Science

My daughter grabs her BookShark binder and the Science book she’s currently reading. I grab my Instructor’s Guide and tell her which pages and questions we’ll be doing. She flips to the pages we’ll be reading today; immediately her questions and comments begin flowing.

Beautifully illustrated or photographed, all of the books capture her attention. “Let’s read and find out more,” I say. She doesn’t hesitate and either hands the book my way or begins to read herself. We take turns reading to each other.

Today is science experiment day. You’ve collected all of the necessary supplies, you have instructions, and your kids are excited! This experiment is going to be so much fun, you think, patting yourself on the back.

Hands-on science for the win!

Or not, because something goes wrong: The seeds don’t sprout. The seeds mold or die before your kids take measurements.

The 2021 BookShark Science was designed with Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in mind. But why would a homeschool curriculum care about outside standards at all?

Isn’t the BookShark way of reading great books and doing hands-on exploration enough when it comes to learning science? Yes!

I’m currently homeschooling a middle schooler, an upper elementary student, an emergent reader, and a preschooler. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my seven years of homeschooling, it’s that they all love hands-on activities, especially experiments.

While I appreciate their zeal, it can be daunting to juggle their enthusiasm and mixed abilities.

With seven years of homeschooling I’ve racked up more than a few successes and failures, but nothing has been so black and white as our science journey. I’m sorry we wasted so much time but grateful we’ve finally found our perfect science fit. Here are six tips that would have gotten us learning and loving science much sooner.

Young children are filled with questions about how things wor,k and science provides many opportunities for them to explore these questions. This natural curiosity easily leads to a love of science and hands-on activities.

Some parents, however, don’t look forward to the very activities that draw kids into this subject. The hassle of gathering supplies and cleaning up the mess are common reasons for skipping science experiments.

Exploring nature is a wonderful addition to your homeschool routine. However, it can get a bit overwhelming if this in new territory for you. There are so many wonderful resources available that it’s often difficult to know where to start.

I love to follow a child-led approach to exploring nature. It’s easy to make nature study look like school, but it’s more important to just get out there to observe and explore without an agenda.

“Never be within doors when you can rightly be without.” The marvelous Miss Charlotte Mason said this, quite famously now, in regards to education and life.

This quote has inspired an entire belief system, a lifestyle, a veritable standard when it comes to homeschooling.