3rd grade science

[prairiewindmomma]

What would you use if you felt free to choose a new curricula or reuse something you have on the shelf? 

We used Apologia elementary stuff for the first few kids, and we need a new plan. This year, for 2nd, we just read Let's Read and Find Out books (the whole series) and took pocket microscopes and binoculars places---beach, forest, mountains, and desert.

[8filltheheart]

I'd continue to just find science books on topics of interest to read all the way through until your kids are ready for high school level science.  Its exact6the approach I've taken for 27 yrs. 🙂

[JennyD]

Mystery Science all the way.  I have done every single lesson, many of them twice (with different kids) and it is just a pitch-perfect elementary school science program. I wish it had been around when my oldest was elementary age.

 

[Insertcreativenamehere]

1 minute ago, JennyD said:

Mystery Science all the way.  I have done every single lesson, many of them twice (with different kids) and it is just a pitch-perfect elementary school science program. I wish it had been around when my oldest was elementary age.

 

Ditto this. My kids loved it!

[happypamama]

Pick books to read, like 8FilltheHeart said.  Perhaps add a few new ones in topics they haven't asked about yet, to pique interest.  Throw in some of the Who Was or similar biographies.  Get some kits or SnapCircuits if you want.  Add some nature journaling if you'd like.

HAVE FUN!  

[HomeAgain]

2 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

This year, for 2nd, we just read Let's Read and Find Out books (the whole series) and took pocket microscopes and binoculars places---beach, forest, mountains, and desert.

Did you enjoy doing this approach?

I like to have some sort of spine to help get us through the year.  I've used the Janice Van Cleave books with success: matching up the experiments to other readings/videos/projects.  We used a sketchbook to keep track of the year with drawings, labs, and interactive elements.

[Lori D.]

Similar to posters above, we read lots of great books, but also watched science videos, went on field trips, and did tons of hands-on activities and kits, all the way through 8th grade. No formal curricula. Super fun! Lots learned! Enjoyment of discovery and learning stayed high! Win-win-win! 😄 

But, that's what worked for US, because I loved planning in the summers for fun/cool science each year... Don't know if that works for you. 😉 

P.S.
Those Mystery Science videos look cool! Wish they had been around 20 years ago for when DSs were elementary ages. 😉

[prairiewindmomma]

17 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

Did you enjoy doing this approach?

I like to have some sort of spine to help get us through the year.  I've used the Janice Van Cleave books with success: matching up the experiments to other readings/videos/projects.  We used a sketchbook to keep track of the year with drawings, labs, and interactive elements.

The LRFO books naturally wrapped around some core themes in earth science, weather, etc. Dd kept an art sketch notebook where she copied favorite diagrams, made notes, etc. 

It worked for us, but I need something new to wrap around. She also wants to go deeper, which I couldn’t this year due to time constraints due to other kids. She totally researched and drew bacteria for a month for fun with her free time. She wants depth way beyond what is normal for her age but she isn’t ready for high school materials. It’s a fun but challenging situation.

You’d think with her being my 5th kid that I would intuitively know what to do with her. I don’t. We may end up rabbit holing the entire year, but I am surveying options. I am going to give her three and let her choose.

Mystery Science looks awesome!

[8filltheheart]

26 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

The LRFO books naturally wrapped around some core themes in earth science, weather, etc. Dd kept an art sketch notebook where she copied favorite diagrams, made notes, etc. 

It worked for us, but I need something new to wrap around. She also wants to go deeper, which I couldn’t this year due to time constraints due to other kids. She totally researched and drew bacteria for a month for fun with her free time. She wants depth way beyond what is normal for her age but she isn’t ready for high school materials. It’s a fun but challenging situation.

You’d think with her being my 5th kid that I would intuitively know what to do with her. I don’t. We may end up rabbit holing the entire year, but I am surveying options. I am going to give her three and let her choose.

Mystery Science looks awesome!

That is the beauty of the whole book approach.  Textbooks for children don't go deep and take the summarized approach.  Reading an entire book on a topic really explores a subject in ways textbooks just can't.    Have you looked the NTSA lists?  They might give you a good starting pt. https://www.nsta.org/outstanding-science-trade-books-students-k-12  You can search them by grade level and subject, too.

[Susan in TX]

You might want to check out Blossom and Root science. I just found out about it and am thinking about getting it for my kids. It is literature based and very flexible but it looks like it would have the depth that your daughter is looking for.

Susan in TX

[HomeAgain]

1 hour ago, prairiewindmomma said:

The LRFO books naturally wrapped around some core themes in earth science, weather, etc. Dd kept an art sketch notebook where she copied favorite diagrams, made notes, etc. 

It worked for us, but I need something new to wrap around. She also wants to go deeper, which I couldn’t this year due to time constraints due to other kids. She totally researched and drew bacteria for a month for fun with her free time. She wants depth way beyond what is normal for her age but she isn’t ready for high school materials. It’s a fun but challenging situation.

You’d think with her being my 5th kid that I would intuitively know what to do with her. I don’t. We may end up rabbit holing the entire year, but I am surveying options. I am going to give her three and let her choose.

Mystery Science looks awesome!

Mystery Science is great.  We loved it when we used it.  I really liked how open and go it felt.  DS could pick nearly anything and I had the materials on hand.

I feel like I've never found a long term science that was satisfying and met my kids' current needs, no matter how many we used.  Even Mystery Science we went through too quickly, and it only goes up to 5th.  I was seriously looking at Exploration Education or Brilliant.org to satisfy ds before he decided on a textbook that had lots of integrated experiments.  I think half the problem is so many homeschool science programs seem to be written by people with English degrees and not science ones.  They're wordy and not so focused on teaching how to look & think critically, but focus on telling you what is happening and why.  The balance between information given and curiosity stoked seems to be a rare unicorn.

[desertflower]

1 hour ago, HomeAgain said:

Mystery Science is great.  We loved it when we used it.  I really liked how open and go it felt.  DS could pick nearly anything and I had the materials on hand.

I feel like I've never found a long term science that was satisfying and met my kids' current needs, no matter how many we used.  Even Mystery Science we went through too quickly, and it only goes up to 5th.  I was seriously looking at Exploration Education or Brilliant.org to satisfy ds before he decided on a textbook that had lots of integrated experiments.  I think half the problem is so many homeschool science programs seem to be written by people with English degrees and not science ones.  They're wordy and not so focused on teaching how to look & think critically, but focus on telling you what is happening and why.  The balance between information given and curiosity stoked seems to be a rare unicorn.

Which textbook did your son eventually use? 

[Hunter]

 I love Mr Q's ESP labs. Two formal labs a year are enough, though. I think covering graphing in math at the same time is a good idea, and possibly some work with spreadsheet software at the same time if that is not stressful. 

I thought Handbook of Nature Study was irrelevant here in the desert, but I have realized that the GENERAL advice is still sound. Also, the questions for species that are not here can be applied to species that are here, especially when HONS is paired with books, youtube videos, and documentaries for both species.

Then real books, NIE resources (newspapers in education), videos, toys and whatever is handy. Science will balance out over the years, no matter how limited your resources. The world changes and what we have access to changes, too. Balance happens naturally.

[LauraClark]

My kids really enjoy hands on experiments. Our library isn't well stocked so the year we tried to just find books to read was frustrating for me (not to mention science isn't my favorite subject so it's easy to just put aside if the books I picked wasn't exciting anyway). We've been doing Berean Builders for a few years and that has been perfect for us-a history approach is perfect for ds9 and they all really like the experiments with each lesson. 

[HomeAgain]

9 hours ago, desertflower said:

Which textbook did your son eventually use? 

Well, I'll let you know how it goes. 😁 It's on deck for next year - an old Glencoe physical science book I had on my shelf.  This year we used Ellen McHenry chem programs, but heavily supplemented with a study of science through time and other material/games.  Ds and I were looking for next year when he pulled the Glencoe book down, liked the format, and how many experiments there were, so that's what we'll be doing.  I just found the 20-year-old teacher's manual to go with it on Abebooks for about $4, so at the very least it'll be a cheap investment if we don't like it in practice.

[desertflower]

4 hours ago, HomeAgain said:

Well, I'll let you know how it goes. 😁 It's on deck for next year - an old Glencoe physical science book I had on my shelf.  This year we used Ellen McHenry chem programs, but heavily supplemented with a study of science through time and other material/games.  Ds and I were looking for next year when he pulled the Glencoe book down, liked the format, and how many experiments there were, so that's what we'll be doing.  I just found the 20-year-old teacher's manual to go with it on Abebooks for about $4, so at the very least it'll be a cheap investment if we don't like it in practice.

Thanks! Hope it works out!

[2_girls_mommy]

I HATED the early Apologia books until my mdd was about 5th grade and she could read it on her own.  But co-op always chose those, so we did several of them.  One year in middle school they chose from the newer Science in the Beginning Series (I think that year we were in the Science in the Age of Reason,) and I really liked that compared to the Apologia books. Mine could do it on her own, as she was at the upper end of it, but I would have enjoyed doing it in the younger ages.  So if you want a text series, and something different from Apologia, you might look at that series. 

I much more enjoy doing Well Trained Mind style science with a scheduled topic per year or semester with a children's encyclopedia or nice subject books as the spines and doing some activities and notebooking around that, doing a little CM style nature journaling some years and following interests and opportunities as they came up from other places.  We made many a great science year around things that started out from a girl scout camp or badge and from there we took off from it for the year.  We gained life long interests in things this way too, things we carried on an interest in outside of "school" for years. My kids have done years around birds, astronomy, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Robotics, Weather, and other topics from having flexibility to follow up and research their own interests for our projects all year.  These things happened more starting around 5th grade and up when they could really research and had more opportunities to work with the public and meet mentors in real clubs and to volunteer alongside adults who were working in the field or in community non profits. Then they chose their own scout badges and projects and wrote papers on the topic for a year.  If co-op assigned a presentation, we would find a way to make the chosen topics fit the requirements for that.  If a girl scout badge required them to teach younger scouts on a safety topic, and dd was into learning about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that year, she researched ways to help with less plastic use and taught them.  She attended and taught at an event for adults at the zoo on the topic when they had a night on the subject that year.  This all started because of learning something at scout camp early that year.  She researched, wrote, and watched documentaries on it all year after that. 

To start teaching them to follow up their interests like this, and to research deeper, we started with doing a homeschool science fair competition when they were in elementary school.  They worked on a variety of skills including speech and presentations from an early age to do those competitions on their chosen topic.  In 3rd grade we did the WTM's scheduled chemistry experiment book.  They could choose an experiment from that book to expand on, or anything else that had come up, but that was a starting point that year.  I think the book for 3rd grade WTM science was from Adventures with Atoms?  It cost me like $8 back then, and had all of the same experiments as an Apologia book.  That little book of activities and a science fair and library books and videos was all we needed for that year. 

[JennyD]

On 5/28/2021 at 7:15 PM, Susan in TX said:

You might want to check out Blossom and Root science. I just found out about it and am thinking about getting it for my kids. It is literature based and very flexible but it looks like it would have the depth that your daughter is looking for.

Susan in TX

I have used pieces of Blossom and Root, including their 4th grade science.  It's pretty good.  It's no Mystery Science, mind you, but it's solid.  I like that it gives you different options for hands-on activities (outdoor oriented, crafty, experiment-y, etc.)

 

[Hunter]

Link to the grade specific ESP lab worksheets for grades 1-5

http://eequalsmcq.com/park university.htm

Advanced Lab worksheet

http://eequalsmcq.com/Updated Lab Report - Advanced.pdf

Powerpoint instructions for worksheets

http://eequalsmcq.com/ESP_Experimental_Design.ppt

[8filltheheart]

Labs are great if you want to do them, but labs and lab reports are absolutely not necessary for the under high school crowd. I've never had a child write out a lab report before 9th and have 3 science field adult children. 

[AnneGG]

I’m so tempted by Noeo science that Logos puts out. All those books! Easy science experiments all packed into those little kits. *swoon* I like that it’s on a 3 year cycle too. 

The Thinking Tree has some science themed journals now. They can be used with any book. 

[HomeAgain]

55 minutes ago, AnneGG said:

I’m so tempted by Noeo science that Logos puts out. All those books! Easy science experiments all packed into those little kits. *swoon* I like that it’s on a 3 year cycle too. 

 

We used Noeo several years back, when it was an independent company.  We lived on an island in the middle of nowhere, so being able to get one box with all supplies was a huge bonus. But if I were to list the pros and cons for us, here's what they would be.

PRO:

• living books, wonderfully illustrated
• science kits included
• a 2 or 4 day schedule option
• notebooking and summarizing were the main output

CON:

• the science kits by Young Scientists were demonstrative.  They would tell a kid what to do, what they will see, and why all on the first page.  There was no discovery.
• The output didn't feel particularly age appropriate.  No thinking skills were needed in level 2, 4th-6th grade, for anything, and the reading was often quick.
• The extra experiments (in the books) didn't have a supply list straight off, and some of the supplies would have been very hard for us to get where we were.

We ended up not going on to level 3 and moved to a different science that fit us better.  However, we did keep all the books that were a part of the program, and they have been well loved here.

[Hunter]

8 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:

Labs are great if you want to do them, but labs and lab reports are absolutely not necessary for the under high school crowd. I've never had a child write out a lab report before 9th and have 3 science field adult children. 

I absolutely agree! I just find the ESP labs to be the easiest way to teach the template style method that has become so popular to inflict on students. Because the ESP method is so easy for me to implement, and because I can teach some other more important things alongside it, and my students have LIKED it, I have used it.

I remember one student saying, "Now THIS is REAL science!" I did not want to burst her bubble in a discussion of how unnecessary, artificial and limiting the template method can be. I just let her finally feel included in an activity she saw other students do, but was excluded because of her learning disabilities. This was my student that thought the earth was flat before the continent Pangea broke up and made the world round. 

[goldenecho]

So, if you want to combine Science and history,  I have three suggestions.

First, I love Dr. Dave's Science units on the Science of Ancient Egypt on Teachers Pay Teachers.   It does not include any experiments if you don't pay extra for them, and only really has one (egg mummy...easy to find online).   BUT, the writing is really great and accessible and really brings the history and science together nicely.   Plus, I've found it easy to skim the section and search pinterest for related experiments that go really nicely with it (like in the Metals section they have a lot about copper and I found lots of experiments using pennies and vinegar that go nicely with it).   It has separate units that can be bought as a set or separately (mummies, the Nile, animals of Egypt, Kilns and Metals, pyramids, ect).   While Egypt does last a long time if you're going through a chronological book like Story of the World, we only used 1-2 units each round through, and I think a lot of families might just want to pick out a unit on the things they were most interested in.


I am loving Jay Wile's Science in the Ancient World (volume two of his Science through History series that goes from pre-history through the Industrial Age).   I love how it has experiments every chapter, most with items its easy to find around the house.    It's a Christian resource, but at least for this volume, you could pretty easily go through and just cross out a line or two in each lesson and you could remove the religious aspects of it (you also may want to skip chapters dealing with biology if you want to skip anti-evolution sentiment...so far most of the lessons we've done have to do with physics, molecules/atoms and chemistry:  things his PhD in nuclear chemistry are  more relevant to. )   While stuff does build on other stuff, as long as you go in order for each Scienctist, I haven't found a problem skipping sections.   But I've only gotten through the Greeks.


Experimenting With the Vikings is just an amazing freebie offered by the Royal Society of Chemistry.  It has a short narrative involving a viking man and his family for every section, and several experiments related to each section (it's designed for the classroom but really easy to use for homeschooling too...I really didn't have to change a lot).  It's again one where you can pick and choose. 

 

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

I tend to favor having a “spine” curriculum that provides a general roadmap for exploring a topic, but leaves plenty of room for me to tweak & add. My DS is not suited to a literature-based approach; he enjoys books (I believe he’s read every Magic School Bus ever written!) but also has an intense need for interactive, hands-on learning. 

Real Science Odyssey has been a good fit for us. If a topic is something DS is particularly interested in & already has significant background knowledge of, it can be on the light side - that was the case for us with Astronomy this year - but even then I prefer building off a framework to starting from the ground up.

We’ll be using Chemistry 1 for 3rd grade. There are introductory readings, labs, demonstrations, & hands-on activities. We’ll add additional books, videos, & activities to supplement. I’ve purchased several chemistry-themed tabletop games, for example, as gameschooling is a big part of our homeschool culture. I also acquired a couple sets of Molymods, for when we get to molecules. I’m really looking forward to it! 

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

If you wanted an expansion upon your approach from this past year & literature-based study with nature exploration was a good fit, you could look into the One Small Square series. They explore a variety of biomes above, on, & beneath the ground within a one-cubic-meter space with highly detailed illustrations & tips for replicating the study yourself, if that biome is accessible to you.

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

On 6/5/2021 at 3:08 AM, goldenecho said:

Experimenting With the Vikings is just an amazing freebie offered by the Royal Society of Chemistry.  It has a short narrative involving a viking man and his family for every section, and several experiments related to each section (it's designed for the classroom but really easy to use for homeschooling too...I really didn't have to change a lot).  It's again one where you can pick and choose. 

This looks fabulous! Saving for our next romp through the Middle Ages 🙂

[goldenecho]

8 hours ago, Shoes+Ships+SealingWax said:

If you wanted an expansion upon your approach from this past year & literature-based study with nature exploration was a good fit, you could look into the One Small Square series. They explore a variety of biomes above, on, & beneath the ground within a one-cubic-meter space with highly detailed illustrations & tips for replicating the study yourself, if that biome is accessible to you.

I love these too!   Such beautiful writing and illustrations, and so many good activities.

I actually made a more fleshed out curriculum based off the Cave one I shared on my blog. 
http://wacomom.blogspot.com/2018/08/inner-space-cave-unit.html