Our first two years of homeschooling, I could not find a science curriculum that I was happy with so I prepared all of our lessons. Wow! What an undertaking that was. That, coupled with the fact that my daughter was not thrilled about science, meant it was usually the last thing we got around to. You can understand my excitement when I came across the Nancy Larson program at our local homeschool convention. It looked like what I had been searching for. I did my research and was amazed by the number of positive reviews and how much parents liked this program.

We are now on Science 2 and my daughter actually looks forward to science. The lessons are scripted out which makes it easy on me.

Most of the items needed come in the kit and what is not in there is pretty simple to come across. The items that come in the kit are REALLY neat and provide good hands-on learning opportunities.

My daughter always brightens up when she sees me pulling items out of our science kit. The activities in the booklets are a good way to reinforce the lesson along with the review sheets.

I have been super pleased with Nancy Larson® Science and recommend it often. Not only will I be ordering Science 3 next year for my daughter, but I will be ordering Science K for my son who will be starting school next year.

For science, we are still really loving Nancy Larson Science K curriculum! Science is her absolute favorite part of her school day. If you missed the review I did for Nancy Larson Science K, you can check it out here: My Review

We finished up talking about our senses and then moved on to talking about ways to keep our bodies healthy. The curriculum comes with this really fun fitness CD that Pumpkin LOVES! We did the first two songs this week and Pumpkin has a blast. It’s also really hilarious to watch her try to do jumping jacks during the second song.

She is laughing at her drawing..

Fitness Fun with Nancy Larson Science K Curriculum – YouTube My daughter having fun with her science curriculum! www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcLaMqLUusE

I just can’t say enough awesome things about the Nancy Larson Science K curriculum. It is always so much fun and I am amazed at how much she is really learning with it.

It is that time again, time to think about what we will be using for curriculum next year.  I have been researching, reading, and asking other moms what they will be using.  I am pretty sure of most of what I will be using, but there are a couple of changes I want to make. SCIENCE is something I have been thinking about a lot, since this is a favorite subject of both of my little students.

I was quite pleased when the folks over at Nancy Larson Science agreed to let us review their Science 1 curriculum.  The day the box arrived nobody paid much attention to it, mostly because some of us were just getting over the flu and some of us were still quite sick.  The box sat for a couple of days, until it was finally discovered.

Both Little Princess and Little Knight 

This is what they found in it. The kit comes with:
A tool kit that includes-pine cones, tree cookie, hand lens, x-ray set, Live Butterfly Garden®, Butterfly Larvae Coupon, Ladybug Land™, Ladybug Larvae Coupon, insect learning cards, plastic insects and spiders set, and the following books: What Do Scientists Do?, Peterson First Guide to Trees, Trees to Paper, Familiar Insects and Spiders, Your Insides, and The Seasons of Arnold’s Apple Tree (As described on the Nancy Larson website).

It also comes with a Teacher’s Manual,  Student Materials, and added Resources Materials. You can take a look at their website to look at each of these items more closely.

Once we had taken everything out of the box they each proceeded to pick their favorite item, at least the one that made their favorite first impression. Little Princess really enjoys being read to, so I was not surprised that she picked up a book.

Little Knight was so excited about the x-rays, and he immediately announced that this was his favorite item. Again, I was not surprised.  I have never heard another child talk so much about how interesting a trip to the ER is, or how you need to look at your arm when you are having blood taken out because you don’t want to miss anything. Maybe he is going to be a doctor.

Even our littlest guy picked himself a favorite item.  I wonder what he will think when it actually has live lady bugs in it?

We were all very excited to receive our new Science Curriculum, and opening the box was quite enjoyable, I think it almost felt like Christmas.

That same evening we sat down to work on a bit of it. To tell you the truth I was not impressed by it at first.  My first impression was that it was too simplistic and that both of my little ones could do much more.  Why this first impression you may ask? Well, since we are involved in Classical Conversations the science we talk about there is sometimes at a higher academic level, and you know what? Although Little Knight can memorize all of the science grammar, at times he has a difficult time understanding it. Little Princess has both a difficult time understanding and retaining the CC science information, but that is o.k. because they will get a chance to revisit that information again as the cycles return. (For more on Classical Conversations you can visit their site here). As I continued to review the teacher manual and we continued to work on the lessons (I had to give it a fair shot), I realized that it actually is very well written and both Little Princess and Little Knight are enjoying it very much.  They constantly ask to do another lesson and are usually not satisfied with doing only one. We are currently on lesson 7 and so far, this Science curriculum is actually a good addition to our homeschool curriculum.

The children have learned about the human stages in the life span. They have observed and talked about Infants, toddlers, children, adolescents, adults and elderly adults.  They have had to write new words and learned the definition for a developmental scientist.  They are engaged during the lessons and eager to respond to the questions. Yes, I think this is actually working for us, and my first impression was simply that, a first impression based on little info.  If you are looking for a new science curriculum I recommend you take a look at Nancy Larson Science Curriculum. In a few weeks I will write another post as we continue to work through our new science curriculum.  We are quite blessed to have a chance to review it and use it. If you want to read more about what we think about it,come back and visit us.

 

If you love Nancy Larson Science and would like to share your experiences with other parents, let me know. We like to have parents at every conference and there’s time to join the fun. Email for more details: homeschool@nancylarson.com.

Science K:

We were working on Lesson 33 talking about the mass and buoyancy of different items and seeing what would float. Later we reviewed and Avery sorted household items and toys putting all the buoyant ones in a group. Granddad Dave asked, “What do you know about the items in this group?” ”They are buoyant,” said Avery. ”Then what can you say about items in the other group?” Avery thought for a moment and offered, “They are girlant.”