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The time fast appraoches for us to submit our homeschool curriculum to the State (in this case VA). Does anyone have any recommendations of what they did for first grade. It's now a rqeuirement to list our curriculum - in so much as books we are liekly to use. I'm not sure science is actually tesed for 1st grade yet.

We are mostly using Susan Wise Bauer's materials - and she doesn't focus in on science a great deal.

Looking forward to feedback - and to hear if anyone else is starting in their first year.

Do you want just science curriculum or curriculum for other subjects as well?

DS6 was "1st grader" last year and we used CyberEd Earth & Space Science (middle school material). We will use CyberEd Life Science together with Singapore Science (My Pals Are Here).

I don't know VA requirements but I would think you could list any science oriented book - animal encyclopedia, weather encyclopedia, etc. What is your child interested in? Animals? Universe? Chemistry? I would follow his interests and create a science curriculum based on it.

Do they require that you use what you list, or is it just a sample curriculum? Does anyone check?

If not, and if you don't feel like getting all your ducks in a row now for whatever reason, you could just pull the curriculum standards list off the

http://www.worldbook.com/wb/Students?curriculum

site (or something similar), then hit your library website and pull some sample books that would work with these here for your list. Done!

I plan DS8's work for a couple of months in advance, tops, since things change so fast. So for me, trying to plan April in August is a fruitless waste of time. My "fake list" passes muster, takes very little time or effort, and frees me up to be more loosey-goosey with it, which I like.

Plenty of people use the required curriculum submission as a way to plan their year and be organized and are very happy about it. That's great for them, and more power to them. But if you don't want to be that locked-in on things and no one checks, then you might be able to fake it.

It's all about what you prefer.

WEll I'm starting my first year w/ a 1st grader but this will be my second year with my 4th grader. My 1st grader went to public school K last year.

For science a good source is Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding. Dr. Nebel has a sort of living science approach. It's K-2, guides you in tying all the sciences together and weaving it into your life. It's easy to write up for the state and you can list some of the recommended books Dr. Nebel gives. Plus, it's easy to go as deep as you want in a topic using Nebel's book as a spine. It's $20 so not a huge investment. He also runs a yahoogroup where he will answer any question. He's coming out w/ 3-5 book soon. I think the K-2 book is easy to go in depth w/ advanced kids by choosing supplementary books from the library.

Any other topics you're interested in? I use several of SWB"s recommendations: writing with Ease, SOTW

Another idea if you're going in the classical direction, maybe, is the Science of the Past series (pub. by Franklin Watts; there's Science of Ancient Greece, of Ancient Rome, Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, in Early Islamic Cultures, etc.)--an interesting history of science, aimed at about grades 4-6, I think.

peace
minnie

Yes we enjoy that series Minnie!

Minnie, I'm requesting that from my library. It sounds like a REALLY good way to interest my DS8 in history more than he has been lately. Thanks!

Thanks, Minnie! Sounds like a good series of books.

Ironmom, I am not required to send anything into state. However, I bought Plato Science (middle school level) with Homeschool Buyers Co-op for a great price. I also bought a set of Real Science 4 Kids books. MSNucleus http://www.msnucleus.org/curriculum/curriculum.html also has free curriculum online you might want to check it out. We are just starting to homeschool in the fall, so we have not tried anything yet, but those are some recommendations I got from different homeschool forums.

I had another idea about science that might appeal, IronMom--Sara Stein's "The Science Book" (from the '70s, out of print, but lots of copies floating around) is something Groucho (also 6) and I are going to have a go at this year. It's arranged in three parts: Outsides (pests, pets, people), Insides (protistas, plants, animals), and Invisibles (touches, noises, sights, tastes & smells, charges, thoughts). I like the tone: she's curious, intelligent, and witty, and assumes her reader is as well. There are lots of black and white photos, and lots of experiments ("lung machines, bottle flutes, quiz boxes, pig grunters, light switches, balloon rockets, tooth casts, skeletons, draft detectors, optical illusions, dancing mothballs, leaf starch, electric wands, and candy sparks," says the back cover). There's likely more there than we'll want/be able to do in a year, but that's OK, too, I think--it's much more of a ramble through things that look interesting on any given day, than it is a sequential curriculum where each step builds on the previous one.

You could investigate the TOPS science modules, too ( www.topscience.org ). They are basically books of experiments; there's some explanation of things, but not in any amount of detail (well, at least in the ones that we have, I should say). I can't remember what science the WTM says for grade one--is it biology? So you might like the radishes one, or corn & beans, or the animal camouflage one.

Hope that helps!

peace
minnie

Kriston and Cindi, I'm glad those look good to you! I think they're really nice books. (My boys are mad about history, so I use it as a "gateway" to other--slightly less popular!--subjects quite often.) Along those same lines, we have also liked the Jeanne Bendick history of science books about Archimedes and Galen--there's also one about Galileo that I haven't been able to turn up yet. Another one we like a lot is Julia Diggins's "String, Straight-Edge, & Shadow," a nice history of geometry.

peace
minnie

We used the Singapore My Pals Are Here series when DS was that age.... It would be a good candidate for official curriculum submission because other than being a good series (although they've changed editions since, I'm assuming it's just as good!) the workload is very light... so it's easy to get through without stress. Excellent critical thinking, but not a ton of work, so there's plenty of time left for you to add in whatever extra topics or reading you would like.

Thanks for all the suggestions you guys. It's so nice to feel that you all care!

In the end I just put unit studies/library books and also double-checked that the State doesn't test or expect a test to be done on anything other than English and Math. So really, any other subject is open. My very lose plan all along has been to try and make sure he covers what they'd be doing in school anyway, but also try to keep things linked to a sense of chronology. On the side, he's also done a volcano kit, he's super into Sharks - so we've done the whole Shark Musuem, touch a shark, watch DVDs on sharks and bought the "take a shark apart anatomical" set.

The world list will be really helpful - thanks Kriston - and I will check out all the suggestions but the history linked one from Minnie might work right away - he's already into a few weeks work on Story of the World and I was wondering how to tie something science in with that to a greater extent. I mean, next week they mummify a chicken - so that counts right?

"Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding. Dr. Nebel " - I like how the index of this book is set up -but it looks like a slog to read given as I'm working full-time and have to do the spelling and some language arts around that too!

I think the hardest thing for me to explain to DS6 so far without a visual aid especially - has been the concept of tiny particles and germs that he can't see. So short of whipping out my microscope wihch has no light - so hard to use..and short of using Usborne books which I found quite helpful as a basis for science - has anyone else found something with pictures or more hands on that would sort of get the basics of science across?

I can see really, why many of the educators I've been listening too on MP3 - like Lisa Van Damme just wait until the kids are older and teach the science chronologically - that way - the kid is older when the hwave to understand these concepts. This may of course, not apply to the gifted. Just seems to me though - that maybe Usborne or some other shorter books with pictures would help DS6 understand chemistry or particles -the same way their Human Body book helps him understand his insides!

Harpo liked Robert Winston's "It's Elementary: Putting the Crackle into Chemistry" (Dorling Kindersley, 2007, 96 pp). Maybe a start, for that topic at least? In the same series is "Can You Feel the Force? Putting the Fizz back into Physics" by Richard Hammond (DK, 2006). Winston also wrote "What Makes Me, Me?" (DK, 2004), which has quite a lot about cells, as well as more general anatomy. All have lots of lovely pictures and fun graphic design, as you'd expect from DK.

Hope those might be of interest!

peace
minnie

we have a kids science experiments book that is lots of fun it's a usborne book. It's fun to learn by doing. check out your library for books. We also have so interactive science CDs & book for the computer: Interfact - Oceans, space & rainforest by two-can punlishing. mine is from 1979 so it may not still be available. I'll look for the web site & post if available.

http://us.dk.com/

http://www.usborne-quicklinks.com/usa

above has science books

no website on interfact cd

LOL - we counted that as science and did some internet research on how the baking soda, salt, etc would work to preserve the chicken. That was really a gross little project! The kids loved it though and bragged to everyone they had a mummified chicken in the basement.

The history/science tie in is a great idea. I'm struggling with what to do for history this year. We did SOTW last year volume 1 with alot of extra materials from the library, etc. But SOTW wasn't a big hit for DS (better for his younger sister). I might just do it to hit both kids and let him work with some other stuff. I think I'm for sure going to have him read incrementally the cartoon history of the universe. I think that will be a hit and easy. Usborne's encyclopedia of World history has been a great resource and is a format that my son particularly likes. And has internet links!

Thanks again for the suggestions. We are going to try to tie science in with history of the world - as it seesm for 1st grade here the emphasis is still on the Pre-K work DS6 already the last severeal years - namely cycles of the seasons, volcanoes, etc. He's done that since Montessori. We figure we can work volcanoes in with Pompeii, and he's already aware of the Sun and it's importance from studying Egypt, which covers agriculture etc. and they are mummifying a chicken - so the biology aspect sort of comes in too. In fact, when I complained about the Sun this weekend and told it to "go away we need some rain" DS6 told me I was insulting Ra and that this was possibly not a good thing to do - and he was joking of course - as he knows Ra is not a god we actually believe in anymore - but it was just hilarious!

If anyone has details of waht's in Singapore Science I'd like to hear more about it though. Just curious.

DS6 has loved using the Usborne encyclopoedia too - hubby says it really provides a good review of everything they have done in SOTW. He also ordered the Kingfisher Encyclopedia and loves that. I think the hands on aspects of SOTW - making the clay models and coloring the pictures we got a Ben Franklin for Egypt have really solidified everything. Don't know what I would do if DS6 didn't like SOTW though! That would be tough!