Opinions on Berean Builders science?

[Janeway]

I would like to hear both..good and bad, and can PM me too if you prefer.  Thanks!

[hollyhock2]

The only one we've done is Science in the Beginning. It was really good. I liked that it was just one book, the experiments were actually interesting and easy to do, and I loved the notebooking suggestions. It was way over my then-1st grader's head, so I would say it's about right for 3rd-6th. I don't think I have anything negative to say about it.

[SoCal_Bear]

It's our favorite for elementary, but I would not use it at too young of an age. I taught the series starting from Ancient World at my co-op. 2-4, 3--5, 4-6 were the grades as I progressed through the years. The lessons are not exactly set up for a co-op because in order to finish the book in a year, you have to cover 2-3 lessons per week. I would introduce the lesson and do the labs. The students would go home and read over the lessons and do the discussion questions from the book. I designed my courses on google classroom so I usually linked concepts to videos online that went deeper or explained the target concept in an accessible way so that students who didn't completely grasp a concept were able to understand in a different medium. 

The lessons are laid on for home use by reading up to the lab which would explore the concept of the lesson without giving away the results which would answer the question being explored. Then the rest of the reading would more fully explain why you got the results you did from the lab.

I use multiple science curricula fully, but this is my favorite by far. The concepts are definitely not watered down at all.

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

We did Science In the Beginning and really liked it. I haven’t used any others. We like Apologia too but SITB was so much easier to use. We liked the variety in the lessons instead of a year on one topic like Apologia. The lessons weren’t too long and each was clearly defined, the experiments/demonstrations were fun, actually worked, and weren’t overly complicated, and the different projects at the end of each lesson made it easy to use with multiple age groups. The year we used it was definitely our best elementary science year. 

[Momto6inIN]

Loved it when we did it! Easy to implement, activities were good and relevant to the topic, no busywork.

The only reason we're not using it anymore is because we found we prefer to study science by topic, not by time period.

[Mom28kds]

I've tried multiple Science programs including the topical from Apologia (too hard to understand), God's Design for Science (Not enough depth) and SITB. I really liked SITB. It was the only one we could understand that had depth and didn't take forever to do. It's the only one I'd recommend at this time. I'm moving on to Wile's older books for Junior and Senior high now.

[Erica in OR]

These are my comments from a similar thread on the board in late 2016:

Quote

 

I like the whole series. I've used Science in the Beginning, Science in the Ancient World, and now Science in the Scientific Revolution. I use it in a group setting with multiple grades K-3 and 4-6, who are a blend of homeschool and students from a small classical school. I like:

--that it includes different levels of questions (younger, older, oldest) for each lesson so you can work with different ages

--that it includes an experiment/demo for each lesson, mostly with materials you'd have on hand or could buy locally

--that it links history to science

Now that I've used multiple levels, my only complaint would be that some of the experiments get reused from one book in another. A few experiments I felt only made the concept more difficult, not easier, but I used my judgment and modified or skipped them.

Erica in OR

 

 

I've now used Science in the Age of Reason as well. Still like it. The only other thing I would add that it makes a bit awkward when trying to hold to the four-year history cycle, since Science in the Beginning (days of Creation) is a year-long book. Next time around, I might consider condensing Science in the Beginning to a semester and then moving on to Science in the Ancient World.

[desertflower]

On 7/26/2019 at 7:04 PM, Mom28kds said:

I've tried multiple Science programs including the topical from Apologia (too hard to understand), God's Design for Science (Not enough depth) and SITB. I really liked SITB. It was the only one we could understand that had depth and didn't take forever to do. It's the only one I'd recommend at this time. I'm moving on to Wile's older books for Junior and Senior high now.

Hi Mom28kids,

have you guys done physics yet? I’m looking into it. Thanks.