The core of our homeschool is the Robinson Curriculum (RC). This particular educational track does not include any formal science until after calculus is completed. This makes complete sense to me. If it doesn't to you and you are curious about RC check out this video of Art Robinson explaining. I do, however, live in a state that requires "science", even for young students. How do we approach it?
I previously shared an option we've used with my oldest son called An Easy 5th Grade RC Science Option. I actually love this option and would have continued on with it but my oldest saw the "science" I was doing with my middle son and expressed an interest in joining us so now he is. It's actually quite an enjoyable subject that we now do as a family subject. This does save me time and simplifies planning and the school day as I don't have two separate science curriculum to keep track of. Here is what we're using.
I had already purchased Julia Rothman's collection of books; Nature Anatomy, Farm Anatomy, Food Anatomy, and Ocean Anatomy as well as the companion notebooks and companion activity books to do with my first grader as "science" and had completed Nature Anatomy (which was excellent, btw). Now, as a family, we are working through Farm Anatomy (yes, I lined it up with spring and summer because of all the gardening we do and farms we visit this time of year). I know these don't exactly sound like science but I think that works in their favor as far as RC is concerned. They are not teaching the oversimplified scientific models that later have to be unlearned but rather they are filled with material that one can actually observe, which is where science begins anyway, right?
Planning with these materials is so easy because you just print the notebook and follow the instructions on each page. The notebook tells you which pages to read and provides work to go along with it. (As an aside; there is a blank notebook pages for all ages option to add on when you buy the companion notebooks and I recommend it for really young grades. It's working perfectly for my first grader. My preschooler mostly watches the videos and activities with us. ) I then check the Farm Anatomy Activities for Kids to see if there are any helpful readings or activities to go along with it. Sometimes there isn't anything I want to do (I'm a low prep kind of mom, ok, nothing too fussy is going to work for me) so I may come up with my own activity or cue up a YouTube video that I think may be interesting.
Let's look at some recent lessons we completed and then discuss what you might want to get if you were to use these books or something similar to fulfill a science requirement for a young student and any helpful insights I can provide.
Something I really enjoy about these books is how it's covering engaging material but also allows a lot of freedom and independence. My oldest could do this completely independently if he had to.
How do we do a lesson? I like to read the pages to the kids and then discuss the material with them and ask what was interesting so that we can explore that further if we wish. Sometimes I lead more like when I noticed the mention of galvanized steel use in rabbit hutches and thought, "that sounds sciency." A quick YouTube search found me this quick and informative video that we could discuss and add to our notes. Then I have my oldest read the instructions aloud to us from his notebook pages and I make sure my first grader knows what pages to work through and go about my day! I love that they have independent work time. When they are done they come tell me and I check everything is done. We do Science two or three times a week as it's so simple and undemanding but fun.
I think I could actually do this basic method with almost any science, nature, industry, type book as a guide and just look up interesting topics that come up in reference books, Teachers Pay Teachers or on YouTube and have the kids keep a spiral notebook with their own notes. I did a spiral notebook for Nature Anatomy for quite a while before I knew there were companion notebooks and it was fine except it required more mental energy and prep from me to direct what was to go in the notebook so I prefer the pre-planned notebooks. Here's a picture from the spiral days used with Nature Anatomy.
I'll discuss our other family subjects; Bible and Social Studies in upcoming posts. History is my personal favorite!
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