2009-2010 Science Curriculum (Ages 7 & 9)

I confess, I love a traditional text book. I know it is not a popular thing in the homeschool world but the Harcourt Science texts are just some of my favorites. I never did well in science as a child. There didn't seem to be continuity from grade to grade. Consequently I had some gaping knowledge holes and nobody ever wanted to go back and fill them in. So I just struggled. When I married my science guru of a husband, he tried to get me to watch technical shows with him so that I could understand different engineering feats that he appreciated. I tried to explain to him that I just didn't get it and that I need to be brought back to basics and taught from the ground up. Well that is exactly what Harcourt does.They teach science in a spiral so that each year the students are exposed to the same topic with just deeper layers of knowledge added onto the instruction. I love that! I also appreciate that every single lesson in the book has an experiment. The experiment is presented with pictures of children doing the activities followed by simple instructions. Basically it is so spelled out that even I can get it. (Prior to using this series my husband had to do all of the science experiments because things weren't broken down enough for me to be able to explain to my kids why we were doing what we were doing and what we were suppose to conclude from our activities. There are 3-4 lessons with 3-4 experiments in each chapter. Each chapter then concludes with additional related cross-curricular activities; there might be a graphing project, a literature suggestion or an art project explained. In addition to the activities contained in the text, I also have a Science Scope and Sequence from a school that uses this text. It provides book tie-in suggestions, list objectives and vocabulary words for each lesson, and provides links to online videos and websites for further exploration of each topic. Additionally Harcourt has its own website with links and activity extensions broken down by specific chapter. And one of my favorite things about the text is that I got it free from PaperBack Swap. For next year I requested only the text as I found we didn't really use the workbooks but the user who sent me the text was so sweet. She also sent me the workbook, the assessment book, the videos for every chapter and audio tapes of every chapter! I was thrilled with this surprise! So, needless to say, next year we will be doing Harcourt Science during group time for our science lessons. I am not going to try to tie it into our history lessons as I found that becomes a whole lot of extra work.Instead our science lessons will be held during group time on Wednesdays. Our routine will be:Use a literature selection or video to introduce the science topic. Read the corresponding lesson from the text.Have girls answer "Think About It" questions at the end of the passage.Complete investigative experiment from the text. All notes from the experiments will be kept in a spiral "lab book".