I used to do a lot of experiments with the kids, especially William, but mostly the past few years he's done his own experiments. I've absolutely hated the science curriculum we've owned. I bought it a loooong time ago when William was a baby, before I even started teaching with it, and we've never gotten far into it, because it truly ruins the joy of science. There are two main reasons I've absolutely hated the curriculum, which was God's Design for Science:
1. It's pathetically deficient and inadequate with very few pictures, none in color. I was constantly complaining about things. The lessons were so short with so many important things left out. For example, the human body book went over just a few of the bodily systems. There were several it left out, including the reproductive, excretory, endocrine systems and several others. In total it only covered seven systems and did it inadequately. Then in the animal book it didn't properly cover all the invertebrate phyla and subphyla, nor the various mammalian orders, etc. It was angering me so. I received a far more in-depth science education in public school, and one of the main reasons I started homeschooling in the first place was for the lack in public schools!
2. It teaches a YEC (young earth creationism), which is so pathetically lacking in evidence. I happened to order the curriculum during a three-year confused belief in that teaching (from I think the age of 19 to 22) when I was constantly being fed deceptive information via Christian radio programming.
Well, it seems most of the homeschooling curriculum teaches that, so I went searching for secular homeschooling science, and I came across a website called secularhomeschool.com that talked about a few different science programs, and I looked into Supercharged Science. After watching the video I decided I absolutely had to sign up for this program! I got permission from Nathan and went all out, signing up for five years of access to the escience video classes, experiment instructional videos, etc., plus equipment, batteries, kits, etc. for all the major experiments (the remainder of the hundreds or thousands of experiments require easy-to-obtain and inexpensive items). This is what we got shipped to us:
A peek in the boxes:
An incredible chemistry kit:
William is loving it!!! He's watching his science videos and doing the experiments. I will start watching videos with Trust and Liv sometime next year and do experiments with them.
This program doesn't cover much biology (the woman instructor was a NASA engineer, professor, airplane pilot), but on top of what I can do on my own and know what to look up to help guide the kids, I bought these two awesome Usborne biology books:
The first one is perfect for William. The second one is great for Trusten.
I bought a new set of learning-to-read books for Olivia (and later Elizabeth):
Also from Usborne I got a cool book on horses and ponies for Olivia, plus a clothing sticker book for different dress styles around the world that is fun for Olivia, while also educating her about different cultures and geographic locations (there's even a page at the back to place stickers of dressed persons on the correct oval that is connected by lines to the proper location on the world map).
There's a whole set of Usborne books I'd like to get dealing with cultural stories and such around the world, but for now I simply bought the one on Greek myths and legends, which is something for which I've always had a particular love:
I love Usborne books!
Okay, then I got a really cute and enjoyable book about animal stories for the girls. These have been fun to read together!
Sorry for the poor picture quality. I hurriedly pictured these, not in the best conditions.
I have big plans of doing lots of reading and watching educational videos with the kids during the winter, plus taking lots of woods exploration walks (weather permitting), something to which I'm really looking forward, because it's never worked out too well before, because I've either been pregnant or caring for a child that must be carried in a sling (usually too heavy and cumbersome for exploration) or can't walk around easily or safely. I think this will be the year!!! I am prone to get depressed in the winter, so I always repetitively tell myself the positive things about the season, and I'm really hoping this plan will be ultra-fulfilling. I, of course, will take my vitamin D, too.
Until next time...
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