Day 2 of MFW ECC and I need help!

[Donna T.]

We started ECC yesterday. I've already run into a problem. I need to substitute the Living World Encyclopedia. ECC is primarily for my fourth grader. He knows a TON about habitats, animals and plants. I thought we could get by with the book, but it's just not going to work. There is nothing in that book that is new for him and his eyes are glazing over.

 

Hoping to find some previous users of ECC who can recommend a substitute. We are also reading titles from the Ambleside Online lists this year. We started that several months ago and I'm afraid the high-quality of the books has ruined us.

 

I know in ECC that Living World is considered science. Should I try to sub with a science book or would additional geography titles suffice? I want to use the Holling books (Seabird, Pagoo, etc.) this year and it seems they would go along with ECC very nicely. Plus, we are studying Chemistry, so it's not so important that we do the science in ECC.

 

I'm not sure what to do.

 

Any advice?

 

Thanks!

[Sue G in PA]

My advice? If he knows a lot about habitats already...skip it. Or, just do selected lessons that interest him? We are doing ECC this year (have not started yet) and are also doing CKE Earth and Space. My kids did a little habitat study last year so we're only doing selected activities in ECC Science. You could get the One Small Square series of books. Those are neat. What we did last year was to have each dc choose a habitat and read all about it. THey then wrote a little report about each and made a diorama of sorts. It was fun. But, really, if he knows a lot about habitats...you could easily skip it.

[Donna T.]

Thanks to both of you!

I need to relax.

I wasn't sure if it would make a huge difference to our year if we skipped some of it.

Blessings!

[neesek]

We didn't like that book either. Every time I would pull it out, my ds would say, "Is that the boring book again?" We eventually gave up on that book and eventually dropped all of the science in ECC.

 

I have two suggestions. First would be A Child's Geography by Ann Voskamp. It is geography but has a lot of earth science. I haven't used it yet, but if I had known about it last year, I think I would have tried it. It looks really good. My other suggestion is the Planet Earth DVDs. We absolutely loved these, and they have one for all of the major habitats. The one on the rainforest was especially good. I think these could completely replace the Living World Encyclopedia.

 

Good luck!