The kids do love hand on, we did a Magic School Bus human body kit from this company a while back and they loved it! What if I start buying these kits and we add in videos and some of the Let's Read and Find Out books (which they like fairly well considering they aren't into books)? Would that be ok for science? Each set comes with 3 kits so I could get 3 weeks out of each kit... they would most likely get done since I don't have to run around gathering a million things. And I could add a few worksheets from The Complete Book of Science for portfolio fodder.
It sounds like a really fun science program. But it does sound like you would still need to pull together various resources. Only you can decide if that is the right fit this year or if you need something more structured and ready to go.
I was just looking, I think this is how my kids would like to do science. I think I might order the first 2 sets (6 kits... so 6 weeks of science). I'm still torn between doing this and Mr Q though. I want to talk to hubby about it, but then I know when I bring up school stuff his eyes gloss over and he looks lost and clueless and tells me "you know better than I do". I thought about asking the kids what they want to do but not sure how to put it in front of them.... maybe print out a few samples of Mr Q and RSO and also a pick or two of the kits with pictures of the "living books" and a video to go with it.. but I bet they would go for the kits without much thought...lol
Glad to hear that my husband isn't the only one who responds to homeschool related questions with that look. My science loving 9 year old had science kits on his Christmas wish lists for fun. Using them as a base for science lessons sounds really cool. We have several kits and books with experiment ideas and I am still bad about fitting in extra science. Our curriculum has science built in, but knowing we are a science loving family I had planned to do more, but it just doesn't happen.
I let the kids decide. I showed them RSO... both were like NO WAY! I showed them Mr. Q and both were like THIS THIS THIS. Then I showed them the kits and Rylee wanted them because of the freaking monkey on the box...lol But when I explained that eventually we would do pretty much the same experiments doing Mr. Q and not have to find other books to go with it she went back to wanting Mr Q. Reagan was like there is a lot of cool things to do in there but wasn't all over the moon over them. So Mr Q it is! We are going to start building a box of experiment supplies and when he has his half price sale in 2 weeks I will order the next one. Oh and I promised to find a video to go with each weeks lesson... they love Bill Nye and Beakmans World.
I haven't even looked at it yet, but I just downloaded this FREE book of science projects and thought I would share the link. http://www.amazon.com/Science-Projects-Making-Minutes-Experiments-ebook/dp/B00DTJJXAC/
Is there a website to the curriculum you are talking about?? We have tried and tried to do apologia young science books, but just can't get into them no matter how hard we try.. We've had just about every single one of them. I use them for a few weeks then we have enough and slowly they get put away on the shelf never to be used again until the next one comes out. Can't seem to get away from them. I'm not quite sure what it is that keeps me going back to Apologia.. Maybe lack of choice?? Thanks
Mr Q? Yes. The Young Scientist Kits.. I think there may be, but I would have bought on amazon they are WAY cheaper there sold in sets of 3 kits at a time. Mr Q is eequalsmcq.com
Mr Q is it.. Duh! You said that! I googled it and found his website. GREAT stuff there! Maybe we will try it out since one of the books is free. Can't beat free !
My kids are excited to start it on Monday. If they are still super into it in 2 weeks when it goes on sale I will buy Earth and maybe Chem or Physical since it's half price, it will keeps us going for a while... if I stick with it..lol
This is incredibly gross, but true. My daughter LOVED the idea of building skeletal models of animals. She had a Dremel tool, tiny drill, wires, the works. Wanted to make them museum quality. But here's the gross part... She raised a colony of DERMESTID BEETLES...that will eat the flesh off animal bones in days....and we used road kill. She had Rubbermaid bins full of bugs. She'd let them eat the dead thing for a few days... she did a possum, raccoon and a duck. Then she'd bleach the bones, dry them, and start the reassembly process. After the bleach stage, it was shockingly odorless and clean. The beetles are incredible at picking every bit of organic debris off. The little ones get into all the tiny little crevices, too. Creepy? Oh yeah....still kinda freaks me out. But the end results were just gorgeous.
Yeah...that is kinda gross. But, it actually sounds fascinating. How old was she when she did this? The closet we ever came to this was the owl pellets we took apart at a nature center class last summer. Nobody took any of their bones home, so my daughter went around and collected them all in a paper cup. At home I put them in a jar of bleach. Bad part was that I kinda forgot about them (it's possible I just didn't want to deal with it, I'm not sure). In the end I had to throw them out. The teacher who did the nature class works for the DNR. She said when she was a girl she had jars of bones in her room that she collected. Maybe your dd is destined for some type of job like that.
