Christian Kids Explore Physics - TOS Review

I was offered a chance to review Christian Kids Explore Physics by  Bright Ideas Press. This is part of a Christian-based interactive series that makes science fun.

The Physics book is a complete 1 year curriculum. It is aimed at grades 4th - 8th but can easily be adapted for younger children. It includes 30 lessons designed to be used 2 days a week - the units cover Foundation of Physics, Matter, Mechanics, Matter in Motion, Energy in Motion and Electricity and Magnetism. Each unit contains 4-5 lessons and each lesson includes a scripture verse, vocabulary list, discussion, review questions, colouring page and an activity. Supplemental reading is also encouraged.

It comes with a resource CD containing lesson plans, materials list, lesson reviews, activity charts, literature guide, colouring pages, bibliography, glossary pages and printables. It also includes a literature study guide for a book about Benjamin Franklin. The study contains vocabulary and comprehension questions as well as questions requiring deeper research.

 

We've only just started delving into this book but the girls have enjoyed their experience. I like that the chapters are short, easy to read and understandable. The hands-on activities are simple to pull together and fun (an advantage is the experiments use common or easily obtainable supplies). Overall a great multi-age Physics curriculum that doesn't take a lot of prep work!

Christian Kids Explore Physics sells for $39.95.

You can read what the other crew members thought of this (and the other books in the series) at the TOS Blog

Disclaimer: I received a digital copy of the Physics book/CD so I could give an honest review of the product.

Botany Week Three

This week we explored vascular bundles and why/how they draw water up the stem. We started by placing a bag around a leafy plant (with a separate control bag) to see that plants release water through their leaves.

Then we placed some celery stalks in red food colouring, the next morning they were nicely coloured so we cut the end of to look at the vascular bundles

and gently broke the celery to take a closer look at the xylem tubes.

We discussed how when the water evaporates through the leaves it creates an area of low pressure (like sucking on a straw) so more water is drawn up from the root hairs, through the tubes and into the leaves. This was followed up by watching a great video on You Tube.


After we had discussed the three types of transpiration and drawn a poster,

we looked at how the waxy cuticle on the top surface of a leaf helps reduce water loss,

they coloured a paper square with wax and left the other unwaxed, dropped the same amount of liquid on the centre of each and compared the results.

They also looked at the parts of a flower in more detail - dissecting two different types of flower, matching them to their 'parts of flower' cards and comparing the differences between the two types.

Rose has enjoyed looking at our homemade felt puzzles for parts of a flower, tree and leaf.

AIMS Fabulous fractions - TOS Review

AIMS provide integrated learning books for science and math. We were offered their Fabulous Fractions book for review. The book came with a CD and and a set of fraction tansparencies.

Fabulous Fractions is a hands on set of activities for grades 3-5. The book comes with a CD of printables (same pages are included the book for copying) and is available for $21.95 or as a PDF for $19.95. You can also purchase the fraction transparencies for $14.95 and the fraction circle model for $7.95.

It worked well for us. Tulip (5), Sunflower (7) and Lilly (9) loved it 

and even Rose (3) joined in some of the activities.

Planning was fairly easy (it did require some prep work - usually printing and cutting) and it was really easy to fit into our schedule. The activities do vary in length but average at 30 mins so it proved great for joint lessons at the start of the day. The activities were a fun, engaging and practical way to learn and understand fractions.

This is so much more than a workbook - through games, activities, questioning and problem solving, it gives you a firm grasp of fraction concepts. We had great fun with this and I can highly recommend it (especially as it's so easy to use).

You can read what the other crew members thought over at the TOS Blog

Disclaimer - I was given a free copy of the book and transparencies so I could provide an honest review of the product.

Geography Notebooking

I discovered some free note book pages from Notebooking Fairy and the girls have been having great fun with them.

I simply cut up a load of landform pictures, provided glue and left them to research and write their own descriptions : )

Amazing Animals - TOS Review

Amazing Animals by Design written by Debra Haagen is a wonderful story that introduces the idea of Gods intelligent design of animals.

Debra is a homeschooling Mum with young children, she noticed that there were no books available to teach her younger children about intelligent design so came up with this story.

It begins with John and Sarah going to the zoo. During the tour they discover new animals and their tour guides explain how each is unique and designed specifically for a purpose, while the kids get to ask all sorts of interesting questions, resulting in a conversation with their parents after the trip where they discuss how these things don't happen by accident but they are as God intended.

                                                  


I love that this book gives the children an insight into the intricacies of animal specialisation and the fact that it uses 'grown up' vocabulary - words like strategy, predator and camouflage are explained nicely within the context of the story.

Rose and Tulip have both enjoyed reading this and it's firm becoming a favourite. I'm eager to see what she comes up with next (fingers crossed for a series)

The book is aimed at preschool to 3d grade and is available from Tate Publishing for $8.99 or as an ebook for $7.99.

You can see what the other members of the crew thought at the TOS blog


Disclaimer: I was given a free digital copy for the purpose of providing an honest review.