Pandia Press – History Odyssey and R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey

I am using the R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey Life Science – we have enjoyed it.  This year we focused on the different types of animals in the animal kingdom – chasing lots of rabbit trails, but using the pandia press materials as some structure.  My 7yo son is not a strong reader, and my 11 yo daughter is, and they both used the materials – just at their own level.  I helped my son fill out the lab sheets at first, and as his writing has improved he is doing it himself now. I help him with the notebook pages (writing) but he gives me the info orally.  My daughter is a fairly gifted writer and she loves art – so she made her notebook a lot more complex.  

We checked out books about each animal type, watched videos, drew pictures or did coloring pages, did the labs, made the notebook… it has been good.  This is a high interest area for my kids, so that may be part of it.  My son can tell you all about mollusks LOL. We have used a lot of free resources from Ellen McHenry’s Basement Workshop to go along with the lessons, as my kids like crafty stuff.

Last year we worked for a while on the human body – and we used the human body stuff at the beginning of the book.  The lab where we made a model of blood in a jar with corn syrup for plasma and different stuff (beans and red hots etc) for all the types of cells is remembered fondly… we may have to do that again just for fun.  Again we took our time and read lots of books from the library and watched videos etc.  The pandia press book gave us structure to come back to, though. They particularly enjoyed the genetics study and now are fascinated by people with cleft chins – something that does not run in our family LOL. 

We also did a plant study in the spring last year, again we used some of the units from the pandia press book going along with a more in-depth book about plant families.

So my review is – we like it.  It has been well worth the cost – which isn’t so much.  I see it is on sale for $30. I have used the resource in a way that suits our family, but starting at the beginning and going straight through to the end would work, too.  I think the information is solid.

I am thinking of buying the chemistry for next year, as I am gathering resources to have a year of chemistry exploration… that is gonna be fun 🙂

Hope that helps!  I am happy to try and answer any specific questions you may have.  The samples on the pandia press site are pretty representative of the book as a whole, so if they suit you, I don’t think you would regret the purchase.

Gem