What about science?

[bttrflyvld]

We have our 3R's covered and feel confident about what we have planned, but what about doing more? Do you do science? Or wait till they are older?

 

If you do science at this age what do you do or use?

[monkeymama07]

We use science is simple.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0876592728

 

We also use various kits.

[Tawlas]

I have simple science but prefer and old book I found at a library sale. We just do a simple little experiment for fun, once a week or so.

 

Right now we're also slowly working our way through Usborne's prehistory. Big Bang to cavemen. We read a two page spread and he draws a picture of whatever he thought was interesting and I write down his thoughts. Later in the week, we'll read a few library books and watch a netflix show or some other related documentary. I count that as science and history :-)

 

ETA we also have a 'French day'. We - well I mostly lol - speak French from about 1000 on Tuesdays. We do a lesson from avant gaston and something from French for children, the do a messy art project and a baking project. Later in the day, the boys switch from one-on-one French playing with me and French apps on the ipad, we read French books and watch a French track DVD. It's not the same as immersion but it's better than nothing!

[BarbecueMom]

For pre-k, we're just spending lots of time outside collecting bugs and leaves, nosing through the DK My First Science Encyclopedia, and watching shorter science and engineering shows (Mythbusters, How Things Work... Sid, hehe).

 

Next year (kindergarten for my oldest), we'll be taking advantage of little boy dinosaur craze and doing prehistory. I have the creature cards from Charlie's Playhouse, the Usborne history encyclopedia, and a read aloud and documentary list. We also live about ten minutes a state park with a fossil excavation site and museum. For nature study, we have local guides to birds and trees, and I'll be getting ones for fish, plants, and wild nuts/berries. We do a lot of trail hiking and creek walking.

 

No writing or projects, just reading together and watching and talking and exploring, with a little bit more "direction". I'm excited!

[....]

We use More Mudpies and Magnets. It's a book filled with different science experiment ideas. For example...we built a worm habitat. We looked at different kinds of seashells and rocks. We talked about different kinds of animals and how many legs/eyes they have. Lol.

[freeindeed]

This is a fun approach for younger children:

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Play-Discoveries-2-To-6-Year-Olds-Williamson/dp/1885593201

 

Keep it light and fun, with lots of hands-on activities, real life science experiences, and living books.

[5Wizards]

For kindergarten science with my 2nd child, we did ES Intro. to Science, which uses More Mudpies to Magnets.

 

https://elementalsci...gory&path=60_64

 

She really enjoyed it, and I will be doing it again with my next one. My kids also sit on on science for their older siblings when they want to (which is often).

[Ecclecticmum]

We use Science Play & Sandbox Scientist. They are both based around exploration play. Either you give them the raw materials and let the play, or some other ones where you set them up and then just let them go at it

[Mommy_of_4]

For K we just did experiments and watched netflix videos.

[FromA2Z]

Right now (k-4), we are using Elemental Science - Exploring Science which uses the book Science Play. It's mostly experiments and very short explorations and includes nature study ideas to go along with each weeks theme. My 4 yo enjoys filling out the pages in his science journal. He "draws", or tells me something to write or we paste in our own photos or magazine photos. He's very excited to show his dad his work.

 

We do go on a nature hike/walk once or twice a week at a nature center.

We school 4x a week and do science every day in the afternoon. It is very short about 10 minutes. The first day I introduce our topic while they color the sheet about it. We might do something "handsy". The second day we'll do our "experiment", the next day we document it in our science journals and/or read a simple library book about the topic. On Friday we go on a nature walk during our "outside" time, then later on we'll put items, "drawings" or pictures into our nature journals and I'll write in whatever they want. That sounds like a lot but it is very simplistic and minimal.

 

Next year we plan on continuing with ES's Intro to Science which uses the More Mudpies to Magnets book.

[Tanikit]

I did mostly unit theme studies for science with my preschooler. Water was a fun theme to have as it lent itself to a lot of different scientific studies and was also plain fun to play with. Nature study is also an easy to do - just take them out into the back garden. We read a lot of living books too and since my DD loved animals we spoke a lot about different types of animals. We also covered the five senses and described scientific experiments in terms of the five senses after covering this. Now at K level my DD is using BFSU.

[Mommie_Jen]

We do Magic School Bus videos, Beakman's World, library books, and ES Intro to Science 2/week schedule. And we just go to the state park (it's close) a lot and traipse through the woods and examine things.

[LilBearsMama]

We're planning to use ES Exploring Science. Love the simplicity. We read books like Among the Night People or Magic School Bus, head outside to the woods, watch science shows. He adores science. We even sometimes use lapbooks (did one on spiders he still pulls out) and interactive unit studies from Simple Schooling on whatever has caught his eye. Some will match up with ES so we'll be using them to help add in depth. He loves seeing how things work and anything science.

[Farrar]

We had various things, but I think at that age, we got the most out of the Usborne Big Book of Science Things to Make and Do.

[Seeking Squirrels]

For Pre k this year we have been reading the DK First Animal Encyclopedia and doing random "experiments" from a boxed kit. I think it's from Little Labs. I also have Elemental Science: Exploring Science, but we honestly haven't used it much. I think we're only on Unit 2. We also sometimes read books like Magic School Bus or Let's Read and Find Out.

 

For K next year, I'm undecided. She loves science and I think she'd love doing a "real" science curriculum. But I'm slightly reluctant to do that for our K year. We've been pretty laid back so far and I don't want to put too much on our plate for when we start to buckle down a bit. I also don't want to "waste" a good program when she won't follow as much of it at 5 as she would if we saved it for later. So the options I'm considering:

1. NOEO - Probably the Physics and space year because that's what she's interested in. I don't want to go Biology because I think we'll be using RSO Life for her first grade year and I don't want two years in a row of basically the same thing. But I'm also considering NOEO for later, so maybe not now?

2. Sonlight Science A - I don't plan on using SL science once we really get started, so it would just be extra and for fun. But I'm also afraid it's jumpy-ness would drive me nuts.

3. More DK encyclopedias - She's really loving just working through the animal encyclopedia and is retaining a lot of it. She wants to learn more about the human body (she made me name every bone for her the other day), and she loves space. There's a DK first encyclopedia for both topics. So maybe just read through those and get a few fun experiment kits like Magic School Bus or something just to have some hands-on every once in a while.

4. Nothing extra - I'm fairly certain that we're going with Sonlight P4/5 next year and science is technically included, though it's just a few books.

 

After typing it all out, I think I'm leaning to option 3. (Though if anyone has any input, I'm all ears!)

[pehp]

I had not intended to do science or history for K but my son asked for 'science.' I am using Elemental Science (Intro to Science) & we like it just fine. I do consider it wholly extraneous and think experiences, natural world observations etc are much more important.....

[2_girls_mommy]

I have a 4 yr old niece that I hs. I guess I am going to add her to my sig. soon. For her science right now, I am doing several fun things. I try and do topics that are being covered in my dd8's Apologia book. So we have done several units on insects, butterflies, and those things. I just find a good literature book or two on the topic, do a couple of art and craft projects and maybe find some worksheets on the topic that have skills that she is working on like matching or circling or whatever.

 

Right now it is birds. So one week we read an Eric Carle book about a rooster (don't remember the title, but it was a counting books) and An Egg is Quiet. I brought feathers for her to look at. We did a cut and paste activity I found through google. We talked about eggs and feathers and the fact that all birds don't fly. Basic stuff. This week I chose penguins. There are tons of penguin crafts and cut and paste things online.

 

I also have a book on material science that we are reading through and doing the activities from.

 

And we do the nature stuff like look at birds and collect leaves and do projects with them.

 

She is also doing the R&S ABC workbooks, and they cover lots of social studies and some science topics as you go through them.

 

And she is here for tons of read alouds on all topics.

 

That is the type of thing I did w/my kids until they reached 1st grade and we started WTM science too.