1st grade science - totally lost

[meandk0610]

i'm reading TWTM but i'm only on the language arts part and haven't gotten to science so maybe this will be answered.

 

i don't know how to do this! i can't afford to buy lab kits; i need something that i can read/do with very little money. i think i read someone else saying they do 20 animals over 20 weeks, 10 weeks on human body and 6 weeks on plants but i can't remember where i saw that. neither can i imagine how that would look in real life. any tips?

 

oh, yeah. we have about 1-2 hours per week, if i'm lucky, to put toward science right now. i'm hoping that we can find more time as i get better organized at this.

 

tia!! :)

[bbkaren]

Gosh, I don't think you need the resources that you think you need.

 

We've been reading a section from a children's animal encyclopedia, doing a brief narration, and maybe looking online for more information if it interests him. We also have a human body encyclopedia and a plant one as well.

 

Since we're before/afterschooling we only have an hour or so each to do science and history so we do them on the weekends.

[jennynd]

Mr Q life is a great program and free for download

http://eequalsmcq.com/

[mommyto4]

We just went to the library, picked out some books on animals, plants, human biology, or whatever we were interested in! Then we read the books and talked about them. Sometimes we made posters or printed pictures from the internet and wrote about what we learned. It was our first year of homeschooling and experiments weren't going to get done!

 

The kids loved it, learned lots, and now have moved onto a more formal curriculum.

[boscopup]

Elemental Science is basically WTM science scheduled out for you.

 

Or you can just use library books and throw in an occasional experiment. Really, it's first grade science. Don't stress over it. The goal is exposure and learning that science is fun.

[Moonbeam Jones]

I spent all my budget on other subjects before I got to science :D, so I was worried too, but the library is a great solution. We try to go to the library once a week and before we go I ask my ds what animal he wants to study this week. This week it is whales, last week hummingbirds, the week before owls. Our library always has at least two or three books on these animals. That should get you through the first 20 weeks. Then there should be plenty of books about how seeds grow and leaf identification for the next 10! Don't feel as if you need to spend 1 1/2 hours each period. We read through the books and then talk about the most interesting things we learned. Write that down for the notebook, if your child/children like to draw, then add a picture. Remember, you cannot teach everything, just get them interested and show them they can learn from books! Have fun!

:grouphug:

[Jay3fer]

Read, read, read. As pp's have said, excellent library books are the core of first-grade science. A spine, like Apologia, is handy if you can afford it, or a guide like Elemental Science to help you schedule your readings. (we started with ES but I didn't love it; now we're reading through Apologia Zoology 1)

 

Any experiments can usually be accomplished without a fancy kit - most programs only call for stuff like celery and cotton balls and rubber bands and a few other whatnots from around the house. Sometimes, it'll need a special hardware store or dollar store run, but seriously - I wouldn't invest in a program that requires more than that for first grade! :-o

[WIS0320]

We follow Core Knowledge's first grade science recommendations. There are great free lesson plans that require very little in the way of materials. We use mostly BCP and the library.

[Mrs Twain]

BFSU is cheap and relatively simple, and it is a fantastic program. The book costs about $20-25. You have to put a little time into reading the lesson ahead of time and gathering materials from around the house, as well as checking out related books from the library if you wish. It has the various science subjects integrated rather than being a four-year cycle, though, which is different than TWTM.

[2_girls_mommy]

There are no kits needed for WTM 1st grade science. Some encyclopedias are all you need. Look for them used on Amazon. For animals, we never even bought the Kingfisher. We checked it out from the library to learn about classification. We played a game with our giant collection of animal miniatures. We classified them :)

 

After that we used library books and online resources to study an animal a week. We went to the zoo, chose an animal, read books about it and maybe did a craft or color sheet. We learned about where it comes from (which continent) what it eats, its classification, etc.

 

We were pretty laid back about animals. We picked it up for 2nd semester human body. I invested in the Usborne First Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Human Body... best $10 I spent that year. We read a spread in the ency. We got library books to read more (Let's Read and Find Out series is awesome!) We did any activities that came up in the library books. We made notebook pages about what we learned about. The activities were fun. We made and looked at our fingerprints. We took our pulse before and after activities. We made a model of a lung with a water bottle and a balloon. No expensive kits needed! We came across all of the activities in the library books.

 

For plants, we planted a garden. We read from books. WE collected leaves and identified them. We talked about where foods came from. WE learned the parts of a flower, etc. All from books.

[redsquirrel]

It is really simple. I did use an encylopedia. Once a week I read a two page spread to my son. Then I asked him to tell me three things he learned from our reading. Let's say it was reptiles. I would say, "Tell me three things we talked about today." I would write what he said down and then I would ask him to make a picture on the page where I wrote. Oh, I use 3 hole punch paper, btw. Then I put it in a three ring binder. Once during the same week I would read a library book about that particular family of animals. I would again ask him to tell me three things he remembered from the book. I always picked a book that was age appropriate and fun. We did that for most of the year.

 

Then I did a few weeks on the human body..so one week on each of the senses, a week on the circulation system, a week on the brain. I used this book: Easy Make & Learn Projects: Human Body. It seems to go in and out of print but is often available during that Scholastic ebook download. But, you don't need that particular book. Just learn about a different body system each week.

 

For plants we planted radish seeds and watched them come up. We also watched potatoes sprout and put carrot tops in water and watched them sprout.

 

We also did the thing where you order a caterpillar and watch it turn into a butterfly,and watched ladybug larvae turn into ladybugs. I asked my mom to buy those as Christmas presents.

[Tracy]

BFSU is cheap and relatively simple, and it is a fantastic program. The book costs about $20-25. You have to put a little time into reading the lesson ahead of time and gathering materials from around the house, as well as checking out related books from the library if you wish. It has the various science subjects integrated rather than being a four-year cycle, though, which is different than TWTM.

 

And if you are really on a tight budget, I understand you can get the PDF download for only $5. It is totally worth it, even if you end up supplementing with something else.

[Ritsumei]

We're doing 1st grade science right now. My boy wanted to learn about birds, especially birds of prey, so we spent most of our time on animals learning about birds of prey, feeder birds, and more birds of prey, with a few other critters thrown in for some variety. We actually went longer than 20 weeks, and did 2 animals a lot of weeks, so it's ended up being quite a bit of birds!

 

We got the Animal Encyclopedia that TWTM recommends. I think if I was doing it over I wouldn't bother - it's not very interesting; there's barely any information on there. What worked better for us was the Raptors! book I found and other books about animals. There's tons of bug books, books about bears, and so forth. We don't do the library (I rack up some impressive fines!) but the used book stores often have some great books for dirt cheap, plus there's always Amazon. Or, if you can manage the due-dates, the library. :tongue_smilie:For doing birds you can't beat Cornell's All About Birds website. We only had one bird that wasn't on there - flamingos.

 

We also had great luck finding you-tube clips that were relevant to the animal under study. I mostly looked for birds, but I know we watched some dung-beetles too. I'd pick a few good clips after the boys were in bed, then post them on my blog, and that way I had better control over content/language than just randomly picking them as we went along. We did some of that too, but it works better when I do it ahead.

 

We started doing a little lap-booking late in the animals, and Monkey really likes that. It's pretty easy. Nice and hands-on. We do that "instead" of a regular narration, which is ironic because he ends up narrating tons to me, rather than a bit. But he likes it!

 

These are my blog posts labeled "science," if that helps. Down there a ways is his pelican narration, to give you an example of what narration looks like at our house. We read, and then he tells me what he learned.

 

We're just about to start doing the body next, which I think sounds like tons of fun. I need to sit down with the various books I've got (nearly all of them are thrifted) and figure out what we're going to do, and in what order. I've got one that I'm particularly excited about: Horrible Science Handbooks: Beastly Body Experiments that has some great activities and very entertaining text. Stuff like squishing a greased balloon through tights to explain how peristalses works. And edible poo. And deliberately yawning in public. And making a shrunken "head." Looks like a riot. So we'll read and we'll narrate and from time to time I'll whip out the Horrible Science book and we'll do something from there. I think he's going to love it.

 

For the plant study, that's going to revolve closely around our garden this time around. We'll probably do some other stuff, but we'll be making some observations about the gardens. I'll bring in some nature study stuff too, like the thistle study that Harmony Art Mom was recently blogging about.

[morosophe]

I am really horrible at doing science, personally. But I did do some of the freebies from Pandia Press's R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey's "Try Before You Buy" program. Check out Life (it's at the bottom of the page) for first grade. All of the activities are fairly simple, and most don't have any fancy materials needed.

 

I'm not crazy about R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey, which is why I didn't end up buying the resource, but it could help you figure out if that is the kind of thing that works for you and your child.

[ScoutTN]

We are doing Real Science Odyssey (aka RSO) LIFE, which follows the WTM first grade plan, as Elemental Science does. Human body, animals and plants.

 

RSO is very hands on, less bookish than ES. It was a better choice for us since I wanted to include 4yo DS as much as possible. We read the lesson (1 page in large font) and usually do 1-3 activities/labs each week. I have yet to buy anything except one box of lemon jello! No expensive kits here. Just ordinary household stuff.

 

We have a few science info books (yardsale and thrift store purchases) and get the rest from the library.

 

We do lots of informal science - nature study, cooking etc.

 

hth :)

[TracyP]

i'm reading TWTM but i'm only on the language arts part and haven't gotten to science so maybe this will be answered.

 

Yes, it will. It is not expensive, there are no lab kits, and the time you wish to spend on science jives w/ TWTM's recommendation. Just keep reading.:)

[Walking-Iris]

confessions of a homeschool science slaker :lol:

 

I prioritize subjects while budgeting and science gets tricky. For starters there just isn't a "here it all is" program/curriculum out there that I'm crazy about.

 

Here's a few of the things I have liked using:

 

Science books and mags of various kinds (usborne, DK, National Geographic etc)

online lesson plans (Core Knowledge and Baltimore)

Janice VanCleaves books

TOPS activities

ScienceWorks and Thematic Unit Study books

watching documentaries about random things

Magic Tree House research guides

Kids Can Science books

 

We're currently reading Burgess Bird Book again and taking time with some free activity guides from Cornells website. We've been working through various environmental studies books and activities as well--integrating some earth type science in there.

 

We detoured for a bat unit for October.

 

I have RealScience4Kids Chemistry queued for this spring as well as keeping up with those birdies.

 

I would love to have Handbook of Nature Studies and really work through that.

 

Really a lot of science when we did for 1st was reading and talking and just random interests/activities as we encountered them----not the best way to go about it--but we've yet to find our niche/passion/interest (whatever you want to call it) with science.