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Friday, April 9, 2010

Science: Time for Chemistry


We are on our third year of the Christian Kids Explore Science Series. We've completed Biology and Space and Earth Science. Now we're moving on to Chemistry.

These books are in the perfect format for our family. Narrative style lessons, vocabulary words and definitions in the margins, review questions at the end of each lesson, and coordinating hands-on activities (with more simple alternatives for younger children). Each unit also has wrap-up review questions. The appendix offers coloring pages, additional resource lists (books, science kits, biographies and list of notable chemists to research), and answer keys.

I appreciate how flexible this book is for our studies. Our study method is very similar to the way we approach history with The Story of the World. We read all the lessons and review orally. We use science vocabulary for handwriting copy work. We complete some of the activities. We often use related science DVDs and books during the week.

You can use this science series with a broad range of ages, expecting more rigorous work depending on the student.

DK Eyewitness Chemistry



Bill Nye the Science Guy DVDs


4 comments:

heather said...

I first heard about the Christian Kids Explore books from you. We love them! We did biology last year, finished Earth and Space last week and plan to start Chemistry in the Fall. I am so glad you shared about this series.

Laurel said...

It never ceases to amaze me what you do with your kids!

Also I LOVE the Easter shots in the last post. So what gets printed and framed around your house? There are too many to choose from:)!

Happy Easter!

Stefani said...

Oh my goodness! I'm so excited to learn about the "Christian Kids Explore" series! We've always been a scientific minded family... lots of inquiries and experimenting and journaling, so I've never felt a real need to do a curriculum, but more and more I've been thinking that the RIGHT one... one that it somewhat narrative and engaging would be a nice addition to our studies. I've yet to find one that I love though. It seems like they're all sort of arbitrary and don't really inspire real learning.
This one sounds like one that I need to look into though! So far, which was your favorite?

Heidi said...

Stefani~ I liked the biology book, but they've made some improvements in the rest of the books (like the vocab words in the margins), so they are a little easier to use. Earth and Space was wonderful. We are only 2 lessons into chemistry, but the boys are enjoying learning something that is really new to them. Today they added that quirky book on the periodic table to their arsenal (which also consisted of wooden sword and shield, nerf guns, and bicycle tire air pumps). It was a spell book, and when they shouted out the symbol, the element (apparently :)) came shooting out their fingers. We haven't used the physics book yet (next year), but I'm really looking forward to it!