Science and K?!?

[aready]

WTM gives a few suggestions for science in the preschool years. I have looked online at Everybody has a Body and was not impressed with the content. Has anyone used this book and found it helpful? What types of things are in there? It is hard to see on Amazon.

 

Also- any other recommendations for science and age 5. I have a 8 yr old who will be doing REAL Science Pre Level Chemistry and supplementing with Adventures with Atoms. If that makes a difference. I just think the 5 year old would do better with more of focus on Life Science stuff.

 

Ideas?

[mlgbug]

we have singapore earlybird science

. i have to read it for dd but im happy

[sagira]

We did BFSU (Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding K-2). You could also do units on topics he's interested in with nature studies. This year we're doing nature study on trees, birds and weather and a block of 7 weeks on the Human body. I have the Handbook of Nature Study, Kingfisher Encyclopedias on both animals and the human body, and Kingfisher Young Discoverers series on those topics.

[MissKNG]

We are using this book for science:

 

http://www.buyteachercreated.com/estore/product/8334

 

I think it's a bit easy for my 3 year old so you may want to check into the next level up:

 

http://www.buyteachercreated.com/estore/product/8335

 

I do one chapter a week (on Tues and Wed). This is our first week and the lesson is "push/pull". They give you hands on ideas on how to illustrate the lesson and a couple little "pull out of the book" games. They also give you some more in depth info at the beginning (For this lesson, they talk about how something is at rest before a force moves it (thus the push/pull) and they go even more in depth about gravity and such but I didn't go that far).

 

The website also has a lot of other great materials too. I got a Safety book and a Community Worker book from them!

[Guest]

We do science about once a week. We were doing The World God Made but then our co-op started using it. My son really liked that one. Now we are just checking out 1-2 Let's Read and Find Out science books from the library each week. A lot of them have activities in them.

[sagira]

Now we are just checking out 1-2 Let's Read and Find Out science books from the library each week. A lot of them have activities in them.

 

Yes! It's through BFSU that I discovered these gems. I bought a few packages on Rainbow, they're wonderful to read over and over again.

[patchfire]

Ds is preK, but we're going to do the same things for K - we read in the Let's Read and Find Out books, as he's interested, and we've bought some basic experiment kits for fun. A few we'll use when dd is doing similar activities, but others we'll just do as his interest dictates. Thames & Kosmos has "Little Labs" that we're going to use later this year, and both Rainbow Resource & Timberdoodle have some kits that are geared for younger kids.

[LadyAberlin]

We love Living Learning Books science. I'm using Science Excursion right now and while it is nice and fun it is science lite like most kinder programs. It comes with all supplies. We are enjoying. My son is a science nut, so it is a little light for us but we are just going through it faster. For those of you who want a simple and easy to use program, this is great.

[nova mama]

I just got more Mudpies to Magnets: Science for Young Children (WTM-recommended) from the libraray. For each subject (Chemistry, Physics, Geology, Meterology, etc.), there are a few activities for each age from 2 through 5. There's a volcano for ages 4+ on p. 91!

[Aurelia]

I recommend BFSU. We had already started Sonlight 1 before I ordered it, but going through it now, it's definitely something I want to use next year. The Let's Read and Find Out books are excellent, too. Ariel also loved Sonlight's P4/5 science books (we didn't use the actual program, just the books) they are well chosen for the target age group. Nature study is another good way to to science at this age. I downloaded the nature study guides from FIAR and are doing those periodically alongside our "regular" science study.

[monalisa]

We like Living Learning Books Vol. 1 - Life Science. We're using this for a first grader and she loves it. Its designed for approx. K-2 I think. It does 20 weeks on animals, 6 on plants, and 10 on the human body. It is classical in its approach (read, narrate) - you have a spine (Usborne nature book etc. that you buy) then get library books (for which there is a list for each unit). There are a couple of easy projects, coloring pages, and a food item to make if you want to do these, plus some kid friendly internet links. Its set up to do 4 sessions on each animal (2/week ) and 1 for the other units. I ordered it from Rainbow Resource. You can also see it here:

 

http://www.livinglearningbooks.com/

 

You would need the teachers manual and 1 set of the consumable student pages for each child.

 

I first read about it in Cathy Duffy's 100 Top Picks book. I think this is pretty similar to what is recommended in WTM for 1st grade and I REALLY like it because its all laid out for you (all you have to do is gather the stuff and check it off your the planning list for each unit).

[FairProspects]

My question about BFSU - is it scheduled out for you?

 

I thought I read you would need to pull together the materials and plan it out, and to be honest, that just won't happen for K-2 science in our house. Language work takes all my prep time. I do like Sonlight Science K because it is completely scheduled, but I'm not totally sold on it for future years. I'd like to do some early science, but I'm leaning more toward nature study next year since reading/writing/grammar take so much time and I don't want to overdo it.