I’m looking at using God’s Design for Heaven and Earth…however, I don’t like worksheets and workbook type stuff at all! Has anyone else used this and made it work for them?
Worksheets are not necessary to any of God’s Design for Science (GDS) curriculum. The Teacher supplement comes with a CD ROM containing printable worksheets for each set. We have printed only a few worksheets that pertained to a few of the experiments. The student books are not workbooks at all. Each lesson is about 2-4pp of reading, contains an activity or an experiment to drive the lesson home, and 2-4 questions that can be answered orally or written. We use 1or 2 of the questions as ideas for narration or notebooking quite often. Our weekly treck to the library gives us opportunity to find a book or two pertaining to the lesson(s) that we are working on (curriculum does not contain a book list). Of course the library books are bias toward evolution which offers ample opportunity for annalizing and thinking critically about truth in science. Miss O(12) has learned how to reasearch answers to her questions and not to “throw the baby out with the bath water” and Mr. B(10) loves the brevity and conciseness of the lessons and of course… the experiments. We are switching to Apologia for the remainder of our schooling even though there are a couple of the GDS books that we have not completed, however, Miss O and Mr.B love to grab a GDS book off of the shelf and read and experiment on their own. I am looking forward to using GDS cuuriculum again with Little Miss in a couple of years. I hope this answers your question.
Elemental Science is what I have chosen for this upcoming year. Take a look at it. Type it in your search engine and it should take you right to the sight. Paige is the author. She is a home school mom and has a science background (degree…..don’t remember the specifics). She developed the program when she was unhappy with the choices for us all. She follows the WTM suggestions. It is a “Grammar” curriculum (1st – 4th) HOWEVER, she does make suggestions for ‘Older Students”. I will be using the 1st Biology (Animals, People and Plants) unit. There are also units on (2)Space, Earth, Weather (3) Chemistry (4) Physics. It is all for the Grammar Stage. I’m just having to remind myself time and time again that they are young eager children who want to learn, but don’t need to be burnt out on “text” style readings. I think this will be perfect for the Grammar Years. Paige is also planning on writing Science for the other two stages of classical learning. I know Charlotte Mason and Classical are different in ways, I don’t know a lot about CM but you may want to look this over. I know CM does notebooking, nature walks, narration. Elemental Science uses all of these methods as well. If you feel the reading material is below your child’s level, she gives suggestions for “older” children. That would be similar to SCM History guides. I hope you take sneak a peek. Let me know what you think. I’m tickled pink to have come across this GEM!
Oh! I’m not sure how old your children are. The person that commented on your page has older children. Mine are going to be in the 2nd and 3rd. I’d take a peek regardless. She’s developing more material for each of the three stages.
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