LAmom Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 Any input on the science curriculum they suggest? http://bookshelfcentral.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=539_18 Has anyone used Considering God's Creation? What about the Nature Portfolio? Handbook of Nature Study? Any thoughts of pros/cons and what you use instead if you don't use these would be so very helpful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodland_Mom Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 I've used Considering God's Creation. It coveres a wide range of topics and ages -- perfect for many TOG families. You keep a science notebook as you move through the units. Its an excellent resource to introduce several science topics in one year: plants, animals, human body, weather, earth science, astronomy are included. There may be others, but I can't remember them all! The TM comes with a song CD to help intorduce & learn about topics. My boys enjoyed this when they were young. It was a great way to begin our science study for the day. The TM has good teacher notes, some you'll be able to read aloud, some you may need to paraphrase, especially if you have younger students. There are many hands on projects, paper craft type projects for a science notebook and plenty of experiments, too. The paper projects & worksheets are fun and very different than other science programs. My kids learned a lot using Considering God's Creation. Supplement topics with library books, and you'll have a great science experience. The other resources look to be more Charlotte Mason-esque. Resources that might be helpful/interesting for nature walks & study. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jewel7123 Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 I've used Considering God's Creation. It coveres a wide range of topics and ages -- perfect for many TOG families. You keep a science notebook as you move through the units. Its an excellent resource to introduce several science topics in one year: plants, animals, human body, weather, earth science, astronomy are included. There may be others, but I can't remember them all! The TM comes with a song CD to help intorduce & learn about topics. My boys enjoyed this when they were young. It was a great way to begin our science study for the day. The TM has good teacher notes, some you'll be able to read aloud, some you may need to paraphrase, especially if you have younger students. There are many hands on projects, paper craft type projects for a science notebook and plenty of experiments, too. The paper projects & worksheets are fun and very different than other science programs. My kids learned a lot using Considering God's Creation. Supplement topics with library books, and you'll have a great science experience. The other resources look to be more Charlotte Mason-esque. Resources that might be helpful/interesting for nature walks & study. Can I ask what ages your kids were when you used Considering God's Creation? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodland_Mom Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 We used it over several years: 6 and 4 (1st and Pre-K): Focused on Days of Creation, studied some animals, plants and I introduced the planets. 7 and 5 (2nd and K): We Studied the human body, weather and earth science 8 and 6 (3rd and 1st): We did a study of the planets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jewel7123 Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 We used it over several years: 6 and 4 (1st and Pre-K): Focused on Days of Creation, studied some animals, plants and I introduced the planets. 7 and 5 (2nd and K): We Studied the human body, weather and earth science 8 and 6 (3rd and 1st): We did a study of the planets. Really? Ok.....I was thinking it was for 3rd and up, so this is good to hear. Did you add anything to it (textbooks, read alouds, experiment books, etc.)? I'm thinking of dividing it up as well, and doing the biology portion next year for 1st, the earth and astronomy portion the following year for 2nd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodland_Mom Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 I think Eagles Wings recommends using it for 2nd grade and up. I certainly didn't use the book in its entirety. Especially the first 2 years, I used it more as a guide and resource. My kids are both crafty, so there were several cut and paste type projects we did. They needed help with it, but I had the time, so it worked well. I think the book would would work best with 3rd - 5th graders, especially if you wanted to use it to the fullest. But . . . it still makes a great resource for younger kids. With each science topic we used, I went to the library and loaded up on picture books. Some of my favorite: "Let's Read and Find Out" (science series). We also enjoyed Rookie Readers. Magic School bus was a fun resource for us, too. Sometimes I'd even pair the online content/experiments with a video. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 I just purchased it used this past weekend and have thumbed through it a bit. I plan to use it to supplement the mama-made science program we're doing (I have a schedule of topics and library books, and am using some curricula to round it out). I'm going to use some of the weather portion this week, for our third week of weather study, as it adds some things that RSO's weather section didn't cover (like types of clouds). Next week we're doing horses, and I haven't yet looked to see if there'd be anything to do there in the biology section, but I have the Apologia Zoo 3 book to use for that (plus lots of library books and next week we'll have an actual horse to go play with and point stuff out on, hence the science topic :D). Some of the worksheets look like they'd be doable for the younger crowd,at least with Mom's help, but since I haven't actually USED them yet, that's just pure speculation. ;) PM me later this week, jewel, and I'll let you know how it worked for us, since you and I have talked science for this age before anyway. :) Someone on another forum had suggested this to me when I talked about doing interest-led science. She said it was very easy to just pick a topic somewhere in the book and use that as a jumping off point to go on a rabbit trail. It also says in the book itself that it makes a good supplement to other curricula. Looking through it, I see both of these to be the case - the topics are fairly self-contained, so you can jump in anywhere and hit a topic whenever you want. I actually plan to use this to help us with our plant and human body studies next year, as I didn't have any resources planned yet beyond library books (my son won't be ready for the Apologia Botany and Human Body books, as he'll just be second grade, and a lot of folks have said those are better for the later grades). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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