My girls are loving Science in public school this year, so I know I need to make more of an effort to do Science next year when we are homeschooling again. The problem is I don't know where to start! They will be in grades 4 and 2, and the next one will be starting Kindergarten. We tried Apologia Astronomy two years ago, but it just didn't really get done. I want something interesting, engaging, not too expensive, etc. I've looked a little bit at the God's Design For... series. I really don't know what else to look at. We believe in YEC, fwiw.
Take a look at Berean Builders. There is a new YE chronological history series for science in the elementary years. Each lesson has an experiment or activity, and each lesson takes only about 20 minutes. My son is loving it! It's as thorough as Apologia, but it doesn't involve tons of reading and writing. It's more about hands-on and discussion. It's also not topical, so you'll be able to jump around to lots of different sciences rather than focusing on just plants or just astronomy.
I haven't tried the new Berean series -- which is by Dr. Jay Wile, btw, who wrote the original Apologia series -- but we're currently enjoying Rod & Staff science. It's very easy to use, very age/grade appropriate, and there are plenty of activities to either do, simply discuss, or ignore, as you choose.
We love Easy Peasy science. It is pretty interactive with games and hands on activities. Sometimes I switch things up a bit and do a few other activities realating to the topic to keep it interesting.
I need to find a good science curriculum too. My girls are attend a school that is part homeschool, part private school and they don't officially have a science curriculum. I like to check out ChristianBook.com for deals, this link might be helpful to compare programs: http://www.christianbook.com/page/homeschool/science?event=Homeschool @SeekTruth, is Easy Peasy Science from this site? http://allinonehomeschool.com/
OH yeah, CBD is definitely a great place to research curriculum! I don't buy stuff there nearly as often anymore as I'm in Canada, and exchange is nuts right now, but it's still great for researching. I spent entirely too much time looking at curriculum yesterday! It's a good thing I've got several months yet, cause there is way to much out there to look at
@featherhead, You are in Canada, so you don't have Common Core? Is there something similar? My daughter went to public school for one year and the math really set her back! We spent the first 2 months of this year trying to catch up.
I think our schools are very different. There is no national standard. We do have provincial standards, but they are very reasonable. They also don't do standardized testing except the CAT test in certain grades. My kids school focuses very much on literacy. They have a dozen or so literacy teachers that help out in all the classrooms. My grade 1 daughter is quite a bit ahead of her class, but her teacher is finding ways to challenge her, which is awesome. They also do a lot of fun stuff in their class. Two weeks ago she was supposed to bring an onion to school to make stone soup. They had been reading a bunch of different versions of the book, and at the end they made soup. They also learned to make porridge. My kids never bring home homework, other than they are supposed to read daily. So I haven't seen their math much, but my third grader got all 4s in math on her report card (grades are 1-4, with 4 being the top). She gets to use xtramath in her class as well.
The math they are pushing in schools here is ridiculous. In 3rd grade, they did not introduce long division or do much multiplication and most math problems had to be drawn out with circles and all sorts of visual representations even when it didn't make sense to do so. She has always been good at math; the problem was that the curriculum wasted a lot of time and didn't prepare her for the more difficult traditional math we use now. I'm glad you don't have to deal with that! There is a lot of "Common Core" drama here in the US.
Here is what I got from the Manitoba Education website. A lot of it is review for my daughter, but there is some new stuff. She has also been cementing her addition and subtraction facts, which is good. She showed me one of her timed drills from school. They give them 10 minutes, and she finished in under 7. The teacher said some students don't even finish. Hopefully she fits right into whatever math program I decide on for next year. There are four areas, or “strands,” in Grade 3 math: Inside the Number strand, children count forward and backward from 0 to 1000 by 5s, 10s, 25s and 100s; use objects, pictures and numbers to show and compare quantities up to 1000; count forward and backward from 0 to 100 by 3s and 4s; add and subtract to 1000 and recall addition and subtraction facts to 18; understand multiplication up to 5 X 5 and related division; show the meaning of place value for numbers up to 1000; understand fractions as a part of a whole. In the Patterns and Relationships strand, children create increasing and decreasing patterns using objects, pictures and numbers up to 1000; solve equations such as “93 plus what equals 107?”. In the Shape and Space strand, children measure time, mass, length and perimeter; describe 3-D objects and sort shapes by number of sides. In the Statistic and Probability strand, children collect and organize information using charts, lists and graphs to solve problems. In order to achieve lifelong learning in mathematics, children: communicate what they are thinking and learning; connect math to everyday situations and other subjects; estimate and use mental math strategies; learn through problem solving; reason and explain their thinking; use technology to enhance their learning; use visual images (think in pictures) to describe their thinking.
My kids love science too! I personally love the Magic School Bus (http://www.educents.com/magic-school-bus-science-club-deal-june.html), it is fun and you get month many different experiments. It was great for my kids! You will find interesting resources here as well: http://www.sonlight.com/PS00.html ! Hope it helps
I bet that would be fun! It's more than I want to spend though. I'm still looking for the right thing, lol.
Ooh, I really liked the God's Design For Life series. You can also put together your own curriculum for the year with library books or books you buy. If you want to see what that would look like, I have a video on how we did that for 2nd grade if you're interested. You can see that here: