s/o Just Reading Books

[Elizabeth86]

I was just reading the thread started by Meadowlark about just reading book for science and history for the elementary years.  I have been considering this for my family for a while.  We currently use Apologia for science and I always check out related library books, but pretty much find them to be just what we read about in Apologia.  We do just read Apologia and do some projects.  No notebooks or writing.  I'm definitely confident in this option, but I do have a few questions.  I know there are lots of good choices for the early years, Let's Read and Find Out, Magic School Bus.  Is there a good book series aimed at the older group?  My oldest is just 9, just thinking ahead.  I also get myself overwhelmed planning.  I always want to get ALL the books and I just overdo it.  Is there a particular set of children's encyclopedia's you use as a spine that has all the major topics? Are there any really well done booklists out there? Also, do you do it as a read aloud or do you have the kids do the reading?

[kirstenhill]

If you are comfortable with some vintage books, Sabbath Mood Homeschool has some great book lists for science that go up to high school level: https://sabbathmoodhomeschool.com/living-science-books/

I tried one of the curriculum guides once and it wasn't our style but even if you don't want the guides you can look at what she suggests. My kids could often get a lot out of books at a higher level than she suggests, especially if I read out loud. 

A modem series we like is the Scientists in the Field series. It is kind of like a very detailed picture book (with photos) and text about the work of actual scientists.  

Some years we have done a "just read books" approach for science and I pulled books from a lot of different sources.  It turns out a lot of my kids like science textbooks, so we have done this less often for science and more for history. 

 

[Porridge]

Another vote for scientists in the field

[8filltheheart]

I personally dislike science encyclopedia books bc of the busyness of the presentation.  My kids read whole science trade books-no spine, no encyclopedic guide--just whole books on topics, all the way through to high school level science.

I'm pretty sure I linked the NSTA booklist on that thread.  https://www.nsta.org/outstanding-science-trade-books-students-k-12

This site lists some good titles: https://charlottemason.tripod.com/elemsci.html

My youngest son loved reading Make Magazine: https://makezine.com/

I love Jean Craighead George nature books.

Lots of great books out there.

[Elizabeth86]

2 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:

I personally dislike science encyclopedia books bc of the busyness of the presentation.  My kids read whole science trade books-no spine, no encyclopedic guide--just whole books on topics, all the way through to high school level science.

I'm pretty sure I linked the NSTA booklist on that thread.  https://www.nsta.org/outstanding-science-trade-books-students-k-12

This site lists some good titles: https://charlottemason.tripod.com/elemsci.html

My youngest son loved reading Make Magazine: https://makezine.com/

I love Jean Craighead George nature books.

Lots of great books out there.

Thanks. I will check these out.

Edited February 28, 2021 by Elizabeth86

[Lori D.]

4 hours ago, Elizabeth86 said:

...  I know there are lots of good choices for the early years, Let's Read and Find Out, Magic School Bus.  ...  I also get myself overwhelmed planning.  I always want to get ALL the books and I just overdo it...

To help "tame" the Science and History, I would pick our overall subject for each (example: Ancient History, and, Earth Science). Then I listed topics under each that we might want to cover (ex: Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Greece, Rome, etc. for Ancient History, and, Geology, Meteorology, and Astronomy for Earth Science). Then list subtopics under those topics that would be useful to look at (ex:  we  and also  spend several weeks over the summer creating my master list of resources 

The table of contents for an Science Encyclopedia or two can be very useful for quickly finding those topics and subtopics that you may wish to cover.

Then I would start researching resources to help up cover the different topics and subtopics 
- books, magazines, and other print material
- educational videos and documentaries
- educational computer games and informational websites
- kits, board/card games, hands-on activities and "experiments"
- field trips, demonstrations
and list the resources under the topics and subtopics.

I would star items I wanted us to especially do, and also mark items with a question mark if it was a repeat or less important to me to make sure we covered. Then during the year, we would work our way through the master list. If DSs found a topic they wanted to spend more time on, or if they wanted to bunny trail onto a topic completely "off topic" from the master list -- great! We would follow that trail for a week or a month or however long they were interested in pursuing it. If that hadn't led to another bunny trail, then we went back to the master list and started up with the next topic. Once in a great while, if a topic was totally NOT clicking, then we'd scurry through it -- just spend a few days or a week of overview on that topic and move on.

The Master List of subject-topics-subtopics idea allowed me to very loosely feel like I wasn't leaving too many gaps. And that it was also very okay to just lightly touch on some topics/subtopics (or not at all), when I could see that we *were* covering (in depth!) so many others. I felt like it would mostly "even out" in the end. 😉 

I know that you are thinking of doing something similar to @Meadowlark from her post where she said she was considering "scrapping all of our moving parts, and just devouring nonfiction books for science and history." Using a variety of resources IS different than just using books. And, some homeschoolers do not find demonstrations, kits and hands-on activities for Science to be needed or useful for their children prior to middle school/high school--whenever they start doing formal labs and experiments. 

However, that was not the case here. Our DSs loved the variety of materials, which worked as reinforcement to the reading. I think if you go with ONLY books, then you really need to take a "discuss everything" approach, which gets the student thinking, asking questions, making connections, figuring out patterns and processes for themselves. I personally *prefer* to also use the variety of supplemental resources because we found it to be FUN 😄 , but I also saw how *interacting* with the materials helped DSs to "make the facts and concepts their own."  Your DC have their own learning style (how they best take in information), and how they best *process* that information once they take it in. Go with what works for your DC, and for you.
 

4 hours ago, Elizabeth86 said:

... Is there a good book series aimed at the older group?
... Is there a particular set of children's encyclopedia's you use as a spine that has all the major topics? ...

Above I explained how my "master list" helped to keep me from "over-doing". And I also explained how *I* used the table of contents from several children's encyclopedias to help me create my master list.

The older/out-of-print Dempsey Parr Science Encyclopedia was very handy for roughly grades 3-5 as an incomplete "spine" -- the articles are slightly longer 1-2 page spreads per topic, and there are a number of hands-on activities you can do that are laid out in the back of the book.

Again, just as a starting point "spine" for the first day of reading, and then go on to more in-depth books, but the year we did Life Science along about grades 5-6, we used the Usborne Internet Linked Animal World, World of Plants, and Human Body. These were new at the time with almost all the links still leading to great websites. But we also used a ton of other books, etc. to flesh out our study.

Also, I found the Reader's Digest How Science Works (broad overview of some physics and chemistry topics), but especially Reader's Digest: How Earth Works to be great in the middle school years. For example, for 7th grade, we couple How Earth Works with the TOPS Rocks & Minerals unit & supplies, plus a number of other resources and had a terrific Earth Science year.
 

4 hours ago, Elizabeth86 said:

...Also, do you do it as a read aloud or do you have the kids do the reading?

"Formal" school science was read-aloud. Informal free reading was kids.

History and Science were done during scheduled school hours, with me reading aloud -- first day of a new topic from a "spine" or encyclopedia if we had one" and then one to many books on the subtopics over the course of a week or a month. Because DSs really enjoyed hands-on, we did some form of that 3-4 days/week in elementary grades, about 2 days/week in middle school, and 1x/week in high school. I also scheduled in educational videos/documentaries, websites, games, field trips, etc. as they popped up. Esp. up through grade 6 we were mostly doing a 4 day/week schedule so day 5 was all of those fun things and homeschool support group day.

Sometimes as part of school I would assign a book for the required solo-reading minutes that would be science-based or history-based. Then I'd just ask them about the book: a few comprehension questions, or "tell me what you found most interesting in a 30-60 second oral report."

Up through about grade 5-6, my DSs really loved the highly visual/highly illustrated types of encyclopedias, just to flip through on their own time -- almost always that was  at night during the "bonus bed time" (getting to be in bed with lights on for an extra 20-30 minutes for reading/looking at books). 😉  

They loved a lot of the very visual Usborne, Kingfisher, and DK titles in science areas, especially. A few I remember them especially liking for just flipping through at night:

Usborne Book of World History -- DSs loved looking at this one at night in grades K-3
Usborne Time Traveler -- they also loved looking at this one, roughly grades 1-4
Ultimate Book of Cross Sections
Ultimate Visual Dictionary -- this was the favorite night time book, even in the early elementary grades; it has illustrations/photos with captions and snippets of info, but also  longer sections of text written at a grade 7+ level -- we used portions of this one in late elementary/middle school as a "spine", along with other resources.

They also really enjoyed some nonfiction children's magazines as "bonus bedtime reading" -- things like Ranger Rick, Zoobooks, Kids Discover, Cobblestone, etc. This was free reading choice, done solo, and was supplemental/extra to our school hour Science and History.
_____________________

So there you go -- I do have a very different experience as @8filltheheart with the highly illustrated children's encyclopedias. 😉 We found them to be useful for creating a master list; as a very beginning launching point into topics; and as supplemental/reinforcement for free-choice reading.

BUT... the main thing is that we did not ONLY use those children's encyclopedias. We also used many longer in-depth books on various topics and subtopics. And we used a variety of other resources to reinforce info, but to also aid in exploration, interacting with the concepts, and thinking about the concepts.

[Elizabeth86]

41 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

To help "tame" the Science and History, I would pick our overall subject for each (example: Ancient History, and, Earth Science). Then I listed topics under each that we might want to cover (ex: Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Greece, Rome, etc. for Ancient History, and, Geology, Meteorology, and Astronomy for Earth Science). Then list subtopics under those topics that would be useful to look at (ex:  we  and also  spend several weeks over the summer creating my master list of resources 

The table of contents for an Science Encyclopedia or two can be very useful for quickly finding those topics and subtopics that you may wish to cover.

Then I would start researching resources to help up cover the different topics and subtopics 
- books, magazines, and other print material
- educational videos and documentaries
- educational computer games and informational websites
- kits, board/card games, hands-on activities and "experiments"
- field trips, demonstrations
and list the resources under the topics and subtopics.

I would star items I wanted us to especially do, and also mark items with a question mark if it was a repeat or less important to me to make sure we covered. Then during the year, we would work our way through the master list. If DSs found a topic they wanted to spend more time on, or if they wanted to bunny trail onto a topic completely "off topic" from the master list -- great! We would follow that trail for a week or a month or however long they were interested in pursuing it. If that hadn't led to another bunny trail, then we went back to the master list and started up with the next topic. Once in a great while, if a topic was totally NOT clicking, then we'd scurry through it -- just spend a few days or a week of overview on that topic and move on.

The Master List of subject-topics-subtopics idea allowed me to very loosely feel like I wasn't leaving too many gaps. And that it was also very okay to just lightly touch on some topics/subtopics (or not at all), when I could see that we *were* covering (in depth!) so many others. I felt like it would mostly "even out" in the end. 😉 

I know that you are thinking of doing something similar to @Meadowlark from her post where she said she was considering "scrapping all of our moving parts, and just devouring nonfiction books for science and history." Using a variety of resources IS different than just using books. And, some homeschoolers do not find demonstrations, kits and hands-on activities for Science to be needed or useful for their children prior to middle school/high school--whenever they start doing formal labs and experiments. 

However, that was not the case here. Our DSs loved the variety of materials, which worked as reinforcement to the reading. I think if you go with ONLY books, then you really need to take a "discuss everything" approach, which gets the student thinking, asking questions, making connections, figuring out patterns and processes for themselves. I personally *prefer* to also use the variety of supplemental resources because we found it to be FUN 😄 , but I also saw how *interacting* with the materials helped DSs to "make the facts and concepts their own."  Your DC have their own learning style (how they best take in information), and how they best *process* that information once they take it in. Go with what works for your DC, and for you.
 

Above I explained how my "master list" helped to keep me from "over-doing". And I also explained how *I* used the table of contents from several children's encyclopedias to help me create my master list.

The older/out-of-print Dempsey Parr Science Encyclopedia was very handy for roughly grades 3-5 as an incomplete "spine" -- the articles are slightly longer 1-2 page spreads per topic, and there are a number of hands-on activities you can do that are laid out in the back of the book.

Again, just as a starting point "spine" for the first day of reading, and then go on to more in-depth books, but the year we did Life Science along about grades 5-6, we used the Usborne Internet Linked Animal World, World of Plants, and Human Body. These were new at the time with almost all the links still leading to great websites. But we also used a ton of other books, etc. to flesh out our study.

Also, I found the Reader's Digest How Science Works (broad overview of some physics and chemistry topics), but especially Reader's Digest: How Earth Works to be great in the middle school years. For example, for 7th grade, we couple How Earth Works with the TOPS Rocks & Minerals unit & supplies, plus a number of other resources and had a terrific Earth Science year.
 

"Formal" school science was read-aloud. Informal free reading was kids.

History and Science were done during scheduled school hours, with me reading aloud -- first day of a new topic from a "spine" or encyclopedia if we had one" and then one to many books on the subtopics over the course of a week or a month. Because DSs really enjoyed hands-on, we did some form of that 3-4 days/week in elementary grades, about 2 days/week in middle school, and 1x/week in high school. I also scheduled in educational videos/documentaries, websites, games, field trips, etc. as they popped up. Esp. up through grade 6 we were mostly doing a 4 day/week schedule so day 5 was all of those fun things and homeschool support group day.

Sometimes as part of school I would assign a book for the required solo-reading minutes that would be science-based or history-based. Then I'd just ask them about the book: a few comprehension questions, or "tell me what you found most interesting in a 30-60 second oral report."

Up through about grade 5-6, my DSs really loved the highly visual/highly illustrated types of encyclopedias, just to flip through on their own time -- almost always that was  at night during the "bonus bed time" (getting to be in bed with lights on for an extra 20-30 minutes for reading/looking at books). 😉  

They loved a lot of the very visual Usborne, Kingfisher, and DK titles in science areas, especially. A few I remember them especially liking for just flipping through at night:

Usborne Book of World History -- DSs loved looking at this one at night in grades K-3
Usborne Time Traveler -- they also loved looking at this one, roughly grades 1-4
Ultimate Book of Cross Sections
Ultimate Visual Dictionary -- this was the favorite night time book, even in the early elementary grades; it has illustrations/photos with captions and snippets of info, but also  longer sections of text written at a grade 7+ level -- we used portions of this one in late elementary/middle school as a "spine", along with other resources.

They also really enjoyed some nonfiction children's magazines as "bonus bedtime reading" -- things like Ranger Rick, Zoobooks, Kids Discover, Cobblestone, etc. This was free reading choice, done solo, and was supplemental/extra to our school hour Science and History.
_____________________

So there you go -- I do have a very different experience as @8filltheheart with the highly illustrated children's encyclopedias. 😉 We found them to be useful for creating a master list; as a very beginning launching point into topics; and as supplemental/reinforcement for free-choice reading.

BUT... the main thing is that we did not ONLY use those children's encyclopedias. We also used many longer in-depth books on various topics and subtopics. And we used a variety of other resources to reinforce info, but to also aid in exploration, interacting with the concepts, and thinking about the concepts.

Oh lots to think about. I definitely didn't mean books only. My boys love the hands on stuff. 

[Frenkers]

And I just love encyclopedias and research essays. I often write these myself and children should know this too. While I was trying to write a scientific essay for one of my works, I came across a link with a writing service. At first, I was wary of this but then I tried and got a cool job on my topic about the environment, it saved time and nerves because I still prefer calculations and facts to write essays.

[caffeineandbooks]

In the distant past of last century, my parents bought me a subscription to Double Helix magazine.  It's an Australian science periodical aimed at 9-14 year olds.  I can't speak to the quality of current issues, but back then there were wide ranging articles about all sorts of science, not just chem/physics/biol but also paleontology, astronomy, genetics, geology, at a kid-friendly reading level.  Lots of pictures, and a few opportunities to do citizen science projects each year.  There may be an American equivalent, or you could read more here: https://doublehelixshop.csiro.au/

[Ausmumof3]

14 hours ago, caffeineandbooks said:

In the distant past of last century, my parents bought me a subscription to Double Helix magazine.  It's an Australian science periodical aimed at 9-14 year olds.  I can't speak to the quality of current issues, but back then there were wide ranging articles about all sorts of science, not just chem/physics/biol but also paleontology, astronomy, genetics, geology, at a kid-friendly reading level.  Lots of pictures, and a few opportunities to do citizen science projects each year.  There may be an American equivalent, or you could read more here: https://doublehelixshop.csiro.au/

We had double helix for a while.  They used to run a science club that you became part of when you subscribed.  We dropped the subscription after they separated them and only payed for the science club because we couldn’t afford both.  They were quite fun and well done though.

[Clemsondana]

'Just reading books' is sort of how we did elementary history and science.  I used Hirsh's Core Knowledge as a topic guide, but we'd mostly raid the bookshelves and hit the library until I had a stack of books on whatever topic we'd be looking at for a few weeks.  The the kids would just read from them for a while each day.  Sometimes we'd do something orally, or I'd pull out a map to label, or they might build a model, do a related project (like making butter or candles), etc.  But, mostly they just read and looked at books.  

[Porridge]

19 hours ago, caffeineandbooks said:

In the distant past of last century, my parents bought me a subscription to Double Helix magazine.  It's an Australian science periodical aimed at 9-14 year olds.  I can't speak to the quality of current issues, but back then there were wide ranging articles about all sorts of science, not just chem/physics/biol but also paleontology, astronomy, genetics, geology, at a kid-friendly reading level.  Lots of pictures, and a few opportunities to do citizen science projects each year.  There may be an American equivalent, or you could read more here: https://doublehelixshop.csiro.au/

Ask magazine and Muse magazine are science magazines published by Cricket media in the US. Ask is for younger kids, Muse for older kids.