Name: CHEC Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-06-12T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-06-14T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Denver, CO

Tagged: elementary science

This topic has 9 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 2 months ago by venusmom.

Viewing 10 posts - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

Author
Posts
March 31, 2011 at 3:36 am
Cindie2dds
Member
I don’t really care for any formal, elementary science programs out there. Has anyone just read living books and nature study for K-6th grade? We are having a blast with the suggestions from the bookfinder (Outdoor Secrets companion books, and the science curriculum guide here). Just wondering if it’s enough without doing something like Apologia.
March 31, 2011 at 3:59 am
missceegee
Participant
Cindie,
DD10 used 2 of the apologia elementary books with co-op and while they were good and she learned much, we decided we greatly prefer living books! We’re using only living books and nature study now with her and ds7 and I don’t intend to change until they are much older.
Incidentally, I just hit the jackpot at our BooksBloom event and scored 15-20 living science books. Fave authors – Arnosky, McClung, Selsam, etc.
IMHO, yes it is quite enough and for us, even preferable.
Blessings,
Christie
March 31, 2011 at 12:39 pm
Cindie2dds
Member
Christie,
IMHO, yes it is quite enough and for us, even preferable.
My thoughts exactly. Thank you!
Cindie
March 31, 2011 at 12:41 pm
Karen Smith
Moderator
Living science books along with nature study and maybe a few experiments that go with whatever you are reading about in the living books is plenty for K-6th. If you read books on a variety of science topics you will be laying a good foundation for more formal science studies in later years.
March 31, 2011 at 12:52 pm
Cindie2dds
Member
Thank you so much for the confirmation, Karen. I see the joy and excitement in their eyes with the books we’ve read, then we go outside and try to find what we’ve read about, draw it or look up more information.
Oh, and a personal “Thank You” for the book selections in the Outdoor Secrets Companion. It’s a nice mix and my oldest daughter is excited she can read some of the books to her younger sister. She read “Wasps” yesterday to her.
March 31, 2011 at 5:06 pm
Scherger5
Participant
Cindie~
We LOVE living books – so using them for K-6 is my plan too….maybe even through 8th grade with my younger two. We didn’t do Apologia General Science for my oldest in 7th grade because she thought it looked dry. She is doing Apologia Physical Science this year and is doing well, but doesn’t really love it. I wish we would have waited until 9th grade though, at least then I could have given her high school credit for it. Live and learn .
~Heather
March 31, 2011 at 9:27 pm
Cindie2dds
Member
Heather, you bring up a great point. We don’t *need* credit for science here, so until high school transcripts are needed, I think we are going to just stick with the plan. SCM, and CM in general, is so deceptively simple; I’ve wandered because I thought this couldn’t be enough. Live and learn is right!
April 1, 2011 at 12:14 am
venusmom
Participant
Help…what is IMHO? I’m really enjoying reading some of the samples of the books offered here and want to incorporate them into what we are doing – I read “Jack’s Insects” off the screen to my kids and they really want me to purchase that one. But I’m stumped as to what IMHO is abbreviated for. Thx
April 1, 2011 at 12:18 am
botanicalbecky
Member
in my humble/ honest opinion
I remember having trouble with all the abbreviations, too! I still get stumped once in a while. I think my fave is kwim (know what I mean). Now when I ‘think’ know what I mean, I think ‘kwim’ – I actually want to say it out loud, but I don’t think anybody would have a clue what I meant, ha! 😉
April 5, 2011 at 4:25 am
venusmom
Participant
Oh my – I do have a lot to learn! I’ve seen kwim & have been clueless – I think I thought they were just recalling someone’s screen name! Thanks for IMHO. In my humble/honest opinion – I need to take “homeschooler’s abbreviations 101”!!! Thanks so much BotanicalBecky!!!