science – not 100 days and not Apologia – ideas?

Have you looked at Noeo science?

http://www.noeoscience.com/index.html

It is out of our price range… but looks good

Real Science for Kids looks good. Although we are using Apologia Astronomy this year, I’m considering that one for future:

http://www.gravitaspublications.com/

Melissa

We were planning on using Ann Voskamp’s A Child’s Geography for an extra geography resource and Answers in Genesis for Science.  I finally gotmy hands on the book A Child’s Geography at our homeschool fair and have decided to use it for science instead.  It covers basic geography, but also goes into plate tectonics, volcanos, earthquakes, atmosphere, seasons, climeate and weather and you could also go into plant and animal life of the different continents and oceans.  It is VERY CM friendly, with the text being in conversational tone, lots of book recommendations to go more in depth on a topic, hands on science experiments, and narration ideas.  We haven’t started it yet, but looks like it’s going to be a big hit in the house. Here’s the website:
http://www.achildsgeography.com/

We are planning on using The Story Book of Science. It’s listed for year 4 Ambleside , you can view it through that site but I downloaded it for free from a different site( sorry I can’t remember where but I had just googled it and found it). My children are turning 8 and 10 basically doing 3rd and 5th grade. My plan is to read and have them narrate.Then do nature studies, and add in a few individual readers and fun activities. Don’t know if that helps but after alot of looking at curriculums thats what I kept coming back too.

I am going to do the new Discovering Nature series that Queenhomeschool.com has out. We are doing the Parables From Nature one. There are 4 in the series to choose from all though I think the first in the series may be too young for you. All though, I always think adding your own research and reading to anything is a very good idea.  When the children get interested in a lesson in particular, find a book to delve into it more. That’s what we are doing this year. And I have bought some science kits that meet the provincial learning outcomes (dirty words, lol) and a couple that looked fun to do. We will use our Noeo science lab book blank forms with the experiments.

Yes, we did Noeo last year. My husband and I were not entirely thrilled with the Noeo. All though a fine idea as far as creating their own lab notes and drawings, the lesson plans gave smatterings of readings to do from the so-so books that came with it. So essentially, you were “reading” a “textbook” the Noeo writers had put together unintensionally through the lesson plans. Do you know what I mean? Read this page today, read the bottom of this other page today, read from this book these 2 pages today, do the experiment…. not enough meat to it. So we started reading the whole books but they were borderline twaddle some of them. I am not a fan of the DK Eye Wonder books or some of the Usbourne ones either. Just my 10cents.

Thanks for the review of Noeo…. it looked like a good idea, but it is nice to know that I’m not missing anything by not using them!