Bright Ideas Press let us choose what we wanted to review. I chose Christian Kids Explore Earth and Space by Stephanie L. Redmond.
This book teaches science from a classical perspective. Each lesson includes additional books to read, vocabulary and Bible verses to memorize,and reproducibles to print and use.
Here is how we used the book. At the beginning of each unit I passed out the coloring page. We also received the student activity book digital download so I was able to print all of the resources for each lesson easily. The coloring pages are very detailed drawings that my children enjoyed coloring.
As the children colored I read the lesson which is a few pages long and easy to understand without the usual dumbing down. I explained anything that they didn't understand further and that was the end of day 1.
On day 2 I reviewed vocabulary words with them and asked them to tell me what they remembered about the lesson. We also did the activities in the side bar.
On day 3 we reviewed and wrote about the lesson in science notebooks. On day 4 we did the experiment and day 5 we wrote about it in the notebooks. I asked them the review questions at the end of each unit and we discussed anything they hadn't understood or forgotten.
I like this book and we will continue to use it until we have finished all of the lessons. I think it's a great overview of the subject and we used it without further resources. If my children are interested in a topic we can use the resource list at the end of the book to find books at the library for further reading.
I used Earth & Space with my students who are in 1, 3, and 5th grades. My four year old also listened and participated in the activities. The activities were interesting to the children and helped them understand the topics. One thing I really appreciated was that I didn't have to do a lot of extra work to use this book. The activities used basic household items I had on hand so I didn't have to plan them well in advance.
This is a flexible science curriculum and i think it would work for many different teaching styles. It has all of the things I always wished science was when I was in school.
CKE Earth & Space contains 6 units covering; Getting Started(creation), The Lithosphere, The Hydrosphere, The Atmosphere, Earth's Weather, and Beyond Earth. The units are broken down into 24 lessons which you can use at your own pace. Each lesson is designed to be completed in one week but you could easily stretch them out if you wanted to cover the topic more in depth. The book recommends the lessons be broken up into two days but I preferred to do a little bit each day instead.
My son Elijah had this to say when I asked him what he thought about CKE Earth and Space, "I think it was awesome!"
And my daughter said, "It was cool!".
To purchase, visit Bright Ideas Press. On this product page you can see the table of contents, how to use this book, and the materials list.
Christian Kids Explore Earth & Space
$29.95
Activity Book as a digital download
$12.95
Visit TOS Homeschool Crew blog to read more reviews.
I received a free copy of CKE Earth & Space along with the student workbook in order to review this product and I have expressed my honest opinion.
