Science

Ahhhh science.  I am not sure where to begin because we do a wide eclectic mix of things.  I guess I will just point out a few that have stood out to us over the years.

Apologia series.  We have used and really like several of Jeannie Fulbright's books.

Sonlight.  We bought one year of their Science curriculum.  It was ok, my kids loved the read alouds they chose for it.  I prefer a more traditional route like Jeannie Fulbright's textbooks, but I do have to say my oldest still remembers a lot from that year...four years later, so that's a definite plus.

Biographies.  This is SO important!  I cannot recommend this enough.  Kids need to be exposed to the men and women behind the ideas, theories, concepts, and scientific facts as much and as often as they do the ideas, theories, concepts and scientific facts themselves.  We really like the Who was or Who is...series.  They are perfect for an introduction into these neat men and women of science.

Makemegenius.com. Such a neat website!

Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia.  Love, love, love this resource.

Science Activities Vol. 1,2,3. We only own these three, I am not sure if there are more?  But we really, really like the experiments (when we make time to do them, it's hard, but worth the effort)

Nature study.  Not enough room to write down all of the awesome resources there are for this.  A few top mentions...The Handbook of Nature Study and this blog, The people...series (The Pond People, The Night People...), and finally Holling C. Holling books (this could be a cross over for geography too).  These are our top favorites.

I want to do a post on study aids all by itself,  but I want to mention one thing we do for science that seems to help.  We have a huge stack of plain Manila folders (the beige color ones).  On the tab I label it a topic, example would be bones for anatomy class.  Then I have my kids take notes, paste and glue examples, use cloud or mind mapping, illustrate it etc;  they use post-it's for a peek a boo type thing, they make pouches for little pockets to tuck stuff into, fold outs etc;, much like a notebooking page, just inside a file folder instead of on a piece of paper.  They have a small file folder box they keep their info in for quick study/review.  They pull them out and take them when we have unexpected dr. appts., errands to run, unavoidable interruptions etc;