new here...need help with 1st grade science

[Sarita]

I'll confess to being a "lurker" up until now, and I've really enjoyed all the wisdom I've gleaned from everyone here. What an amazing group! Now I'll come out of the woodwork because I'd like to get some feedback about science for next year. I LOVE the WTM...it's actually what got me the most excited about homeschooling! But I'm a little unsure about science. My oldest (of 3) is a K5 dd who will be in 1st next fall. Can anyone reassure me that the 20 weeks animals/10 weeks human body/6 weeks plants as outlined in WTM and using the recommended resources (2 Kingfisher Encyclopedias and Green Thumbs) will work well? What I'm worried about is that we just won't get to science unless I have something more "concrete". Does that make sense? Or does anybody use another 1st grade science curriculum that you love and will recommend? Thanks so much!

 

Sarita

[homewithtrinity]

We had a blast doing the science that way. When it was time for a more in depth study of the sciences, I was pleasantly surprised they remembered as much as they did from those first few years.

[Kristiana]

We're doing science that way this year and have had a great time so far. We started with human anatomy and made paper bodies to add to every week from My Body book.

 

We took a break from science through the holidays and started animals in January which we're still doing. My kids have really enjoyed making the animal and ocean murals found at LearningPage.com and both with those and the paper bodies, it's been fun to see them progress from week to week.

 

I'm not sure if we'll do the plants as suggested although I do have the Green Thumbs book and we are going to start a vegetable garden. But we've been doing the Green Hour challenges found at Barb's Heart of Harmony blog here. And we love all that we've been learning.

 

As we're just finishing up first grade, I don't know about their long-term retention, but my older two (7 and 4) bring up stuff we studied clear last fall all the time and we've really had a lot of fun doing science this way.

[Dawn E]

Check out the shared lesson plans that Jessica made at her blog: Trivium Academy. We followed them loosely adding some books of our own and using resources we already had (we loved My Body). Scroll down and look to the right for the links to the shared lesson plan downloads.

[mcconnellboys]

Well, if you do it the WTM way, you will have to commit to either purchasing a lot of living books and/or getting your things checked out of the library ahead of time to be ready for you when you're ready to read. Some people prefer a workbook approach. I think this sort of kills the joy of science, especially for littles.

 

We've done science basically by WTM suggestions, so I can't recommend any texts, sorry,

[Kendra]

If you use a casual, library book/explore nature approach, you might also like the free lapbooks from Homeschool Share. We are doing the coral reef lapbook right now (5th, 3rd, an 1st graders) and it is very nicely put together. And free!

[Hazelt"nut"]

We are doing a combination of the WTM recommendations with nature study. I'm using My Nature Journal which gives some nature activities and suggestions for I have started planning our science. There's a link at www.hazelnutacademy.blogspot.com Its a work in progress but will include some of what we are doing. I'm not sure how to work in the human body yet. We might just do a short unit study during the winter when our nature walks will slow down.

[Trivium Academy]

My oldest (of 3) is a K5 dd who will be in 1st next fall. Can anyone reassure me that the 20 weeks animals/10 weeks human body/6 weeks plants as outlined in WTM and using the recommended resources (2 Kingfisher Encyclopedias and Green Thumbs) will work well? What I'm worried about is that we just won't get to science unless I have something more "concrete". Does that make sense?

 

Compared to what we're doing now, what we did in first grade was dull and even boring. It was forced, even though dd was interested in learning whatever I put in front of her it didn't spark her interest like what we're doing now.

 

Study 20 animals. I don't know any children that would be satisfied learning about just 20 animals! At least none I know. I tried to make the 20 animals diversified and far-reaching to cover multiple topics such as camoflauge (sp?), defenses, metamorphosis, etc. It wasn't enough. Instead I wish I would have the foreknowledge to cover the biomes of the world more concretely to establish a better sense of where animals typically live (and geography in the process). There are SO many wonderful books out there for biomes, books like Among the Forest People by Clara Pierson Dillingham (at Yesterdaysclassics.com, under Nature tab and I recommend ALL of the books there!), the Thornton Burgess books like Mother West Wind's Children, and other books.

 

I also wish I had worked harder at making nature study a part of our daily life- taken a little more time in the garden, pointing out birds, watching the trees in our backyard - all a little more closely.

 

We're doing this now. We just finished Earth science like WTM suggested and now we're studying birds b/c that's what dd7 wants to study, I don't have a "plan" to share but we're watching our birds (we just got Zebra Finches but also birds in our backyard), and we're reading engaging books about everything birds (owls, ostriches, eggs, nests, migration, anatomy, etc).

 

We're studying a different topic every 9 weeks (our year is split up in quarters) and I think this is going to be perfect. The bird study will be our first time breaking away from WTM but we're both excited about it.

 

Or does anybody use another 1st grade science curriculum that you love and will recommend? Thanks so much!

If you want curriculum- I would suggest Exploring God's Creation if you're looking for a curriculum to follow. If you want secular, look at REAL Science at PandiaPress.com. I haven't used either one but if I *had* to use a curriculum it would be between these two since My World Science has stopped production.

 

Hope this helps

[Tess in the Burbs]

I too thought just doing it the way they did would be boring.

 

I bought the schedule from Easy Classical (http://www.easyclassical.com) and it gave us a 2 day schedule to follow that was perfect for my 4 and 6 year olds this year.

 

we did animals/human body/plants as WTM suggests. In fact the first section of the schedule says to read WTM! It had great spines/fun activities and we liked it enough to buy the earth science schedule for 2nd grade. It's been a hit here. We are following WTM but in a way that has been fun for us all.

[Kristine in KS]

I also have to confess that I've been a "lurker" on these boards for a long time. Since we were just getting started, I never really felt I had enough of a track record with homeschooling to add anything. I really like these boards and have learned a lot from them.

 

I love the WTM and their suggestions worked beautifully for K for us.

 

I have also been wondering about science for first grade. Several of my friends are using Noeo science or planning to use it, which is probably an great program, instead of trying the WTM suggestions for science.

 

I just love the philosophy of WTM. I have been reluctant to move away from it at all and certainly not without trying the WTM suggestions first. Science was the one area where I was still wondering if the WTM outline really worked. This is probably due to my friends' influence.

 

Thanks for the encouragement. It really helped me.

[Kate in Arabia]

We followed the WTM approach with my older ds for 1st grade science, and I'll be repeating what we did with my second, who technically will be in 2nd grade. We had a great time the first go 'round.

 

What I'm worried about is that we just won't get to science unless I have something more "concrete". Does that make sense?

Sarita

 

It makes sense to me, I personally need some kind of structure to keep me going, otherwise I have a tendancy to get lazy :( What I did for that year was make a template. I should first note that my kids really like coloring, pasting, gluing, etc. So, we made little booklets for each animal we studied.. I had a list of topics for each animal (like name, habitat, life cycle, etc.) and for each animal we put together a little book (a few pieces of construction paper folded in half) with what we found out from books, zoobooks, and the internet. We cut out pictures from magazines or things I had printed out, colored, pasted, labeled, etc. Once I had the template set, it took all of half an hour to print out what I needed from the internet (lot from Enchanted Learning), and we were ready to go! Ds liked doing it, and loved having these little "books" to look at later as well.

 

As far as which animals, I used the chart in the back of the kingfisher book as a guide, we started with the worms and worked our way over. Once we got to mammals, I just tried to choose a variety, or things I already had resources on (we don't have a viable library here), or if ds had a particularly keen interest.

 

hth!

 

Kate

[kalanamak]

and because it is spring, I've started with the hands on activities of sprouting seeds in wet paper towels, transferring them to little grow pots, and then planting, all the while charting (I do the writing as kiddo is 5) day to sprouting, length of root, day to leafing out, etc.

 

Bulbs are cheap, and besides planting, we have dissected one.

 

Low power looks under the microscope have been very popular. I take anything greeted with "YES, let's go look at XYZ" followed by the patter of running feet as a good sign. While I'm a huge science fan, at this early age wonder and joy are much more crucial that learning vertebrate vs. invertebrate. I use those terms, but in conversation.

 

At night, just before bed, we snuggle up and read some easy book about animals for his reading skills, and, if we are still going strong, I read him a tougher book about science or his choice....the water cycle or ice age animals, etc.

 

I'm planning a trip to the wildlife park to see the baby animals, soon, too.

 

You don't need a kit to do a body...large peice of paper on ground, out line child, draw in guts and lungs etc. Kiddo likes doing it in different postures. I also use discarded Xrays which kids find fascinating.

 

Have FUN. No sweating it!