Top Picks 2015 Homeschool Curriculum Guide

Our Top Picks in the Homeschool Science category are sure to provide an enjoyable experience for both teacher and student!

Red Wagon Tutorials

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Red Wagon Tutorials has been providing Apologia-based Creation science classes to the homeschool community for fifteen years. In addition to our online recorded classes and live-feed course programs, we now offer a thirty-two class lecture series recorded in MP4-HD format which can be downloaded and accessed through our e-Notebook product. These products are Red Wagon Tutorials exclusive productions. Each class in the series is sixty to ninety minutes in length, depending on how they are used. We currently have presentations available for General Science, Health & Fitness, Physical Science, Earth Science, Biology, Marine Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, Advanced Biology, and Biochemistry. Also in the works are two additional high school course presentations: Zoology and Botany. Included in our products are the video links, lecture notes, tests, answer keys, and formal lab report examples used during class presentations. We also have an online testing and grading service available. Steve is a former research chemist and medical technologist, with twenty-three years of laboratory expertise. Shelly was a public school AP English teacher for thirty years. RWT is a sole-proprietor business, with a staff of two: we work as a family unit from our home. Our business motto: “Do The Next Right Thing.”

Science4Us

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Are you looking for an engaging K-2 science program that your kids will love? Science4Us is a complete, web-based K-2 science curriculum that teaches science and builds solid foundational skills using a fun, interactive approach. Based on the 5E instructional model of Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate and Evaluate, Science4Us teaches Physical Science, Life Science, Earth/Space Science and Inquiry with over 350 online, animated activities that feature engaging songs, stories and simulations. Science4Us also offers tons of offline material and ideas for hands-on projects. In addition to science, the program includes cross-curricular activities in math and language arts that allow students to practice skills such as letter recognition and word-building, as well as working with different types of charts and graphs reading and interpreting data. Students also learn the importance of note taking and observing with their very own digital notebook, which is a part of many of the activities. Parents have access to various helpful resources: detailed lesson plans to help you prepare and plan; automated student reports for tracking progress and homeschool portfolios; and session guides full of detailed descriptions, student objectives, support materials and more. Students can access Science4Us on the web or on the free iPad app.

Apologia

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The Young Explorer series is Apologia’s award-winning curriculum for students from six years old through sixth grade. These books are written directly to the student in an engaging voice and include notebooking activities, projects, and experiments. These courses may be taught in any order, depending on your child’s interests. However, Anatomy & Physiology, and Chemistry & Physics cover more difficult concepts and are best used with older elementary students.

Apologia’s spiral-bound notebooking journals contain lesson plans, review questions, additional project and experiments, full-color mini-books, puzzles, and more! Our standard notebooking journals are recommended for grades 3-6.

Apologia also offers junior notebooking journals! Designed for younger scientists, these notebooking journals offer age-appropriate activities for grades K-2, including coloring pages, easy and fun science experiments, full-color mini-books, and simple vocabulary exercises. A suggested lesson plan makes this resource ready to use and enjoy. Perfect for younger elementary students or those students with limited writing skills.

 

Nancy Larson Science

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Parents love our science because it’s so easy to teach, all the preparation and planning is done for you, and all the science materials are included. Open the box and go!

The programs are age banded, rather than grade levels, so you can teach children of different ages together. Children love our science because they work as scientists, create scientific illustrations, learn with all their senses, and have great success.

Parents use the scripted science conversation to help their children improve reading comprehension, vocabulary, language arts, critical thinking, and study skills, while gaining a strong foundation in science principles that prepares them for advanced topics in upper grades.

Nancy Larson wrote the Saxon Math K–3 programs and became one of the most celebrated authors of curricula. Because her teaching strategies work for children of all abilities, and vastly improve confidence and test scores, we feel you’ll love using Nancy Larson Science with your family.

Have questions? Ask our parents on Facebook.

Want to hear what other parents feel? Watch their videos.

Looking for reviews from other parents? Enjoy!

 

Bright World eBooks

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Bright World eBooks are a new digital reading series that blends nonfiction reading, 3D exploration and content supportive gaming into one vocabulary-rich package.

Do you hope your child will enjoy science and feel confident when learning new things? Bright World eBooks is your answer!

Our apps address children’s curiosity about the world via natural science topics to expand their general background knowledge, expose them to complex texts, and pointedly introduce them to academic and general science vocabulary.

All while having fun! The 3D animation used throughout our apps fosters a feeling of immersion, which is exciting and surprising! Children may want to listen to the story multiple times, or listen to themselves reading the story independently. Maybe they would prefer to be surprised by all of the animals in the Explore feature of the app, all of which will help them more effectively play the games that are also included in the apps.

Families are encouraged to take part in all this fun, too. The Bright World eBooks website offers activity suggestions, BINGO games, and more for the whole family to enjoy together while a particular app is being enjoyed by a young child, ages 5 – 8.

Experience Astronomy

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Astronomy is an often forgotten subject—and yet for centuries, astronomy was one of the seven classical liberal arts of education.

Experience Astronomy is a fun, full-year eCourse for your students. Kids will learn to identify constellations, use the sky for navigation, learn moon phases, identify planets, discover how astronomy relates to history and literature, and more.

Why Experience Astronomy?

  • You, the parent, don’t have to be the expert: I do the teaching for you.
  • It’s integrative: The course includes integration with history, literature, and even the Bible.
  • No special equipment needed.
  • It’s interactive: Students will get outside each week, take notes, and draw specific observations in the sky.
  • From the comfort of home.
  • Christian worldview.
This independent study course is geared to students 6th grade and up. You can watch the first 2 video lessons free and learn more about the course here.

Going back to ancient times astronomy was taught as one of the four “mathematical sciences.” The ancient’s believed engaging in these studies was to discover the beauty of the order of the universe— I would add, the beauty of the One who made the universe. “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1).

Learn more or sign up now!

 

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