The Homeschool How To
I don't claim to know anything about homeschooling, so I set out on a journey to ask the people who do! Join me as I chat with homeschoolers to discuss; "why are people homeschooling," "what are all the ways people are using to homeschool today," and ultimately, "should I homeschool my kids?"
The Homeschool How To
Curriculum Series: The Good and the Beautiful - Science
Unlock the secrets to a dynamic homeschooling experience with our latest episode, where we promise you'll discover how to transform your child's education by choosing the right science curriculum. This week, we welcome Katie Berry to share her experiences with "The Good and the Beautiful" science program, a curriculum designed to ignite curiosity and cater to diverse interests with units like meteorology and the human body. Katie highlights the program's flexibility, allowing families to tailor their science journey by mixing and matching units based on their children's interests and developmental stages. This approach not only makes learning more engaging but also ensures the material remains challenging and relevant for all ages.
The Good and The Beautiful- Science
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Welcome to the Homeschool How-To Find my Curriculum, a series where we talk all about curriculum. I've been interviewing homeschooling families for over a year now on my main podcast, the Homeschool How-To, but I really wanted to zero in on curriculum. There's so much out there. How do I know what would work best for me and my child? How do I know what works for one child would work for the other? I might like the curriculum I'm using now, but how do I know there's not a better one out there, especially if I don't know all the curriculums? And what about supplemental curriculum? Should I be using that too? This series is to help you decide just that. I'm going to interview parents who are using all the curriculums so that you can decide the absolute best way to unfold your homeschooling journey. The absolute best way to unfold your homeschooling journey. Welcome with us. Today in our curriculum series, I have Katie Barry. She's back to let us know about the good and the beautiful science. Welcome, katie, Thank you for being here.
Speaker 1:Thanks, I'm excited to be here, All right, I didn't know they had a science program. Everybody knows about the math and I think reading maybe or something like that, but I did not know that the good and the beautiful had a science. I did the math with my son in kindergarten, which was super cute. We did like it, so tell us about this. What ages did you use this for?
Speaker 2:So, um, we started out when we started homeschooling. We started out using the good and the beautiful science and we's been our hands down favorite science. Um, when I started, my oldest would have been in first grade, I think, and I used, I've used it all the way through. Now they have revised it and they suggest their regular science units be for third through eighth grade and they have come out with a separate science for the kindergarten through second grade called little science, for little hands and hearts, I believe, or hearts and hands. I might have gotten that backwards so, but my kids, we started out like kindergarten and up. We used the, the old units. Um, before they had revised them, I made them third through eight.
Speaker 1:So you, were already ahead of the game well, that's how they used to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the old editions. Old editions were labeled as kindergarten through eighth, so that's how we used them.
Speaker 1:So what makes your kids like this one above any others?
Speaker 2:So there's a few things. One is that they sell it's not like a year-long curricula, so they have like the human body unit, they have a meteorology unit or a bird's unit or reptiles and they tell you this unit has 15 lessons or this unit has 12 lessons and most families do about four units a year, a school year. So it just depends on how often you want to do science. If you're doing science every day, you might get through six or seven units. If you're doing science two times a week, two or three times a week, you might get through three or four in a year.
Speaker 2:But I like that it's not a year long for Kila because frankly, sometimes we get bored learning like who. Maybe we don't want to learn about human body for an entire school year. You know, maybe we want to learn about energy for six weeks and then now my kids are interested in birds, so learn about birds for six weeks. Or maybe we've got a paleontology lover and we'll do that for six weeks. So I like that you can jump around in science topics and pick things that appeal to your kids and that you're not stuck in like one subject all year, like to me. I just find that it's more enjoyable to kind of have some variety yeah.
Speaker 1:So, having a six-year-old myself, I haven't really thought like we do science just within our uh, the tree house, schoolhouse and nature study, because you're going out in nature and stuff, but like science is everywhere, as you're talking about that the human body, birds, energy, like you. That's crazy that it just encompasses so much. And then you know you think how many of these things can kind of mesh together. Where you're doing, which is kind of what we're doing now with the treehouse schoolhouse uh unit study for the fall, it's like, okay, we're getting a little bit of reading, a little bit of writing and a little bit of science and a little bit of you know, all like in one thing.
Speaker 1:So I don't know, I guess I'm my mind's a little blown now because thinking about like all the fun stuff you could do. But then it's like what do you pick? There's so many, so many things. Does it really jump around like that, or do you have like a? Okay, in third grade we're doing the human body or I don't know. Does it have like a rhythm and what does the day look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they do have their science on the website grouped into like physical science, earth and space science, so they kind of have it into topics. So if you wanted to stay in physical science all year, you could do like simple machines, energy, you know, all those that kind of fit into physical science. Or if you want to do earth and space, that's when you could do paleontology and the, the water unit, like water and meteorology or space, and so you can. If you wanted to be more cohesive in your year, you could pick a couple units within the same kind of overall science topic umbrella. I kind of, when I was choosing curricula, I picked by what I thought was more developmentally appropriate. So, for example, I thought, like my youngest kids, I thought space was like a really good unit for them because I thought, you know, energy might be a little more abstract, or like the kingdoms and classification, like that to me seemed like that was more of like a higher order thinking and so I was like, oh, if we do meteorology, which is all about weather, and we do space, then like and the arthropods, like the insects, to me that felt more developmentally appropriate for the younger kids and so I tried to pick things that were more developmentally appropriate, learning for my kids ages.
Speaker 2:And then sometimes I picked by our seasonal. So like I would do the insect study in the spring when the bugs were coming out and you would see the big ant piles and the bees were coming out, um, it didn't make sense to me to do that in the winter when there was no insects to be found. Or like we did meteorology in the spring because in Idaho our weather is crazy in the spring. We get snow, we get rain, we get warm days, we get all the weather in the spring. And so we did meteorology in the spring because in real life we were experiencing all the different types of weather. So I picked kind of by developmental level and then I also picked science that kind of corresponded with our seasons.
Speaker 1:Okay, awesome, All right. So how long would it take you? So you said it's not a whole year, but how long would it take you a day when you were doing science, and how many days a week did you do it?
Speaker 2:It just depends. We've used it for five years and so every year we've used it a little bit differently. When I started out I was alternating with history and I would do science two days a week and history two days a week and then another year. I just realized that my kids get more out of it if I did it every day. So I did like six weeks of science and then six weeks of social studies, and then six weeks of science and then six weeks of social studies and I would do a lesson every single day during those six.
Speaker 2:It just depends. It depended each year on how I thought it would work best with our schedule and then the lessons they took generally around a half an hour. It just depends because there are optional like activities and experiments that you can do, and we loved the experiments. That was what made it so fun for my kids is because every lesson we did almost every lesson so fun for my kids is because every lesson we did almost every lesson there was an experiment and or an activity, and so if you're doing those, then it just depends. One time I actually recorded myself because I just wanted to see how long the lesson took, and I think that lesson in particular with experiments took 15 minutes. So it just it varied depending on how in depth the experiments were. Yeah, never longer than like 40 minutes at the most.
Speaker 1:I think. Does it look like just you reading a paragraph to them? Are they reading it themselves? Or is there an experiment like every day? Or is it leading up to the experiment at the end of the week?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so every unit kind of varied on the amount of experiments. Energy had an experiment every single lesson when we did the energy unit and that one was really fun versus, like, I think, the marine biology unit. That one had an activity experiment every three or four lessons and so, depending on the topic, some topics naturally led themselves to experiments better than others and so you're not guaranteed a certain number of activities or things like that within each unit. But just every unit does have hands-on learning in the unit. It just varies about how in-depth or how many there are.
Speaker 2:Um. So the way the lesson works is it's just kind of like their language arts and math, where it's scripted. It tells you exactly what to read as the parent to do in the manual and then it will have things like ask the child this question, um, and then it'll say you know, take out this activity and do this activity. So it kind of guides the parent through teaching the lesson. So you read the lesson and then we get to the activity. You get your kids involved in doing the activity?
Speaker 1:did you have to buy a lot of stuff to do these experiments and activities?
Speaker 2:some of them yes, some no. I mean they're all listed as optional. My kids liked them, so I did as many as we could. I think the only and most of the things were things you had around the house. It was like Play-Doh, a bowl, a thing of water, you know, a spoon Things you already have Occasionally. I think the only thing I ever had to order was for the magnetism lesson. I had to order some iron fillings and they're those little tiny pieces of iron that are magnetic, so that are specifically like a science experiment type thing. I remember having to order those. And for the energy, I remember having to order these little tiny um light bulbs for when we were doing circuits.
Speaker 2:So, I think the energy unit. I did have to order some like very specific supplies but I think and I remember going to um home Depot to get a bag of sand for the marine biology unit. So I'm like, but I think, if I remember right I don't remember the list being super expensive or you know, out of the way of what you would have in your home- Okay, you've got, right now, the three.
Speaker 1:You've got two boys that are just a few years apart. Right, fifth and eighth grade, yes, okay, are they doing the same science, same experiments?
Speaker 2:Yes, and then I do have a second grade grader as well, my daughter. The second grade.
Speaker 1:So are all three of them.
Speaker 2:They're all involved, or the second grade, so are all three of them. They're all involved. Well, so when I started homeschooling, my and was, we started out with the human body, I think with our very first unit, and my son was in first grade, and so then I had a first grader, preschooler and an eight month old, and we still everybody participated. My daughter has grown up doing science, because she was eight months old when I started homeschooling and she always was with us with our lessons, unless she was napping. So because she loved it. She loved the experiments and participating in the experiments, and so I didn't require her to sit and do science with us. I didn't, and lots of times she would only want to come for just the experiment or the activity and that was fine. But she has always been involved from the time she was an infant, with those that's so cool, yeah, so you get so OK.
Speaker 1:When I'm thinking about like, uh, you know you're, you're reporting for your fifth grader, and then your eighth grader and your second grader does it, I guess like it's okay that they're all different levels and they all understand the stuff that you're talking about, or will you circle back so that the fifth grader is doing it again in his eighth grade year and maybe just getting a little bit more out of it at that point?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so one thing is that the Good and the Beautiful now has student journals and they have like a third through sixth grade journal and a seventh and eighth grade journal, and so the lesson's the same but the workbook is scaled for their age. So that's one thing. But the other thing that is, yes, if you did four units a year, you would do all the units. I think it would take you maybe three or four school years and then you could repeat them. So if you started in second grade, you'd probably, you could probably go through each unit twice by eighth grade.
Speaker 1:Okay, and that would be sufficient for, like, what a child needs to know by the time that they're in high school. Like doing them twice, it's, I would imagine. I feel like, no matter what you do with homeschooling, they're just absorbing more because there's not 25 other kids pulling their attention away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they do have like a chemistry unit that is labeled only for sixth grade and up and so like for for seventh or eighth grade. I might do some of the harder topics like kingdoms and classification chemistry how is that?
Speaker 1:science, kingdoms and classification that?
Speaker 2:so kingdoms and classification are like mushrooms fungi um and then learning I'm thinking like kingdoms, like the Roman Empire, oh so it's the classification system, the class of people in the Roman Empire. I remember we used a microscope, a ton, for that unit. So it's learning about the different. Like you have animals, you have fungi, you have you know. So it's kind of that type of classification and kingdoms yeah.
Speaker 1:That's a yeah. So one of the weeks for the treehouse schoolhouse nature study we're doing, it was like deciduous trees and I'm like what in the hell? Well I'll I. Apparently I need to take this because I don't know what that is, but I, I think I do remember now learning on one of his nature walks that was led by a nature person. It's a tree that does not lose its leaves in the winter.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure actually it's the opposite. It's the trees that do lose their leaves all right.
Speaker 1:Well, I was close, say no. The funny thing what are the other ones called?
Speaker 2:I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:Evergreen, evergreen would be the ones that don't lose their leaves, like pine oh, okay all right, I oh, okay All right, I wasn't paying attention on the walk all too closely.
Speaker 2:So now that the Good and Beautiful has labeled their science for third through eighth, they do have three units that are their science for little hearts and hands, I believe. They have fields and flowers, wind and waves, and then they have a space one. And I have the fields and flowers and the wind and waves. I don't have a space one. And I have the Fills and Flowers and the Winter Waves. I don't have the space one.
Speaker 2:Yet these are just like they're kindergarten through second grade science and they're very, very gentle. Usually the lessons take five minutes tops, so each of them come with like a big book of science stories and you alternate between reading a book in the big book of science stories or listening to an audio narration or watching a youtube video, and then there's like two or three discussion questions per lesson and an optional activity. Currently we don't do the optional activities because I just don't have enough time to do them. Um, but with my second grader she really enjoys the lessons and so, five minutes a day, I sit down and read her lesson, and yesterday our lesson was on deciduous trees and that's how I knew what they were.
Speaker 1:Well, I just figured it was because you've homeschooled five kids. So you've learned it along the way somewhere.
Speaker 2:No, that was our topic yesterday. That's all I know. So deciduous means to fall off, so deciduous trees are named deciduous trees because their leaves fall off in the winter.
Speaker 1:Oh interesting, I bet you that nature guy got it wrong then, because I swear he had a funky name for it and he was like this is the tree that doesn't lose its leaves. So I was but yeah, but my daughter was also screaming and I was like trying to run away so that people could listen to him. So I wouldn't take my word for anything. Anything else you want to add?
Speaker 2:no, I would just say, obviously all of the the experiments and activities are optional, but they really are what make the program shine, in my opinion, and so I would say this program would appeal to anybody who really likes doing those hands-on activities. But the lessons are all scripted for you. They tell you exactly what to do, what supplies you need, and so it's also great for those that need a low prep science, even though it sounds like with the activities there's a lot of prep, really the prep is just going out and making sure you have the materials. Other than that, it's open and go and very easy to use.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cool. All right, I I'm definitely going to use this one on the sound spot, especially with boys that just need hands on, like this would be good for my son. Thank you so much. Yeah, absolutely, I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for listening. Please consider sharing this podcast or my main podcast, the Homeschool how To with friends, family, on Instagram or in your favorite homeschool group Facebook page. The more this podcast is shared, the longer we can keep it going and the more hope we have for the future. Thank you for your love of the next generation.