Science in The Beginning. Tell me your review

[freemanfamilyof6]

Talk to me about Science in the Beginning.  Can you really use it with kids grades 1-6?  Do you read to the text to your kids or do you older ones read it to themselves?  How are the experiments... time consuming, worth while?  Can you finish the book in one school year?  Did you like it?  We are moving away from Nancy Larson Science next year.  I will have 1st, 4th, 5th ad 6th graders.  Wondering if we can truly do this together?  How long per day?  2 days a week or more?  Thanks.

[Kiara.I]

I'm using it with grades 1 and 3, so definitely you can use it with the younger end.  I would imagine it works well with the older, as we're doing the "younger student" questions, and then at least my grade 3 (and sometimes my grade 1, under duress) do the "older students" work in a notebook.  But they do it poorly, so there's definitely room for more work there at a higher level.

 

Yes, you can finish it in one school year, but it depends what you want to do.  You can easily do the demo/experiment and the writeup on one day, and do multiple lessons a week--at least in the first two "days".  However, some are weather-dependent.  Some require sunny days, some require being done in the dark, so you will need to account for that.  Also, later on there's plant growth, so you may need to slow down and take a few days between lessons while waiting for the plants to sprout!   And I'm imagining that the astronomy section may require some clear nights too.

 

How long it takes in a day is going to depend on a few factors--most demos don't take long, especially if you've gathered materials ahead of time.  On the other hand, if you want your olders to do the work and teach your youngers alongside, it will of course take them longer to set things up.

 

I think the demonstrations are VERY worthwhile.  I have watched my children's eyes widen as they experience something, and make the connections (for instance, turning on the TV with the remote while facing away from it.)  The demos are well-chosen to demonstrate the concepts.
 

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

I am using it with my 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 6th graders. We are really enjoying it. The demonstrations are easy and fairly quick to do. They make the material so much more understandable. I haven't had to buy much for them and the kids have really quick to do. There's a list at the beginning of the book of supplies needed for each chapter. If an experiment is going to take a while or need specific weather or lighting conditions, that information is typically noted in an earlier lesson so that you can prepare.

 

I'm not too worried about finishing it up in a year so we just do it 2-3 days a week most weeks and we'll finish when we finish.

 

It takes us 15-30 minutes per lesson depending on how involved the demonstration is. Sometimes we do the notebooking and sometimes we don't. It depends on what the project is and what else we had going on for school that day. My younger 2 just answer the review questions and draw a picture if they want to. If we do the notebooking, my 4th grader does the older kids projects and my 6th grader does the oldest kids projects.

[hollyhock]

When we used it last year, my older kids got more out of it than my 1st grader. It was way over his head, but he still sometimes liked listening or watching the demonstrations. We skipped the optional lessons and did it twice a week. We didn't quite finish the book. I read it out loud but it could be easily read independently by older elementary kids. I really liked the notebooking for each lesson. The experiments were very worthwhile. That was the first science book we've done where we actually didn't know what was going to happen. Some of them were really neat.

 

We really really enjoyed the first half of the book. The second half of the book was stuff my kids mostly knew already, having done most of it in other science books, so it wasn't as exciting, but that's not the book's fault.

[My4arrows]

I am using it with my 1st and 3rd grader (with a pre-ker tagging along).  We have enjoyed it quite a bit...it's actually the first science we all have.  We do it about 2 days a week and I can imagine we will finish by the end of the school year.  For my guys, I do read it aloud and we have discussions throughout the reading to make sure that they understand.  Although they do, I feel as if some of the information is more challenging, allowing it also be used by the older students.  It usually takes us around 15-20 minutes each day, completing one lesson as well as the follow up questions.  There is nice free download that a mother wrote up using the questions from the book where your child can take notes, write responses, etc.  We use that and it helps the kids stay organized.  

 

The only thing I don't like about it is that there is an experiment for each lesson.  The experiments are great!  We love doing them and it really helps the kids to understand the concept better.  BUT for me, I'm not always as organized as I'd like to be, time might not be on our side and I have found that it makes the most sense to do the experiment with the lesson.  Throughout the lesson, the experiment and what you should have seen is referred so so skipping it is more difficult IMO.  We've done it before, but my kids didn't seem to retain/understand the lesson as well.

[freemanfamilyof6]

I am using it with my 1st and 3rd grader (with a pre-ker tagging along).  We have enjoyed it quite a bit...it's actually the first science we all have.  We do it about 2 days a week and I can imagine we will finish by the end of the school year.  For my guys, I do read it aloud and we have discussions throughout the reading to make sure that they understand.  Although they do, I feel as if some of the information is more challenging, allowing it also be used by the older students.  It usually takes us around 15-20 minutes each day, completing one lesson as well as the follow up questions.  There is nice free download that a mother wrote up using the questions from the book where your child can take notes, write responses, etc.  We use that and it helps the kids stay organized.  

 

The only thing I don't like about it is that there is an experiment for each lesson.  The experiments are great!  We love doing them and it really helps the kids to understand the concept better.  BUT for me, I'm not always as organized as I'd like to be, time might not be on our side and I have found that it makes the most sense to do the experiment with the lesson.  Throughout the lesson, the experiment and what you should have seen is referred so so skipping it is more difficult IMO.  We've done it before, but my kids didn't seem to retain/understand the lesson as well.

Where did you get the free download with questions from the book?  Also, I have seen on youtube where several of the experiments are done.  Do you think watching the experiments would serve the purpose and allow you to do each lesson, or do they need to be done personally?

[freemanfamilyof6]

Any more thoughts?