2023-2024 HOMESCHOOL PLANS BRAINSTORM // Family Science // 4th Grade & 1st Grade Curriculum

We're switching things up for Science! Open here for more info about us :)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
// WELCOME //
New here?? I would love to get to know you better!
I'll go first:
I'm Kaela, a Homeschool Graduate turned Homeschool Momma of two girls. We are a Latino family, living our best life in a little 1930s fixer-upper in Texas. Although we are a family of faith, we typically stick to secular resources in our homeschool. I love homeschooling, pretty books, dance breaks, and turning my humble abode into a home. Oh, and a lot of coffee!
I hope you'll stay awhile 🧡

// CONNECT WITH ME //
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[OdetoAbode]

Let's chat SCIENCE! We are going to try something new, and I am so excited about it! How are all the Sciencey things going in your homeschool??

[l.w.tomaso]

I completely understand that underwhelming feeling for botany and fungi. My daughter was very interested in it so I had to research and to my surprise there are quite a lot of botany experiments you can do. Growing mold, sorting seeds, looking at plants, fungi and seeds under a microscope, color changing flower experiment, healing plants, watching worms in dirt (like an ant farm), purchasing different mushrooms from stores and dissect them, playdough plant cell models, plant art with labeling parts of plants and making your own flower etc. Online has soooo many ideas that you can connect with each thing you learn about. Yes, it is more work but you might just find what you are looking for :) In case you're still looking for a way to keep it interesting. Good Luck! We all need it.

[nowvoyaging]

We have been enjoying Mr. Q Elementary Science! I think it helped that my oldest is in third grade now, he seems to be enjoying a curriculum for science much more now!

[SevenInAll]

I ended up landing on Sonlight (largely identical to Bookshark) because I really liked the combo of books + worksheets + experiments that I don't have to come up with.

[maggiepanning]

I have gone around and around on science and for next year (4th grade) we are going to at least start with Nomad Press books. I saw them on one of Momma Librarian’a videos and checked some out from the library and feel in love. They have text that is easy to follow (and read aloud), experiments and activities, QR codes that lead to other information and occasional videos (my son also thinks less is more when it comes to videos for school) and ideas for setting up a science notebook. There aren’t worksheets, but I am fine with that as they are included in our nature study and I am really hoping that the science notebook will work well for my son. I hope you and your girls love Bookshark science because it is such a relief (and a joy) when curriculum works well!!

[EnglishwithGabby]

Thanks for this video! We are also a Christian family dissatisfied with Christian Science Curricula. We are using Blossom and Root year 1 for my 1st grader next school year but are looking ahead at the future because I’ve heard other homeschoolers say that Level 2 isn’t as good as level 1. Looking forward to a Book Shark review

[Homeschoolology]

Excited to see the unboxing of BookShark. I hope it is what you guys are looking for. Thanks for sharing!

[terayarbrough]

Can't wait for the unboxing! We will be trying torchlight level 1/Be Naturally Curious with my rising 2nd grader, biology/ecology. It's going to be our first year homeschooling so I really hope it goes well 😅

[michelles.]

We love Bookshark! My daughter is finishing up with level D. We are, however, currently looking for a different program for the Language Arts because she needs a bit more for the composition portion and I would prefer something that helps me to edit her work. The book choices for history and science are amazing. Every year my daughter tells me how much she loves Bookshark and wants to continue for the upcoming year. We love the poetry books that come with the program but the worksheets are just not enough for us for the rest of the LA portion. With the science program there have been a few experiments that the instructions were not very clear with or a bit time consuming. Also, some of the experiments you will need to set up a few hours or the day before so keep an eye out for those! I hope your family enjoys Bookshark as much as ours does!

[HeatherDeMeter]

As a homeschooling mom who was public schooled, science was my absolutely least favorite, so I have fumbled with trying to find the best fit for us. Retaining very little myself, I knew I’d need something that really supported my own lack of science knowledge while (hopefully!!) avoiding the same disinterest I experienced in school for my daughter. I think after trial and error (Blossom & Root, Elemental Science, Nancy Larson, and RSO) I’ve found the best fit for us! Real Science Odyssey Level 1 has given me a solid way to present information so I feel I *could* just use that and my daughter would have a good grasp on the big picture at play. (I felt that lacked with B&R because the big ideas were so… small? Didn’t give a full picture without supplementing?) The labs included also took what we’ve learned and applied real science in a simplified, fun way. My only qualm was that after enjoying some aspects of programs like B&R (books and videos) and Elemental Sci lap books, I realized we were missing that. Cue Layers of Learning! They add in the book suggestions, the video options, more projects, and even writing prompts to tie in! They also have science notebooks with printable packs that allow your child to create their own reference of what they’ve learned with interactive bits. They also offer units individually, so you can try them without investing a ton. For now, this is our perfect mix!

I so hope Bookshark sci is a good fit for your family! Having everything ready to go with your books and lab materials sounds like a dream! 👩🏻‍🔬

[badkitty]

I looked at BookShark science too but ended up going with Pandia press real science odyssey and blossom & root because I wanted my science to be secular but I did buy BookShark U.S. history 👍🏼.

[MindfullyLiv]

Science has been by far the toughest curriculum for me to land on. I've stuck with B&R for science because it's familiar and I'm able to move around the components to make it work for us. We also work well with the literature that's suggested and our family specifically love the videos (these get a lot more interesting in the Animal Kingdom year- I agree that the Plant and Fungi was the slowest wonder yet 😆) That being said- I totally feel you about the hands on portion. It's allll crafts. Or nature walks. Even though there's a lot to access as far as nature goes in western Washington, 3/4 of the school year it is cold and dark and wet. And I don't want to go outside and do a messy activity in November-March. Or a poster board/ diagram.Every single year I go on another science curriculum hunt to see if there's something else that's going to be a literature based program that isn't one giant information dump of a textbook. I might have to look into Bookshark as well!

[rebeccat]

I get it, I love those science video breaks! 😬😬

[SmithsInTheMaking]

We wanted to love Blossom and Root but implementing it just didnt happen. We have also found that the same topic for a full year just gets boring for young kids, so after a few years of RSO and BR we switched it up. We tried Bookshark for the first time last year for my elementary kids and both loved it. It is easy for them to do pretty independently (since they are both strong independent readers) and they enjoy the small amount each day. Read, answer questions and do lab on 4th day. We didnt do all the labs but they enjoyed the ones we did. We have also enjoyed Moving Beyond the Page science, but it isnt as easy to open and do as bookshark. And right now we just really enjoy open and do. We are excited go continue with Bookshark next year.

[idemelendez]

Sebastian is starting science c on June too!! Or July? Well whenever I get all my thoughts together 😂 We have been using it since kindergarten and he loves it.

[mamamatheson]

Have you checked out Real Science Odyssey?