bethben Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 Anyone have a review for me? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirstenhill Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 We used about three-quarters of it this past year. I wanted to love it so much, and we just didn't. I thought I would be okay with the fact it jumped around a lot in terms of topics, but it felt really disjointed. We did a few days of chemistry-related topics, only to jump to a day about an astronomy topic followed by an anatomy topic. I didn't want a science book covering the same topic all year, but switching topics every couple of lessons was a bit much -- there was no time to dive deeper into a subject before we were on to something else. Some of the experiments/demos felt like a lot of work or mess to make a small point. At the end of some experiments I wished we would have just watched a youtube video instead. ;-) Some of the experiments also hit at bad times for us seasonally (sorry, but we aren't going to go outside on a -20 Minnesota winter day to pull a wagon while someone sits inside throwing a ball. That's even assuming I have a wagon in the first place, which I don't!). My kids thought the readings about the different scientists were interesting and had fun with some of the demos, but I am not sure they retained a lot. Near the end of the year we dropped it and we did Ellen McHenry's the Elements. I think they retained more from a couple months out of that than they did all the rest of the year with SITAW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slache Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 Would it work as a read aloud to go with history? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirstenhill Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 Would it work as a read aloud to go with history? I think it might (I assume you mean just reading and not doing experiments) -- but if you wanted it to "match up", you would have some time periods of history where you would be doing a LOT of reading on SITAW, and some time periods where you would be doing none at all. The earliest is Thales (625 BC). There are a lot between 400-120ish BC, a few from AD 20-200, Two lessons that fall around 500AD, then nothing again until 1175 AD. At the end there are about 21 lessons featuring Leonardo DaVinci (A few of those 21 don't actually involve him, but they fall between lessons featuring him). Those are the lessons we skipped, because...I just couldn't do 21 lessons about Leo when we were still in in Roman times for history. We might go back and read them and at least do a few of the experiments when we finally make it to that time in our history studies (not until next spring!). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdventuresinHomeschooling Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 Did you also use Science in the Beginning? I was excited about the series at first, but the sample of SITAW didn't look as great as Science in the Beginning. That one looked more orderly and less like a history text. Just interested in what you could compare. Maybe I just find Ancient History more dull than other history periods too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirstenhill Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 Did you also use Science in the Beginning? I was excited about the series at first, but the sample of SITAW didn't look as great as Science in the Beginning. That one looked more orderly and less like a history text. Just interested in what you could compare. Maybe I just find Ancient History more dull than other history periods too. I actually used Science in the Beginning concurrently with a co-op class while I was doing SITAW at home with my kids. I liked Science in the Beginning better in the sense that there was more depth to each topic before moving on. Multiple lessons in a row are on the same basic topic, so it feels more like a few unit studies on various topics rather than a jumble of lessons on various subjects. We still had some of the problems with Science in the Beginning that some lessons weren't seasonally appropriate for us and some demos weren't practical for co-op...but since we only met twice a month, I wasn't planning on doing every lesson and I even changed around the order a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little Women Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 We've liked them both. My dd is finishing 6th grade, so she does it pretty independently. I get to see some of the experiments. :) It's been good for us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momto4inSoCal Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 I really want to use SiTAW but I'm having a hard time finding good reviews :( I'm thinking maybe we'll go with beautiful feets science curriculum instead since it also goes along with ancient history. ETA: I just looked at beautiful feet again and it doesn't go along with ancient :/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.