At the homeschool conference this summer, I was able to put my hands on the science curriculum I have been eyeing on the internet for quite some time now. Now, I absolutely love the Apologia Elementary series, but right now, that is more above Little TD’s head than I think I want to go at this point. While I love our main curriculum, I have been struggling with the science portion for several years. It seems more light than my kids are needing, but most homeschoolers that I talk with don’t worry about science in the early elementary years. I guess it is the engineer in me that makes me want them to want science.
After I actually put my hands on the curriculum, A Reason for Science, and had my hubby look at it as well, we opted to go with Level B for both Princess TD and Little TD. We decided that combining them in science and Bible would be the most advantageous for both of them and for me as the teacher! One of the things that I loved about this program was that everything that we need for the experiments is included in the package. When I pulled it all out to get started, I noticed that the first unit required something extra that I didn’t buy!! It was not a huge deal, but I had to do a bit of searching to find the flowers that were needed. Needless to say, we had to put off the first unit for a bit.
The first unit was to learn about how plants get water and nutrients through the stem.
Princess TD inspecting the inside of the stem.
Little TD inspecting the inside of the stem.
In order to see how the plants use water, the experiment had us cut the stem of a white carnation in half and put half of the stem in blue colored water and half of the stem in red colored water. We had to let the flowers stand for 24 hours without touching them to see the effects.
The flowers after.
Little TD labeled the experiment a failure since the flowers were not as deeply colored as the picture in the book. It is not clear in the picture, but half of the edges of each flower are colored red and the other half are colored blue. The entire petals did not color, but the edges did. Princess TD loved the experiment and wanted to do it again.
They love this new science program and can’t wait to do it every week!
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