Real Science-4-Kids

by Dr. Rebecca W. Keller

Gravitas Publications

Real Science-4-Kids was created by Dr. Rebecca Keller in response to a need she discovered while home educating her own children. Because of her strong background in science (Ph.D. in biophysical chemistry and former research assistant professor), Dr. Keller wanted science curriculum with solid content that children would enjoy. Unable to find such a program, she decided to create it herself. (Isn't this a familiar story for so many homeschool products?)

Real Science-4-Kids differs from typical school science programs for the elementary grades in that it covers far fewer topics but in much greater depth than most programs that teach many topics at a relatively superficial level. Rather than targeting specific grade levels, each book is geared toward a range of grade levels. Pre-Level 1 books are written for grades K through 3. Level 1 books are for grades 4 through 6, and Level 2 meets the needs of students in grades 7 through 9.

Dr. Keller identifies four core disciplines for science and teaches everything under these categories: chemistry, physics, biology, and earth/space. She frequently demonstrates how these categories overlap. She uses the example that "photosynthesis is a combination of chemistry and biology." Consequently, the first three courses (Pre-Level 1) are Chemistry, Biology, and Physics. In the Chemistry book, young students learn about atoms, molecules and chemical bonds since this helps them understand other science concepts. Biology is a little more topical, reflecting the breadth of concepts under that heading. Students learn about classification and naming, and then cells. With a very basic understanding of cells, they go on to learn about plants including some of the functions of cells. Other topics in Biology are protozoa, butterflies, frogs, and ecological balance.

Instruction is presented in hard cover, full-color, heavily-illustrated books. The beautiful cover art work and illustrations throughout the textbooks give this series visual appeal beyond most science textbooks. While the explanations are simplified for younger children, the vocabulary still includes words like "evaporation, acid-base reactions, indicators, chromatography, chloroplasts, cilia," and "organelle." Pre-Level 1 books should be great for second and third graders, but they might be too challenging for kindergartners and first graders. Obviously, reading would be a problem for most younger students, so you would have to read books to them.

To make concepts easier to grasp, each lesson has an experiment or observation in the companion Laboratory Workbook. A Teacher's Manual for each text provides lesson plans and instructions for teachers. This includes an easy-to-use list of materials you will need for each experiment at the very beginning. In the Pre-Level 1 Chemistry course, resources are items that are easy to find, but for Biology there are a few items you would need to order from a science materials supplier. (Physics for this level is not yet available, so I don't know what is required.) Experiments and observations teach children the scientific method. While there is space for students to write observations and thoughts about the lab activities, frequently there is also instruction to draw in response to a question rather than write. Obviously, younger students might need to dictate some responses for someone else to write.

Each book has only ten chapters and might take only ten weeks to complete. That means that you could cover all three books (Chemistry, Biology, and Physics) in one school year.

Level 1 is in many ways similar to Pre-Level 1. It has the same three courses. Each course covers material very similar to that in the younger books, albeit at expanded, more-challenging levels. The Pre-Level 1 books taught serious science, but Level 1 definitely takes it up a notch. or two. Math is incorporated into science, something that frequently doesn't happen until high school level in other science courses.

Laboratory activities are likewise more advanced, but they are still accomplished for the most part with easy-to-obtain materials. Biology is the only course that might require you to purchase from a specialty source.

Teacher's Manuals for Pre-Level 1 provide instructions for the lab activities. Teacher's Manuals for Level 1 include teaching information and summaries of text information in addition to instructions for the lab work. Student books include "Review" pages for students to define vocabulary used in the lesson. Answers for these review pages are in the TMs. There are no quizzes or tests. Lesson material is discussed and applied to some extent in the lab work, and this should give you sufficient feedback on a student's grasp of concepts.

The relatively brief length of the books becomes even more of an issue in grades 4 through 8. You can certainly do all three within one school year, but you might want to expand into cross curricular studies, taking longer with each book. Gravitas has two different "series" for this purpose.

The first series—"Connects to Language"—is so useful that Gravitas bundles the appropriate title with the core books for Level 1 for each topic. There are three specialized books: Chemistry Connects to Language, Biology Connects to Language, and Physics Connects to Language. These books use a "root word" approach to teach scientific vocabulary through a variety of exercises. While these might be too challenging for some fourth graders with words such as "phagocytosis, aerophagia," and "anthropophagite," they should be great for junior high students and even high school students.

Gravitas Publications also came up with the Kogs-4 Kids™ books to help promote a broader scientific literacy. Right now there is only one set of the Kogs, and they are written to accompany Level 1 Chemistry. This series of six workbooks show science connections to other subjects. Titles are: Critical Thinking Kog, History Kog, Language Kog, Philosophy Kog, Technology Kog, and Arts Kog. The Language Kog is similar enough to Chemistry Connects to Language that you shouldn't need both. (Gravitas has a bundle with the core Chemistry books and Chemistry Connects to Language and another bundle that includes the above plus all six Kogs. The latter bundle includes a Lesson plan booklet that shows how to incorporate the Kogs with Chemistry for a 22-week course. Both bundles include a chart of the Periodic Table.)

All six Kogs are printed in black-and-white, and they vary in length from 78 to 126 pages. The Critical Thinking Kog is an introductory course in critical thinking for upper elementary students. It includes introduction of logic and basic fallacies, generally using examples from chemistry. The History Kog explores the history of chemistry through brief biographical sketches and stories of discoveries and inventions. Students occasionally write responses to questions and fill in timelines in the workbook. The Technology Kog is a fascinating look at a variety of topics interspersed with a few hands-on activities and some written responses. Some topics include nanotechnology, crystals, hard water, etching, antacids in the human body, ferro fluids, hydrogenated fats, and synthetic fabrics like Nomex and Kevlar. The Philosophy Kog revisits some of the conversations ancient philosophers (natural scientists) might have had regarding their ideas. Text is enhanced with cartoon illustrations, "philosophy plays" (dialogues), and discussion questions. The Arts Kog really has to stretch into physics in addition to chemistry to make applications to music, visual arts, literary arts, dramatic arts, and architecture. A variety of activities reflect applications in the different areas.

Using the Kogs and Chemistry Level 1 course could be sufficient for science for a year, and you would be covering lots of materials for other subject areas at the same time.

Level 2 for grades 7 through 9 has only
Chemistry available thus far. The course can be considered introductory chemistry rather than a complete chemistry course. At 243 pages, the text does a thorough job of teaching those topics it addresses with a generous number of full-color illustrations and understandable text, but it does not attempt to cover all the same content covered in standard high school chemistry courses. Missing, for example are heat reactions. The ten experiments in the lab book are also insufficient for a high school course. Each lesson, including reading the text and completing the experiment should take from 3 to 5 hours. With ten lessons, that makes a total of only about 40 hours (using an average of 4 hours per lesson). The text includes study questions (answer key is in the Teacher's Manual), but there are no quizzes or tests. You could beef up the Chemistry course by purchasing the High School Chemistry Intro Bundle that includes the text, teacher's manual, lab workbook, Language Kog, and Critical Thinking Kog, OR you could purchase the Level II Chemistry Student/Teacher Bundle that includes the core books plus Chemistry Connects to Language. Chemistry, even just the core book, is a great course for junior high level, but it remains to be seen what other products Gravitas develops to see how well it suits high schoolers.

All these books are first editions of an entirely new curriculum, so there are errors as you might expect. Chemistry Level II comes with correction pages since the errors here are the most critical.

Real Science-4-Kids offers substantive science instruction, especially for kindergarten through eighth grade. It also meets the needs of those looking for a religiously neutral approach. It does require teacher preparation and presentation time, especially since the lab work is directly connected with each lesson in its corresponding textbook. Even, so it should be very easy for parents without much science background to teach. They might actually enjoy learning science for a change since Real Science-4-Kids makes it so easy to understand.

I am curious to see how Gravitas fills out the curriculum since the concentration seems to be on Biology, Chemistry, and Physics thus far, while Earth/Space science is described as a fourth topic in the core foundation for science. The biggest issues are likely to be the cost and how to fill in the years when you're not using Real Science-4-Kids. Gravitas offers a few ways to shave costs such as the Level 1 Combined Teacher's Manual ($49.95 for all three TMs) and CD's with Teacher's Manual and Laboratory Workbook for each course. Check the website for all these options plus sample chapters that you can preview for free.

Review posted October 2009.