homeschool science – hitswiththemrs

Science Curriculum Picks, 22-23

by the mrs. / May 12, 2022

Hey Loves!

We are rolling full-steam ahead in sharing what our homeschool will use for learning for the 22-23 academic year. You can check out our math picks here if you missed them. Today is all about Science.

To be clear, I’ve never once been excited about this subject. I am so excited to share that I am for this upcoming year. Part of it was finding our stride and identifying my kids interests, another part was realizing and healing part of my traditional school trauma and another part was finding resources!

Y’all I am stoked!!! Better than that, my kids are stoked!

As we are wrapping up what we planned for this year, I asked my kids what it is they wanted to explore and having a solid grip on their interest and capabilities, I began the hunt. Jude was easy. He likes nature, rocks and robots. Sold! I’ll go hard with exploring nature with children, supplementing with other books and things he will learn at our hybrid homeschool program. We will also delve into some earth science folder games and do all the things with rocks. All of them. We recently decided to throw in some weather robots units too!

James was a bit more tricky. He was quite a bit more detailed about what he wanted to explore (muscle movement, animal life, propulsion, distance) and adamant about the things he did not (the human body systems). Great. Just great. Thanks To Erica at Melanated and Well Educated, I was introduced to Science Fusion and grabbed grade 5 and 2 grade 6-8 books. Those will be our spine and we will use other library books, videos and activities to round it out to fulfill his heart’s desires.
You can get all the links for these items here.

Homeschool

Curriculum Picks, 21-22: Science

by the mrs. / May 20, 2021

Hey Loves!

How goes it? Are you ready for more curriculum picks? I sure hope so! We are off to Science!

Last year we zipped all around the world studying Zoology with Elemental Science, The Sassafras Science Adventure Series Volume 1. We had a blast, we all came away with so many amazing animal facts and knowledge about their habitats as well.

Not to mention, the plot had us on the edge of our seats! We paired it with an animal encyclopedia (that James LOVED), sticker books, picture books, documentaries and lots of questions to our home smart devices. I purchased the digital pack offerings with teacher guides and a log book. We didn’t use the latter much but we will in the future.

It was a no brainer to continue to the next series. I mean, my kids were like, “can we get it right now?”

I have purchased the Volume 2 audiobook, physical book, log and guide books (digital version). My goal is to have James read along with the audiobook as we will be bringing back car school (see the homeschool rhythm post coming soon). We will add some manipulatives, do some cool experiments and also keep our same companions that worked so well before-picture books, encyclopedias and documentaries.

James will also start, Exploring The Building Blocks of Science, Book 1! Read more about that in the Second Grade Curriculum post coming soon.

Science was the easiest subject to purchase this and I am not mad about it!

Homeschool

Homeschool Curriculum Update: Science and Social Studies

by the mrs. / January 18, 2021

Hey Loves!

I’m nearing the end of this curriculum update series-thankfully these updates serve you and I as research for next year will hopefully not send me into hysterics or prompt more grey hairs to sprout.

I digress. On to the goods- Science and Social Studies. Out of all the subjects, these two were the easiest to plan, prepare for and execute. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have to shift a bit.

As always, the post detailing all our curricula for these subjects is here and for your viewing pleasure, I have YouTube videos here.

While science was easy to plan, thanks to it all it being mapped out, complete with supplementary books and activities from Elemental science, the physical book reading just wasn’t for us. My kids, who will normally listen to me read anything were not feeling this. As a last shot, I decided to try the audiobook. Friends, this was the way to go! The story is so so great! In addition, my children and I have learned about so many animals and every continent. Pairing that with an animal encyclopedia, TV docuseries Secrets of the Zoo and Disney’s Animal Kingdom, YouTube and more books, James’ hunger to learn about animals is temporarily satisfied, just like his actual hunger, it keeps returning.

My hope is that we can come back to the physical book when they are older and get good use of it. If not, it is homeschool curriculum sale bound with no sweat off my back. I also purchased the digital download of the SCIDAT logbook. It was a bit much to introduce the first half of the year, but I think James would really enjoy it now.

For social studies, my plan was to study the culture, cuisine and contributions of the country discussed in the science readings. This didn’t work out and I’m glad about it. Here’s why: Honestly, I took the easy road in planning. In the midst of a pandemic, a civil rights insurgence, a historic election, holidays and so much to celebrate, I decided to let that guide us. Did we, in fact, learn about several cultures on just about every continent? Yes! Was it mundane so my kids can spit facts? No. They were able to sympathize and empathize. They were encouraged to serve and practice non-performative allyship. What’s more, they got watch their parents and friends do so too.

All in all, both of these subjects, from what we learned to how we learned it, laid a really good foundation for us to grow from and I am so excited to do so.

Love you. Mean it.

Homeschool

Homeschool Curriculum Picks, Social Studies and Science

by the mrs. / July 18, 2020

Hey Loves!

Wowzers! Time is definitely flying, am I right? It was just March! As time is flying, I am planning and preparing for our next school year while trying to enjoy the summer, pandemic style. Today, I am sharing what we will be using for Science and Social studies. I will not bore you with a disclaimer today (if you need one, check out my previous posts here.). I will tell you if you would rather listen and/or watch, check out my YouTube video here.

If you are new here, you should know my kids love Science. I mean, they could be the STEAM poster children. They did not get that from me, that is all their dad. However, I really am the mom that wants to cultivate their interest in all things, even interests that do not interest me. I could tell they enjoyed what we did last year, but didn’t love it. I didn’t love it. I didn’t have the competence to feel confident so I just followed various curricula until we all were over it and then moved to the next. So, the first step is to state the problem. Next, I had to rectify it. How did I do that? I asked them what they wanted to learn about. Full transparency, I was shaking in my Birkenstocks when I did it because this could’ve gone way left. Their response: “Animals.”

Cue music from the victory scene of a superhero movie! I can do animals! I started to go off the deep end and reeled myself in real fast. Goodness, beauty and truth are my standards for curricula. Not stress, laminating and organizing. That is how I found Sassafras’s Science, Zoology. It is a book that goes around the globe talking about what? Animals. I also purchased the digital teacher manual and a student logbook. While we won’t use the logbook this year, the teacher’s manual has book lists, lesson plans (2 and 5 days), “quizzes” and other ideas. So, it was needed for me.

I also chose this because of what we are doing in social studies. My kids love learning about other cultures and James especially wants to know where everything is on the map. I also feel like he is old enough to really begin retaining this information and Jude can come along for the ride. So, with a ton of books, a wall map, globe, Our Big Neighborhood, and this Evan-Moor book for James, we are going all around the world learning about continents, countries, cultures, languages, celebrations and how we can be allies to all these people groups. (Check out the deets in my videos here.)

Social studies and science will go hand-in-hand because we will learn about the animals in the region we are studying.

When I put these two together, I did a happy dance. I am loving this low-prep and easy to implement approach to science and social studies. We also have a hefty home library of books to supplement learning. You can see those in this video.

Questions? Ask them! Seriously, don’t hesitate.

Until next time,

Love you. Mean it.

mama musings of home education, allyship and DIY, with all the hits and misses

Tag: homeschool science

Science Curriculum Picks, 22-23

Curriculum Picks, 21-22: Science