Okay ladies, help me out! I have done CGC with dd9 for one month and she really does not like it. I'm not crazy about it either. We have been doing lapbooking for Social Studies (electoral process) so she gets to do quite a bit of cutting and pasting. What I would really like is Science once a week with something that is not teacher intensive, focuses on natural science (meaning plants, space, anatomy, the scientific method, etc). Something colorful that we can do in a short amount of time. Any suggestions? I looked at Lifepacs and seems okay but I've searched around here and it didn't get great reviews.
Okay, hmmm not sure what there is because that was he one curric that made me enjoy science and I dont have to worrya bout a thing, I just read the lesson off straight from the book and ds does or doesnt do the project depending on if we like it or not. We also watch videos, What age is your child?
Why not try unit studies. We use Konos. You could do science lapbooks. Now is a great time to do apples or pumpkins- lots of science with them. We've done both and the kids loved them! We're doing bubbleology this year- getting in some physics with a bit of fun. If you google unit studies you'll find a ton of stuff.
You might look at Real Science 4 kids. They divide books into Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. I know our Biology would only be 10 weeks long if we did each lesson per day, so it can be spread out. The books are colorful and very easy to read--- not very textbook-y looking at all. They don't read like textbooks either. The projects are fun; we're doing plants right now.
I highly recommend unit studies for science! This will be our first year we are not doing unit studies. My dd is in 7th grade and doing Apologia General Science now and loving it. The last two years we did unit studies and her favorites were on primates and killer whales. I just let her pick the topic and then we went to the library and found everything we could on that topic from children's and adult books to movies and documentaries. We compiled everything into a final lap book. The best one was on primates. She chose 5 different types to research and found facts, made a vocabulary list, wrote a poem and an original story, drew pictures and it turned out really nice. Now she often goes back to look at it and proudly shows it off.
I was going to suggest lapbooking but you said you're already doing enough of that in social studies so I take it you do not want to do that for science then as well? My other suggestion would be Switched on Schoolhouse and their cd program. It's all planned out for you (I saw a sample of it when I went through the tutorial for ds's language arts last year). I think if we ever get tired of lapbooking that we might go to it (in a few years since it starts at grade 3). Best of luck in finding something.
The problem is I don't want to add any more lapbooks since we are already doing them for social studies and I also have some to do for reading. I will check out Konos though, thanks!
Well, with unit studies you have to do a lot of prep work. So yea. I think I agree with you. I really would like something easy (for me). We are doing R&S English and Spelling and I love how easy to teach it is. I'd like something like that but colorful. :wink:
That sounds like something I would like. I will be researching Real Science 4 Kids! Thanks! Do the experiments require a lot of material hunting? I think I would only do one experiment every few weeks. If the first one goes well, I would be more likely to do more. Thanks!
I may do one or two science unit studies but I still want one thing I can do w/o all the prep work a unit study requires of me. I do believe when learning is child initiated things seem to "stick" better. Our focus this year is math facts, falling in love with reading, and fluency. So science will be incorporated. But as a lesser priority. I appreciate your suggestions though. I bet my daughter would love a primate unit as well. That's a great thought. Thanks!
I do need something else besides lapbooking. I wouldn't hesitate to do a lapbook if it was a topic she wanted to research further. I have a sample copy of SOS but I was a bit turned off by the price (70$ at Mardels). And the voice seemed a bit robotic to me. And I've heard of people having technical difficulties. I'm just not sold on it. I feel like it sounds as if I'm poopoo-ing suggestions and I'm sorry if I'm coming across that way. I feel like I've searched and searched but come up empty handed. I'm sick of looking for a science program that will be the perfect fit for us. Maybe there isn't one? I do appreciate all your responses though.
They don't require much from what we've done so far. We learned about classification by grouping stuff that's just around the house. We learned that you can group things differently; all of that was tied to learning kingdom and phylum. We're doing plants right now. I had to buy a couple of cheap plants to learn how sunlight/water impact plant growth, but we go to Lowes often enough that it really wasn't anything out of the way. I like that it has the look of something more like a comic book [even the font], but it retains serious science study. They learn the processes and terminology. We're a science-type family, so finding a curriculum that took science seriously was important to us. It's definitely one I recommend looking at.
If you hung on for a month with CGC, you lasted longer than we did :lol: It's a great program for some families but wasn't a good fit for ours. We're using Apologia Zoology 2 now and really like it. My 10 yr old is also doing Real Science 4 Kids Physics too. Good Luck!
Don't apologize! That's what we're here for! We throw all kinds of suggestions at each other with the hopes that something will be exactly what you're looking for! If not, we just keep throwing!
