The day the school books come in the mail, Box Day, is better than Christmas. And since Ian is a fellow book-lover and knows I didn't just buy workbooks, he was eager to help me celebrate.
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| Ian offered to open the boxes with his pocket knife. |
He was quick to dig into his sisters' "living" science books. Forgive me, the light was low and I didn't want to use a flash; the pictures are a
little blurry... Living books are the opposite of textbooks and encyclopedias. They are not boring or dry. Of course, if you are Ian and Shane, encyclopedias are
where it's at! I wonder if teaching with "Living Books" was
created by a woman because they are all touchy-feely and men are all about cold, hard facts? That's a joke only fellow homeschool enthusiasts will get.
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| Evie and Fiona's science books |
Our science this year will have the boys read a two page spread on a topic in the encyclopedia, define new words, draw a diagram or a picture and label it, and then write a short paragraph about the topic. For example, we will read about cells. They will look up things like endoplasmic reticulum in the science dictionary. They will label a drawing of a cell. The next science day they will do an experiment about cells-looking at
onion skin under the microscope, drawing what the see, and writing up their findings-that kind of thing.
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| Ian and his three science encyclopedias |
I've had a day with the science program and have decided the experiments are a bit weak. The week they learn about the skeletal system in the human anatomy unit, they take three chicken bones, soak one in vinegar, roast one in the oven, and leave one plain. They try to break each one with a hammer and record their observations. They are supposed to see that roasting a bone will dry it out and make it break easier, a vinegar bone will be bendy and weak because the calcium is diminished from the acid, and the regular bone (which is cooked already because it is leftover from a chicken dinner) will be bendy but not break as easily. I'm not sure what the take-home lesson is supposed to be-don't roast your bones and hit them with a hammer-they might break? Try not to soak your bones in acidic liquids-they might get weak? Some topics don't need experiments-a simple art project of labeling the bones will do. And if your kids watched Curious George all summer with their two year old brother, they can skip the lesson altogether!
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| Living Book |
I know, I know, I said I wanted this year to be simple. But the same basic experiment is repeated two more times. Once during the crustacean week-we are supposed to dissolve shrimp shells in vinegar-and once during the bird week-dissolving an egg shell with vinegar. Okay, by the end of the year we will know that we can dissolve shells in vinegar. I think if we dissolve anything, it will be baby teeth in vinegar. In our house, if a child uses "potty talk", they get their mouth cleaned out the same way we clean out the toilet bowl-with vinegar. If they see teeth dissolving, they won't use potty language! Now, that's a relevant science experiment! Too bad it's more chemistry than biology.
