Science 3 rd Grade Curriculum Picks Review

everyone and welcome to the living ladder today we are talking about science and science curriculum that we have used this year and my review and everything else so for the first part of the year we used the good and the beautiful mammals unit absolutely have loved it my daughter has loved it showed you her science notebook well not obviously all of it but certain pages of science notebook in previous video with my little review of the good and beautiful mammals unit it has been great we have absolutely loved it excuse me shadow here loved it so much we did that one day week but we really like science so we don't just do you know one unit at time because my daughter is really into science and like to encourage and support her interest so we also picked to do chemistry this year so this is actually the first time we have ever used real science odyssey from where is it from pandia press this is our first year using it this is the pdf but believe they do do paperback version or as well but of course we got the pdf version as said this is our first year using it this is for this is level one chemistry for grades two to five so it does cover wide range that you can actually use it with think that it is quite advanced chemistry and she's been doing really well with it it is very different than science programs we've used in the past really like the charlotte mason style adding in lots of additional books and find that not lacking in here but it's very for example you've got your teacher's guide which is this one and then you've got your student worksheets that go along with it and it can be feel like it can be little bit dry at times but it's very experiment led and you do always have an experiment to do of some sort but don't do like it but i'm not don't absolutely love it nothing against the curriculum just think it's my preferred style my daughter is doing really well with it she enjoys it she enjoys the experiments but some of the worksheets and things she's really not interested in just think it's the way perhaps it's presented at times we started off strong with it we really liked the beginning bit but once we you know got further into it you know it's not she like she really likes the experiments but i'm just not sure if this is our preferred style of science presentation so will be not using this next year will be either going back to something we've used before or thinking about doing something different which is what we're gonna do because my daughter i've gone child-led with science for fourth grade as well as keeping you know the fundamentals of what we need to do too but i'm really looking forward to do our science next year and i'll talk about it in when we do our curriculum for fourth grade but yes would recommend it yes nothing wrong with it but it just feel it can be little bit dry at times and while it does have book recommendations that you can add into it yeah i'm still i'm not completely in love with it but there's nothing wrong with it at all and would recommend it think it does its job it's just bit dry for our personal taste but my daughter's doing well with it you know that's that's not the issue but it is little bit dry and think some of the experiments were some of them are good but some of them not so much but that's the pandia press real science odyssey so we've been using this we have also been using skill sharpness science and love from evermore and love these so so much so in this particular one we have got various topics so we have got physical science life science we have got earth and sky so we are talking about magnets forces and gravity in the physical science in the life science part one we're talking about life cycles growth and change animal groups and offspring in life science pop unit part three we're talking about fossils dinosaurs which i'll come back to in second adaptations and ecosystems and then in unit 4 it's earth sciences and skies it's weather concepts climate hurricanes tornadoes and floods and really like the the mixture of the topics think think i'm figuring out more so with science that we don't necessarily just like one curriculum that goes through one topic per year what think liked about elemental science is that you switched so for part of the year you do one thing part in the middle you do you do something else and think prefer that concept more that style more than it just being the same for the whole year so really like the fact that this is mixture so for example my daughter is really into dinosaurs at the moment so we did the dinosaurs unit in here and like the fact that this enables you to be child-led so if say for example your kid wakes up and they're really into life cycles you can dig this out and you know you can do your science lesson basically based on life cycles think it allows you to be bit more flexible than for example following something like this but they both have the advantages and i'm not knocking this completely at all don't get me wrong it's been fine absolutely fine but really like the mixture of concepts in this one and like the different activities but the experiments in here are much more than there are in here so it just depends what you like if your kid's really into experiments then this you you nee if you want to do more experience you can you'll just have to think of them yourself it does have hands-on section where there is something so for example make your own fossil at the end of the unit but if your kid is wanting to test the ph of stuff then this would be better but you know you can find experiments yourself online you know it doesn't it doesn't have to be from curriculum and the other one that we have been digging into is the ever more science lessons and investigations now this is in-depth whereas this one is more surface think this is more in depth on specific topic so for example say they will really like the life science element in here then you can pick specific lesson from here and go more in depth with it which really like you do have to photocopy the pages because well you don't have to but some of them i'm sure i've come across something you have to cut out so it's probably better to photocopy the pages to use them but then obviously you can use it again with further grades had have known that might have got the pdf because always find it's flaffy to photocopy books it's much easier if you know you're going to have to photocopy the pages to get the pdf version so it's just something to think about love the fact that evermore has ebook options that you can download because as said lot of their units are hands-on so you have to cut things out and everything else so really like the option but think most of the time in here you could probably write in the book but i'm sure came across the page of the day where we needed to photocopy it but we don't do it in order we just pick so if there's something in here that she really likes let me grab it out of here to do further so for for the rest of the year we'll be carrying on with our chemistry we'll also be carrying on with these we also have another unit study that we can do for science and really like the unit study style for science more so perhaps than i've ever done before but think doing this curriculum has really opened my eyes to that because as said with elemental science which is curriculum we've always used before it changes so for example it's like six weeks of this it's 12 weeks of that and think that really works well specifically for me and my daughter because we really like the refreshing change of okay well we're gonna learn about different topic now in science and really like that and this year it's been although it is different units it's still chemistry it's still the same you know but it does have different topics of chemistry you know so it's not always feel guilty when i'm saying that we're not loving something but i'm trying to be honest and well not trying am being honest and know there's nothing wrong with it but yeah just feel like it makes it more exciting and less dry that's one thing if you can switch up your units once you've finished unit and then move on to something else so that's the main thing we've been doing for science but the love number one has been the good and the beautiful mammals we've absolutely loved doing that so so much she's been really enjoying the skill sharpeners just dipping into different topics and chemistry she has been enjoying chemistry you know she's not complaining or anything like that don't get me wrong she really does like it but it is bit dry compared to all the things that we have done in the past so that's everything for science hope that was helpful take care and i'll see in my next video