Christian Kids Explore Biology - TOS Review

It has been our pleasure to review Christian Kids Explore Biology, from Bright Ideas Press.    We have used The Young Scholar's Guide to Composers and enjoyed it very much, so I was excited when I was asked to review another of their products.

The Basics:

• Christian Kids Explore Biology is composed of 35 lessons, each designed to be completed in a week. (This is EASILY achieved, especially with the early lessons).

• The lessons are Biology Basics, Bird, Plants, Mammals, Humans, Water Creatures, Reptiles and Insects.  It is the perfect beginning biology study that does not speak of Evolution!  

• Each lesson has a Teaching Time and a Hands On Time.   Everything is laid out specifically for you, the teacher, before and during each lesson.  I appreciated that nothing is left to chance.  The Hands On Time is wonderful!   If you don't like coming up with your own hands on activities, this book has laid it all out for you.

•  Everything that is printable is available in .pdf format - perfect for if you want your children to create a notebook or create multiple copies in your homeschool.  

•   Depending on your homeschool, you may want to supplement with suggested readings and activities.   We never stick to the script 100%, so I found myself picking and choosing what we would do.    My first grader listened in with us, so I thought the age range could be lowered a bit as well.  

•  The curriculum is designed for 3rd-6th graders is available for $34.95.

See for yourself:  


Table of Contents
Sample Week - Bird Diets
Sample Reading List
Supply List

In short, I felt this curriculum provides a solid, well thought-out introduction to Christian Biology.   For $34.95 you receive a full year of lesson plans and supplemental activities for your elementary aged child.   It gets a huge two thumbs up from our homeschool!  

You can also see what other TOS reviewers are saying about this book, as well as other books from Bright Ideas Press here. 


 Disclaimer:I received the above named product from TOS Crew in return for my honest review. I have not been compensated in any other form. 

More Interest Led Science ~ For The Birds

It all started 25 minutes before I was expecting my first piano student of the afternoon.   


Miss B went out to get the mail and she came running inside and said I HAD to see what was on the sidewalk.

I know we have many birds in our front and side yard.   My husband just cleared the beginnings of a bird nest out of the garage last week.  When I take the trash out I do so at my own risk because there are some very protective Cardinals in a bush by the trash can!  


Apparently there was a nest in our Japanese Maple and a couple of the eggs had been blown onto our sidewalk.  

{ We are assuming this is the egg of a House Finch, but if you are a bird expert maybe you can help?  I rely a lot on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for this stuff, since I am bird illiterate. } 

Of course, my daughter couldn't wait until my lessons were over for the dissection.  She immediately put the egg on a paper towel to inspect .... it was already cracked on one side, so I felt safe that she wouldn't be hurting a potential baby bird. 

This mom learned a lesson:  ALWAYS KEEP RUBBER GLOVES IN THE HOUSE!  


Since we didn't have any (I usually do keep them in the house, really), my smart girl put Ziploc bags on her hands! Daddy pulled out his sharpest little screwdriver and we let her go to town.  


GMan would have NO PART of this.  He claimed it was gross and stayed inside. 

I won't share the really close up shots (she was totally intrigued), but it just excited her to no end that what she was seeing inside the egg matched what we had been learning about in Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day.  


Do you remember how (before our break?) we had been spending a lot of time learning about birds?  


To refresh our memories, we looked at this diagram.  Yep, everything matched.  I love it that she won't take a textbook's word for it - she needed to find out for herself!


Good thing two of my piano students are homeschoolers.... they totally understood why there was a child dissecting a bird egg sitting in the middle of my driveway when they dropped their darlings off for a lesson! 




Side note:


*If you're interested in something cool, check out this webcam of a Red-Tailed Hawk at Cornell... the eggs should hatch the week of April 13 - we'll be watching to see if we can witness this!   


Linking with Ticia for Science Sunday:

 

Science Sunday - Louis Pasteur

It's funny how lessons develop in our house.

This science lesson all stemmed from a free book in a kid's meal at Chick Fil-A.  On the way home from lunch that day my son was very interested in the the book he had received.  


We loved the Value Tales book about Louis Pasteur - Believing in Yourself.   We also have the Value Tales book about Will Rogers - The Value of Humor.  These books are so well done and offer a glimpse into the young lives of famous people - and then offer very interesting in depth information at the end of each story.

You can see the entire treasure by clicking here.  


After reading the Louis Pasteur book, we decided to look up more about this scientist.  It turns out his first work wasn't done with milk - it was done with BEER.  


This video about The History of Pasteurization from The History Channel is very interesting:

“Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world.”  ~ Pasteur

I've downloaded a unit study about Pasteur which we will work on this week while my children are interested in this.   I loved going to the grocery store last week and it was like they had seen someone famous when they saw the words "Pasteurized Milk" on the milk we were buying!  

This has been such an effective study of a famous scientist already, and I can't wait to extend it just a little further.  {Hopefully I'll be back next Sunday with a report on how this unit study went!}

I love the many little rabbit trails homeschooling lets us explore... there's just so much to learn!  


What's been going on with science in your homeschool recently?


Happily Linking with Ticia!