Melissa how was the preschool series? That is what I am especially interested in.
Great thank you for the ideas!
There is a reading from outside books, that will need to be purchased separately. There is an experiment with each lesson, which will come from a book that you purchase separately. There is a writing assignment each lesson for older students and they have coloring sheets that correspond with lessons (that was download I did for around $5), my younger ones like the coloring sheets. There is an additional option to purchase lap book templates that can go along with the lessons, but we did not do that this year.
The reading I did aloud, since I have younger students (kindergarten & 2nd grade) and it made the discussion with more interactive. They love the experiments and there are forms for them to record how the experiments worked.
Hope this helps.
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The Elemental Science has different levels and the lessons are easily adaptable to the level for your child. The coloring sheets worked great for my daughter in Kindergarten. At the beginning of year, she really only did the coloring sheets and has progressed through the year and I have added things to her work as we moved along in the curriculum. Now she even fills in the experiment sheets, with own drawings and some writing with help.
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have you used the junior journals or just the regular journals? Iām wondering if I could have 2 using the junior journals and one using the regular journal and make it work.
We use both. Right now my boys (7 and 9) are using the junior journals, and my daughter (11 yo) is using the regular journal. It is broken up in front what they should do each day, and for the most part, they correspond really really well!!! Next year my 11 yo will be using the middle school curriculum, so my 9 yo will use the regular journal and my 6 yo and 7 yo will be using the junior journals.
Thank you. This might work out nicely.
We are very happy with the Scientists & Inventors. We actually just finished today Benjamin Franklin unit. I was getting the books from Mike Venezia that go along with the curriculum at the library but as we love these books we decided to buy them. What I love about Scientists & Inventors? The very hands on approach to the activities. Iām hoping to find more great curricula at the great homeschool conventions in Ohio.
This year we are trying the Christian Kids Explore Science series. We are using the Chemistry book. I also bought the Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia to go with it. It comes with the resource CD which has all the printables on it and the lesson plans. I think that it is a very gentle course. When I plan out our lessons I go into more depth by adding in youtube videos frequently and I also make some of my own worksheets to dig a little deeper into some of the topics in the book. I think its a great inexpensive option- I would just add in a little more meat with other books, and videos.
I am still piecing things together as we go. My kids are young at 2nd, 1st and preschool, so our time is more devoted too reading, writing and math. Science and social studies take a back seat. We do learn about science topics, but only spend one half hour a week on it. Many of our topics come from The Magic Schoolbus Series.
Do you use a particular website that you choose your notebook pages from? I really like this idea and I could easily adapt it to the multiple ages I am working with right now.
How do you pick your topics?
Looking at the Sonlight science kit-A for our daughter this fall, they say the Encyclopedia is required. Is it really? Or is it something that we can get around with books and information from the library.
For Sonlight Science the books listed are part of a science reading schedule. You will read books on a topic and there are also experiments.
Could you find the information on whatever topic you are on in a library book or on the internetā¦of course you could.
I think that if you want convenience and the cost isnāt an issue it is definitely easier to just order all the books that Sonlight suggests, then you just follow the lesson plans and read whatever page they say.
However, if you arenāt able to buy all the books then you can still easily find the similar info elsewhere.
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Thanks! Hopefully we could buy it all, but in the event we couldnāt that is why i asked 
The preschool series is very gentle. There are weeks where you might choose to only read a little and color a page. If itās a topic that the child shows interest in, then you can try an experiment and/or read more books on the topic from the library. I love that each week has one day to focus on Nature Study. There are recommendations such as : go on a āsound huntā nature walk. My kids really respond to nature walks. We always take a backpack with sketch books and colored pencils.
We have used NOEO science (biology and chemistry) and loved it! The curriculum is taught using the Charlotte mason learning method, which is awesome!
This last year we tried Godās Design for Physical science and loved it too! Honestly, if I had a choice I would go back to using NOEO. And if your wondering why we changed it upā¦ Gods design was more adfordable for us this year. However, using NOEO helped me understand how to use the Charlotte mason method with anything. So, we used a lot of other books along with the student book. We, also, watched other videos and did experiments that I found on other sites. Made learning for my 3 boys more enjoyable and easier:)!