What science have you stuck with?

[sdobis]

I'm looking for suggestions for science for 2nd grade. If you've used something for 2 or more years, what do you like about it?

[Amateur Actress]

Christian Kids Explore series. Easy to understand, fun/easy activities, coloring pages, interesting, worksheets.

[SilverMoon]

None of them.

 

Unless "make it up by the seat of my pants" counts as one.

 

I do actually like the WTM recommendations for grammar stage though.

 

My last second grader used the elementary program from Science Shepherd because we won it in a drawing. It's so not something I would have bought off a shelf, but she did the whole book. (She did the 4-6 grade book in 2nd grade. They severely over-estimated the grade levels on that program. I wouldn't use the 4-6 level with anyone higher than 2nd grade.) The same kid liked the look of Mr. Q and we were about to use it for 3rd, but she had a sudden ornithology obsession and we've spent the whole year on birds.

 

My 6.5 year old gets all interest led science at this point. He's naturally very curious about how the world around him works. I keep living nature books on his shelf for when he's not reading/watching everything on a wild rabbit trail. Right now he's all about earthquakes. He's watched every Wild Kratts available multiple times. I'm leaning toward getting him the Bill Nye the Science Guy streaming thing on HSBC for next year. It's supposed to come with activity/teacher guides.

[rebbyribs]

We have almost finished all 4 elementary years of REAL Science Odyssey.  I like that it has worksheets because we need to turn in work samples for science. I like that it is secular.  It has lots of hands-on demonstrations and simple written explanations.  I like that it focuses on one area of science per year rather than jumping around.  I like that I can order a kit with pretty much everything I need in it at the beginning of the year, so I'm not running around looking for things each week.  (That said, of course there are some perishables that cannot be included in the kit.)  

 

I would like if it had more living book suggestions worked in (there are a few in the front of the book; I'd prefer if they were in the schedule) and better diagrams.

[sdobis]

Christian Kids Explore series. Easy to understand, fun/easy activities, coloring pages, interesting, worksheets.

I saw that this is recommended for 3-6 and 4-8. Would you think some of the levels could be used with 2nd grade?

[sdobis]

None of them.

 

Unless "make it up by the seat of my pants" counts as one.

 

I do actually like the WTM recommendations for grammar stage though.

 

My last second grader used the elementary program from Science Shepherd because we won it in a drawing. It's so not something I would have bought off a shelf, but she did the whole book. (She did the 4-6 grade book in 2nd grade. They severely over-estimated the grade levels on that program. I wouldn't use the 4-6 level with anyone higher than 2nd grade.) The same kid liked the look of Mr. Q and we were about to use it for 3rd, but she had a sudden ornithology obsession and we've spent the whole year on birds.

 

My 6.5 year old gets all interest led science at this point. He's naturally very curious about how the world around him works. I keep living nature books on his shelf for when he's not reading/watching everything on a wild rabbit trail. Right now he's all about earthquakes. He's watched every Wild Kratts available multiple times. I'm leaning toward getting him the Bill Nye the Science Guy streaming thing on HSBC for next year. It's supposed to come with activity/teacher guides.

I'm a big fan of interest led, but I like to have a guide or something to fall back in case interest fades. It helps keep me accountable, especially since I am "homeschooling" a friend's daughter. Edited May 8, 2017 by sdobis

[sdobis]

We have almost finished all 4 elementary years of REAL Science Odyssey. I like that it has worksheets because we need to turn in work samples for science. I like that it is secular. It has lots of hands-on demonstrations and simple written explanations. I like that it focuses on one area of science per year rather than jumping around. I like that I can order a kit with pretty much everything I need in it at the beginning of the year, so I'm not running around looking for things each week. (That said, of course there are some perishables that cannot be included in the kit.)

 

I would like if it had more living book suggestions worked in (there are a few in the front of the book; I'd prefer if they were in the schedule) and better diagrams.

Would this be difficult to use as a young earth Christian? I don't mind a bit of evolution. I just don't want to feel like the whole book is teaching something that I disagree with.

[2_girls_mommy]

In first through 3rd grades we just followed the WTM's elementary science suggestions. I loved doing it that way.

[nixpix5]

If I had to stick with one it would be RSO and we are Christians. I have never found anything to not be Christian friendly but we are also scientists so we might not be looking at it with too much scrutiny. I love it. You really need to like doing experiments though because you average 2 a week. My kids love it to death. We also love RS4K. I tend to just use them both.

Edited May 8, 2017 by nixpix5

[LMD]

BFSU. I love bfsu especially the first volume, then going more interest led/project based for middle school.

[ScoutTN]

The library! 

Curriculum was a fail here. Interest led til high school for us. 

[Mrs Twain]

Mystery Science.

 

It is rather new, so not a lot of people have used it for two years yet.

[regentrude]

None. We just read books, watched documentaries, went to science museums and nature centers, did lots of nature hikes and filed trips.

Have never seen a "program" I like.

[mytwomonkeys]

When my kids were younger we used all of the Christian Liberty Press nature readers & owned most of the "Lets Read & Find Out About" books. That was our science spine for elementary, and we would add library books and magic school bus videos, nature walks and journaling, etc

[sweetpea3829]

I just wrote my own.  Tons of legwork but, having that framework allowed me to stay on track.  It was "guided interest-led" in that I made sure we stayed on a particular path, while exploring areas of interest to the kids.  

 

Now, as they approach middle school, we are using Science Fusion and so far so good.  It gives me a good spine to work off of.  

[sdobis]

I don't know why I keep going back and forth about this. My kids never used a formal science program until middle school. Everything I look at seems to be not quite what I'm looking for. The closest thing I've seen so far has been NOEO, but that's because it's living books. I can use my library and get science kits. We can just have fun with it. I'm way overthinking this.

 

I do like the looks of Mystery Science. I have the free trial. We may use it a bit.

[FarmingMomma]

BFSU.  I did the first book the first year we homeschooled (first grader and fifth grader).  It is very parent-intensive, so our second year I got nervous and we did Elemental Science Biology for the logic stage instead.  It was alright, especially since we love Biology, but it just wasn't as solid as BFSU.  So last year we went back to BFSU and did Volume 2, and we are currently finishing up Volume 3 with an 8th grader and 4th grader.  They've made science connections that I never would have imagined for elementary/junior high, and I learned a lot right along with them.  I feel like they are so well prepared for high school science!

[gratitude]

Would this be difficult to use as a young earth Christian? I don't mind a bit of evolution. I just don't want to feel like the whole book is teaching something that I disagree with.

I have used the Apologia Elementary series for the past 6 years for grades 2 - 6. We are young earth Christians and it has worked well. We also both happen to have science degrees and have liked its level of coverage and introduction to science in the elementary years. The only thing I have ever mixed in with it at times is a few months of daily experiments on a topic or living science history books to read for fun. The Apologia Elementary though has worked well.

 

I have bought the lab kits and notebooks from Christian books to have things on hand. We have used the Astronomy, Swimming Creatures, Land Animals, and Physics / Chemistry. My oldest was well prepared this year for 7th grade science from the program.

 

I hope this information is helpful.

[RenaInTexas]

I did Apologia (with notebooks) with my 2nd & 4th graders and will be continuing.

 

I'd recommend starting with the easier subjects (Botany or Astronomy) before moving on to the Zoology books and save Human Anatomy and Chemistry/Physics for the last two books. There are lots of experiments and the kids love the notebooking.

 

Botany encourages a lot of nature walks and collecting, and growing your own plants and observing them.

 

Astronomy had a few nice -- outdoor -- projects, but what we enjoyed the most was going to star parties and watching youtube videos that showed what we were discussing.

 

Zoology 1-3 may be a little much unless your kids are animal lovers like mine. However, you can get through it quickly by just making parts of it a read-aloud without doing any of the notebooking or experiments. For example, you can do all of the notebooking and experiments for the lesson on bees. Then simply read through the lesson on beetles. Each lesson is designed to take up 4-class periods. So the bee lesson would take all 4-classes, while you would read through the beetle lesson in 1-class.

[sweetpea3829]

There are a lot of things I disliked about Apologia, most of which are not pertaining to this discussion and instead revolve around my opinion of poorly reasoned apologetics arguments.

 

That said...I used Apologia for a couple of years and found the reading content to be too high for 1-4th grade.  More appropriate, IMO, for 5th and 6th.  

 

When I used it, I often supplemented the reading assignments with more age-appropriate living science books.  

[ExcitedMama]

I've used ES and RSO and we just started Science in the Beginning which I highly recommend. SIB is easy to use and very informative. DS has retained more information from SIB than with anything else we've tried. DS loves science but this is the first time he has wanted to tell DH about what he's learned. With ES and RSO I wasn't happy with the curriculum and kept looking for something better but with SIB I know I will definitely buy the next level.

[kristin0713]

Mystery Science. But we've only been using it half a year...although that's longer than any other science program I've tried, LOL! We are also young earth Christians and so I just make sure to watch the episodes with my kids and if anything deals with the earth being billions of years old, we talk about it. There are so many topics and most of them do not discuss that. I think it is actually good for them to be exposed to mainstream science with me right there, and we can then investigate the topics on our own.

[KBadd]

I've used ES and RSO and we just started Science in the Beginning which I highly recommend. SIB is easy to use and very informative. DS has retained more information from SIB than with anything else we've tried. DS loves science but this is the first time he has wanted to tell DH about what he's learned. With ES and RSO I wasn't happy with the curriculum and kept looking for something better but with SIB I know I will definitely buy the next level.

Did you buy a supplies kit for SIB? Or did you compile supplies at the beginning of the year?  Do you typically like living books in your family, and if so did you incorporate any in addition to the SIB book?

 

SIB is not getting done in my house, mostly because I never have supplies immediately available.  But I think I'm also not as excited about the textbook-similar format of the book versus books we just pick up from the library.  Just curious how it works in your home ;)

[mamamoose]

BFSU. I did the first book the first year we homeschooled (first grader and fifth grader). It is very parent-intensive, so our second year I got nervous and we did Elemental Science Biology for the logic stage instead. It was alright, especially since we love Biology, but it just wasn't as solid as BFSU. So last year we went back to BFSU and did Volume 2, and we are currently finishing up Volume 3 with an 8th grader and 4th grader. They've made science connections that I never would have imagined for elementary/junior high, and I learned a lot right along with them. I feel like they are so well prepared for high school science!

BFSU? What does the acronym stand for?

[CrunchyGirl]

BFSU? What does the acronym stand for?

Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding.

[KrissiK]

Science was was really my bugaboo when my kids were younger. But then someone gave me the Apologia Space book and I really liked it, We will be starting our fourth year of Apologia in the fall. We use the notebooks and everything. The kids love it. They really do. However, IMO, I wouldn't start it any younger than third grade. Or at least having an oldest child in the group younger than third or fourth grade. I did it with all 4 of my kids together the past two years and my oldest two have gotten the most out of it. They understand the most, they get the most use out of the notebooking journals... my younger two just kind of tag along. If it were just my younger two I was teaching I would likely do unit studies with the Let's Read and Find Out Books. I really like those.

 

Edited to add: I see someone else mentioned Science in the Beginning. We're finishing the year with that. As I said, my kids loved Apologia, which really has enough material to do science 2-3 days per week. We did it every day and finished at the beginning of April. Someone had given me the first book of the Science in the Beginning, which is very Apologia-ish, and we'll continue with that until the end of the schoo year. We have been enjoying that as well. It doesn't come with notebooks (or at least I haven't seen them and we just make our own pages) and the kids don't like that quite as well, but it is a good, interesting and easy to use curriculum. Experiments every day.

Edited May 13, 2017 by KrissiK

[alisoncooks]

Mystery Science has been well-liked here.

God's Design was fairly well-received by my kiddos in 2nd/4th grade.

 

For this comng year I bought a bunch of DK/Usborne-type books, and I just plan on reading whatever we find interesting.

[ExcitedMama]

Did you buy a supplies kit for SIB? Or did you compile supplies at the beginning of the year? Do you typically like living books in your family, and if so did you incorporate any in addition to the SIB book?

 

SIB is not getting done in my house, mostly because I never have supplies immediately available. But I think I'm also not as excited about the textbook-similar format of the book versus books we just pick up from the library. Just curious how it works in your home ;)

No, I don't have the supply kit for it. We use a virtual charter and I've used funds to buy the kits for ES and RSO but they never seem to me to be worth the money. I just skim through upcoming lessons and make a list on my phone of what materials we will need. At least so far they have been pretty basic and much easier than with ES and RSO.

 

I am very much a book person so we ge a ton of science and history books every week but so far I haven't found any reason to add on to SIB. Everything is just explained so well that I haven't found any reason to add more to SIB the way I did with ES and still do with RSO.

 

It seems like it would be a very dry book since it looks so much like a textbook but it's been very discovery based as it mentions something briefly and then shows it with the experiment and explains it more. I really enjoy the format. I've read a lot of elementary science books aloud in the last couple of years and I really hate them. I know the read and find out books are very popular but I despise them! SIB is informative without driving me crazy. Have you started SIB? I think after a few lessons you'd have a good idea if you like it or not. At least for me I really like how well it flows and explains.