History and Science for 2nd and 3rd grade

[Lillyfee]

Hi

My two youngest girls will be in 2nd and 3rd grade next school year.

For LA and math we will definitely use The Good and the Beautiful again. We love that curriculum so much.

I am still looking for a fun history and science curriculum.

I am looking into Sonlight right now and think we could like it. I could use the same package for both girls in both subjects which would be great.

I am only a little worried that my girls won't listen to that much reading and I am also not sure how much bible studies will be included in these subjects. My girls like books but they also love pictures and if the stories are too long they start playing around and don't pay attention anymore 

We are Christian but we believe in science theories, too. I am European and it sometimes confuses me that so many American homeschool curricula mix up these topics. However, I don't really habe a problem with it but would prefer if history is not the exact same as Bible study. 

Do you think Sonlight would be a good fit for us?

What do you use for science and history/social studies in these grades?

Thank you

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Lillyfee

[8filltheheart]

I do whatever they want to learn about. No boundaries by topic/country/time period. Our homeschool is all about encouraging kids to be excited about what they want to learn.  We read books, watch documentaries (or Magic School Bus type shows at that age), visit museums/zoo's, etc. No worksheets. No tests. 

[Lillyfee]

That's what we did this year. We read lots and lots of books about different animals and other science topics, watched movies, did projects, went on field trips and just went outside.

In social studies it was important for me that they learn that there are lots of different cultures and read books about that. Especially important was for me that they learn about out German history in an age appropriate way. We read and watched "When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit" and talked about the difference of being patriotic and when it becomes dangerous nationalism. 

Everything really light and kid friendly.

I just thought we need some curriculum now but you might be right that it is still ok to just pick my own books and topics for next year.

[caffeineandbooks]

Hi, and welcome to the WTM boards!

Your girls are at the perfect age for Story of the World.  You would read the chapter aloud to them each week (usually under 20 minutes, and often broken into 2-3 sections that can be done across a couple of days if you need it shorter again) and then find other literature and nonfiction from the library on topics that hold their interest.  We use the activity guide as well - at various points my kids have loved or hated the coloring sheets included, to help them listen quietly while I read.  There are great suggestions of other books to read, there's map work, comprehension questions, sample narrations to help you gauge output, and hands-on activities including cooking, crafts, board games, drama - lots of stuff!  We're on our second loop through and I have all my kids, K-5, working on it together and just producing different output.  It's the heart of our homeschool.

For science, I take @8filltheheart's advice seriously.  We have also used National Geographic docos and Magic School Bus, read books (she got me onto the NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Books list), attended museums.  We like the "X Lab for Kids" series sometimes when we want a little more hands-on - they are books of experiments with very brief explanations, and there are titles about astronomy, kitchen science, rocks, the body, electricity...  We also liked Jay Wile's Science in the Beginning for a one year, multi age elementary course, though it is definitely Christian.  We haven't loved the others in the series as much, but the first one is a nice topical arrangement covering light, air, water, plants, animals and the human body designed from the ground up for homeschoolers: you do a simple demonstration, read about 2 pages of conversational explanation, and then narrate your learning with a question prompt provided.

[Lillyfee]

Thank you so much.

I am looking at your suggestions right now and they are wonderful.

[Slache]

I want to second Story of the World!

Building Foundations for Scientific Understanding is fantastic but not open and go. At all. Major planning. But an awesome curriculum.

[Zoo Keeper]

In case you didn't know, Bookshark is from the same parent company as Sonlight- but it is scheduled without the Bible/religious books (Bookshark was developed to be used in public charter schools).

Bookshark has history and science cores.

And it is scheduled for a 4 day week, so less reading. 

Here is the website--  https://www.bookshark.com/

 

It would also be perfectly fine to use whatever books and whatever history/science topics you chose.  Especially in the younger grades when exposure, not mastery, is the goal in history/science.  Many people keep content subjects "light" in early elementary so that the basics skills of reading/phonics, writing, and math have time to develop a good solid base.

 

[8filltheheart]

5 hours ago, Lillyfee said:

I just thought we need some curriculum now but you might be right that it is still ok to just pick my own books and topics for next year.

I have been homeschooling a long time (almost 30 yrs) and have graduated 6 of our 8 kids from our homeschool so far.  We pick our own books and topics for history and lit all the way through high school graduation.  (This yr my 6th and 10th graders spent the yr reading about communism and the countries impacted in the 20th and 21st centuries.)  Science is interest driven through high school graduation as well but with basic high school graduation requirements.  (Still no textbooks until high school level science. In high school, I do use textbooks, but my science-oriented kids also pursue science courses outside of the traditional science sequence.) 
 

Our homeschool is far removed from traditional classroom methodologies.  It is very much about instilling a desire to learn and nurturing internal motivation to pursue academic pursuits.  It has not taken prepackaged curriculum (especially prior to high school) to prepare my kids to be academically competitive.  (FWIW, I have a ds who is a chemE, a ds with his master's in physics, a dd pursuing her masters in library and information science, a dd who is majoring in atmospheric science, etc.)  There are a lot of ways to master content outside of textbooks/worksheets.

[Dianthus]

5 hours ago, Zoo Keeper said:

In case you didn't know, Bookshark is from the same parent company as Sonlight- but it is scheduled without the Bible/religious books (Bookshark was developed to be used in public charter schools).

Bookshark has history and science cores.

And it is scheduled for a 4 day week, so less reading. 

Here is the website--  https://www.bookshark.com/

 

It would also be perfectly fine to use whatever books and whatever history/science topics you chose.  Especially in the younger grades when exposure, not mastery, is the goal in history/science.  Many people keep content subjects "light" in early elementary so that the basics skills of reading/phonics, writing, and math have time to develop a good solid base.

 

Was going to mention this also. We used bookshark at that age. It was great for me to start homeschooling. I loved their history and science. Love how they included Child's History of the World and we did move into story of the world later.

We did bookshark K science, then 1st grade history (with lit read alouds) and science, then 2nd grade science and history/lit and  added the language arts. Don't do that. The language arts is weak. But science and history are excellent at that age. Everything is included, the schedule is easy to follow, and the books are beautiful. Expensive but excellent. I also really enjoyed the lit at those ages, but we left the program later because I wasn't impressed with the upcoming lit.

Edited April 9, 2022 by Spirea

[AnneGG]

Sonlight reminds me of a non denominational church we attended. It’s Christian but  not theological. We’ve only done the HBL. A lot of the books felt too mature for the recommended age range. I guess I prefer The Good and Beautiful’s book philosophy a little more than I realized for my 7 and unders.  I don’t think I’ll be using SL again in elementary. 

We liked Moving Beyond The Page, any lit unit guide from Hearth Magic, and we just started a guide from Lit Wits. I like Notgrass as well but our primary history gets pulled from our read aloud time period. Let’s Read and Find Out Science, Good Question!, Gail Gibbons, DK Find Out, and The Cat in the Hat science series are my faves for science coverage.

Edited April 9, 2022 by AnneGG

[Lillyfee]

I looked at Bookshark and it looks good. 

We love the Good and the Beautiful so much. The books are so happy and light-hearted.  I keep buying them for all four of my kids.

My two oldest will go back to public school next year but we used Abeka for 4th and 7th grade. I started homeschooling and wanted an all subject package. It was good for our first homeschool year as it was like school and I felt that it was thorough. 

However, A beka is also the reason I am hesitant of buying Christian curricula. There were a lot of stories of missionaries going in other countries and "rescue" people by bringing Jesus in their life.

I had a conversation with my two older ones which was about like that.

"Mama, so my best friend Mohammed who lives in Germany is from Marocco and he believes in Allah. Is he not rescued? Will his whole birth country not be rescued as they don't believe like we do? What is with our neighbor Sarah who is Jewish and what about the countries of India and China? Are mainly Americans and Europeans rescued people?"

I was shocked. Was that what my kids learned from that? It's kind of where they are going. We had a long conversation that God loves all the people no matter what and I am certain that he welcomes all good people in heaven.

I am really sensitive now that they don't learn that they are superior to others because they are a certain kind of Christian.

[2_girls_mommy]

I follow the The Well Trained Mind's recommendations and timelines for science and history for the most part, though science is definitely more open ended. But I do try to cover the topics in the WTM order because I like things to have some sort of overall order.   

So for 2nd grade this year it was a medieval history/ space/earth science year.  I used Story of the World Vol. 2 with Activity Guide and The Complete book of Maps and Geography.  We did a field trip to a Medieval Fair to watch a joust, and dd was a medieval princess for Halloween.  We've done all kinds of crafts and activities from the SOTW A.G.  We use Dover Coloring Books on certain topics to dig deeper.  I have a collection on topics from Knights, castles, the Celts, Vikings, etc.  But the Heraldry one has been a favorite with all of my kids.  We read though picture books on all of the literature from the A.G. (Augustine Came to Kent, Robin Hood, The Canterbury Tales, etc. ) 

For science this year, my dd did an Oceanography class at co-op once a week for the first semester.  At home we did a daily weather calendar workbook from Christian Light Education that had a different weather related thing to track each month (clouds, rainfall, temperature, wind, etc. ) and graphs to fill out at the end of each month.  She did a once a month STEAM class on Zoom with kits from the library.  And we began our Space unit in there somewhere.  For Space we used the Funschooling Space journal for notebooking and just read a lot of books and attended whatever programming we could at museums- we found several.  We also followed NASA events and headlines.  She attended an Astronomy event with girl scouts.  One of the topics they went into in depth was on the phases of the moon, so she entered two science fairs after creating a large exhibition on that topic.  She won a ribbon in both.  : )  In between there, she has read plenty of books on whatever caught her interest like animals.  The space/earth are just my two main topics for 2nd grade.  We are wrapping up the year with a rocks, soils, minerals unit.  We are using an Usborne Encyclopedia, the Funschool Rocks and Minerals journal, and a thematic unit book I bought over a decade ago with activities.  I once again signed her up for a girl scout event to kick off our study that had geologists speaking and several hands on activities for a day.  I bought her a kit full of rocks to examine with activities from our study guide, etc.  The rocks and minerals study was always a big hit with my olders.  My college teen just came over last night and was looking at all the rocks with her sister and helping her sort them.  She did activities from the same book way back when and she volunteered at our rock and gem show a couple of years as a helper at our state fairgrounds in her teens. 

For 3rd grade it will be Story of the World 3 (when we finish 2.  We are only about halfway through it so far.) and an introduction to chemistry year.  I will use the book, Adventures with Atoms and Molecules, do the hands on experiments, and do whatever written work WTM suggests.  It has been awhile, so I will need to go back and look it up.  I know it is writing about the experiment and probably definitions. 

 

[Lillyfee]

I really think I might go with Story of the World for history. I am not completely sure yet but it sounds very good.

Maybe I get my own books. We move this year to Virginia and there is so much history there  that it would be worth learning about the state we are moving to for a couple of weeks, too.

For science I think I will do my own thing again. I will just try to cover the topics they are recommended for my two girls.