Science: Grades 2 - 6
Living Learning Books Level 3 Chemistry
Author: Sandi Strenkowski
For more information or to order: www.livinglearningbooks.com
Moms wishing to follow a classical, living books approach to teaching science have found a friend in Sandi Strenkowski! This homeschool mom has taken on the challenge of writing a science curriculum with student activity pages for the grammar stage student. The series follows the classical schedule as described in the book The Well-Trained Mind. There are currently three titles with a fourth scheduled for release latter this year.
I was privileged to review Level 3 - Chemistry and was pleasantly surprised by the thoroughness of this elementary program. One of my favorite features is that it can be used with students in grades 2-6 making it a great resource for multilevel teaching. The curriculum is divided into a series of units, each concentrating on a specific chemistry topic. There are 65 lessons covering unit topics such as: Atoms, Atomic Number, The Periodic Table, Molecules, Matter, Properties of Liquids, States of Matter and more. You will need to purchase a Teacher Manual and a Student Activity Pack for each of your children. At the beginning of each unit Sandi lists all the student pages you will need for the unit - instead of handing your student their entire pack of pages, you just need to pull out what they need for each unit. I found this to be less overwhelming and, since my boys couldn't look ahead to see what was coming up, there was an element of surprise to their favorite subject :-) She also provides the page numbers that go along with the unit from two popular science encyclopedias - the books, Kingfisher's Science Encyclopedia and the Usborne Internet Linked Science Encycolopedia are optional, but very useful resources to have on hand. The last list at the beginning of each unit is a project supplies list so you can check your cupboards and make note of anything you'll need to have on hand for the unit. All of the supplies required can be found around the house or at your local supercenter.
In true classical fashion, Level 3-Chemistry, begins each topic by having students read a short passage, recording definitions of vocabulary words into their science notebook. Each lesson of the unit features either a worksheet (usually a matching, word search or other fun exercise) from the student pack or a hands-on experiment. This is a very hands-on course with LOTS of experiments. In some units there is an experiment almost every lesson. Continuing in the "classical way", students complete an experiment summary sheet for each project. Each sheet contains four questions: What We Used, What We Did, What Happened, and What We Learned. Of course younger students can dictate their answers to mom while older students complete their form independently. Students are often encouraged to illustrate the experiment and file it with the summary sheet in their notebook. Each unit ends with a review, which parents can use as either a traditional test or just orally quiz and discuss the answers. There are handy reference sheets in the appendix of the teacher manual including a copy of the Period Table of Elements and an extensive list of websites corresponding to the unit topics.
Although Level 3 contains a few biographies of famous scientists in the student pages, there is not a lot in the way of additional reading. After looking at the Living Learning Books website, it appears that the other levels in the series are more literature based than this one. This course covers a lot of ground and the units are structured in a way that allows us to dig deeper and stay longer on a topic if we want to do more exploring and experimenting. Although we enjoy science at our house, my knowledge of science is weak, so I appreciate the clear explanations of concepts and the "why" behind the experiments that the author provides. I believe this course would be a great fit for many families whether or not they are following the classical model of education!
Making the Grade: A
Cost: $30 (1 Teacher Manual & 1 Student Pack) Additional Student Packs are $7.50
Value for Your Homeschool Dollar: 10
Review provided by Cindy Prechtel, Editor
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