Usborne First Encyclopedia of the Human Body. We really enjoyed this book. The illustrations are wonderful, and the explanations are simple and easy to understand.
The Human Body for Every Kid, by Janice VanCleave. We also really liked this book. The lessons are short, but effective. Each lesson has a fun, short experiment, and at the end there is usually a diagram with a few questions about it.
The Scholastic Body Book. This book has a lesson and pages to copy for each body system. The kids make a paper model of that system to help them learn the parts and where they go. I'll be honest and say we did not enjoy this book very much. In fact, we dropped it about halfway through. The models became complicated, and the directions were not always clear.
The Wonderful Way Babies are Made, by Larry Christenson. We have not gotten to this book yet, but we did use it with my oldest. Since we have boys, Hubby has been in charge of reading this to them when the time comes. This presents a gentle, Godly approach to discussing human sexuality and reproduction. It is to be read aloud and discussed with your child. Each page has two readings. A simple passage for younger kiddos, and a more detailed passage for older kiddos. You decide what's appropriate for your child's maturity level. It also contains beautiful, appropriate illustrations.
Astronomy
For astronomy, we will be using Apolgia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy, by Jeannie Fulbright.
I did use this with my oldest and we loved it. But, I am excited about a couple of new additions. First of all, we upgraded our text book to the 2nd edition. Flipping though it, the book looks a lot more user friendly and exciting than the 1st edition. With My Father's World, we only get the text book. This year, I ordered a notebooking journal for each of my kiddos to use along with the text. I did this with my oldest with some of his later Apologia studies, and we really enjoyed the addition. These are fun with guided note-taking, study guides, and experiment notes. If you are using any of the Apologia books, I highly recommend their accompanying notebooking journals!
Nature
In Charlotte Mason fashion, My Father's World encourages nature study through a weekly nature walk. This can be conducted in any way you see fit for your family. Now that Spring is here and it's not so frigid out, we plan on making more regular trips to our local park reserve for our nature walks. In addition, I have a few books I've added.
Natural Science Through the Seasons, by James A. Partridge. This book breaks nature study up seasonally. There are lessons for each season, plus a calendar with a short activity to do each day if you wish. I love this book, but I honestly don't use it much, except to see what to look for each month on our nature walks.
Nature Study & Outdoor Science Journal, from The Thinking Tree. This is a recent addition I made after watching April's review over at The Simple Rugged Path. These journals are wonderful and both of my kiddos absolutely LOVE them! April has done many reviews on The Thinking Tree Journals and Funschooling on her channel, so make sure and check out her videos if you're interested in either of those. I'm planning on adding more Thinking Tree Journals into our school as we go on, since we are loving this first taste!
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That's it for now, everyone! I hope you enjoyed reading about what we're using for science in our homeschool this year. If you have any questions about what we're using, feel free to let me know in the comments below. Also, if you have used any of these books, I would love to hear your thoughts!
Make sure and check out the playlist below for more ideas from other homeschooling mamas. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else is using!
Playlist: Homeschool Curriculum Review 2019
And stay tuned as we each share a different subject each week on what we're using in our homeschool. Have a great weekend, everyone!
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