Berean Builders Science

We (SCM) suggest that your student read and narrate, do the experiments, answer the questions in the chapters, narrate the entire chapter and complete any questions on the Chapter Review that are not covered in the narration, and take the test. However, it’s your choice what you want to require of your student. Berean Builders’ middle school and high school courses are rigorous courses as written. Requiring narrations keeps your student in the habit of narrating to help them retain the material being learned better. The act of narrating, even if it is to yourself, is a powerful tool for remembering. Just as an FYI, there will be schedules for Berean Builders’ middle school and high school level science courses available on SCM’s website sometime this spring, so watch for them if you want a different schedule than Berean Builders. Whichever schedule you choose to use, keep in mind that science lessons at the high school level may take up to 45 minutes to complete. One thing to be aware of that Berean Builders’ Chemistry course does have a math prerequisite of Algebra I. I mention this in case your student is behind in math as well as science.

For your younger children, science at their ages is a laying of a foundation for middle school and high school level science. The choices for laying that foundation are many. You can continue with living books for science or use Berean Builders Science in HIStory books. Either way your children will get that foundation. I would encourage you to keep your children together as much as possible, whichever path you choose for their science, as that can make it easier on you. SCM’s upper elementary science courses are written to the student, so you can assign readings if you would like to encourage independence. You can also choose to read all the books to your students or read most of the books to your students and assign some of them to be read independently. If your younger students love doing science experiments, then Berean Builders Science in HIStory elementary courses are great. You could read to your children from the text, then have them perform the experiments together without you to encourage independence.

How much your students work independently will depend on your unique family. Most families start giving their students some independent work in about 4th grade. A student may read a science or history book independently at that age or be assigned to write a narration instead of narrating orally. Gradually over the years, students become more independent but still do some subjects (artist/composer study, Scripture memory, family history read aloud) with the family.