Hey Loves!
Wowzers! Time is definitely flying, am I right? It was just March! As time is flying, I am planning and preparing for our next school year while trying to enjoy the summer, pandemic style. Today, I am sharing what we will be using for Science and Social studies. I will not bore you with a disclaimer today (if you need one, check out my previous posts here.). I will tell you if you would rather listen and/or watch, check out my YouTube video here.
If you are new here, you should know my kids love Science. I mean, they could be the STEAM poster children. They did not get that from me, that is all their dad. However, I really am the mom that wants to cultivate their interest in all things, even interests that do not interest me. I could tell they enjoyed what we did last year, but didn’t love it. I didn’t love it. I didn’t have the competence to feel confident so I just followed various curricula until we all were over it and then moved to the next. So, the first step is to state the problem. Next, I had to rectify it. How did I do that? I asked them what they wanted to learn about. Full transparency, I was shaking in my Birkenstocks when I did it because this could’ve gone way left. Their response: “Animals.”
Cue music from the victory scene of a superhero movie! I can do animals! I started to go off the deep end and reeled myself in real fast. Goodness, beauty and truth are my standards for curricula. Not stress, laminating and organizing. That is how I found Sassafras’s Science, Zoology. It is a book that goes around the globe talking about what? Animals. I also purchased the digital teacher manual and a student logbook. While we won’t use the logbook this year, the teacher’s manual has book lists, lesson plans (2 and 5 days), “quizzes” and other ideas. So, it was needed for me.
I also chose this because of what we are doing in social studies. My kids love learning about other cultures and James especially wants to know where everything is on the map. I also feel like he is old enough to really begin retaining this information and Jude can come along for the ride. So, with a ton of books, a wall map, globe, Our Big Neighborhood, and this Evan-Moor book for James, we are going all around the world learning about continents, countries, cultures, languages, celebrations and how we can be allies to all these people groups. (Check out the deets in my videos here.)
Social studies and science will go hand-in-hand because we will learn about the animals in the region we are studying.
When I put these two together, I did a happy dance. I am loving this low-prep and easy to implement approach to science and social studies. We also have a hefty home library of books to supplement learning. You can see those in this video.
Questions? Ask them! Seriously, don’t hesitate.
Until next time,
Love you. Mean it.