The eight Common Sense Science courses can be used by homeschool families with children in grades one through six as their core science program. While each course’s content and activities are geared primarily for grades three through six, activities for first and second graders are included so they can be involved.
Using a course three days per week, it will take one semester to complete each course, so two courses per school year should be used. Following this schedule allows families to use Common Sense Science as their core science program over a span of four years. The eight courses are:
- Earth
- Human Body
- Insects
- Oceans
- Plants
- Space
- Tools
- Vertebrates
The courses can be used in any order. Each course has two components, the course book and a student materials package. Both are printed in black and white and are available in print and digital formats.
The printed student materials package is a stapled packet of pages with vocabulary words and their definitions, graphic organizers, and lab book pages. The ebook can be printed and generally makes the most sense if you have more than one child.
A parent reads lesson content from the course book, showing students illustrations as they are discussed. No prep time is needed for this part of the lessons. A grey font is used to insert occasional instructions just for the teacher. The course book directs you to use at least one hands-on or graphic organizer activity for almost every day. The activities are identified with icons for three different levels of difficulty. For example, page 20 in the Oceans coursebook has all students use a graphic organizer page about salt water. First and second graders might simply color the two pictures of a child standing and a child lying in saltwater. Third and fourth graders will “Write one or two facts about saltwater on the bottom of the page." Fifth and sixth graders will write one or two facts about saltwater at the top of the page, and on the bottom, they will explain the process of desalination.
The graphic organizers were created by Dinah Zike, well known for her Big Book of Books and Activities and other books where she shows how to cut and fold paper into all sorts of creative forms to be used by students as tools for learning and presenting information. The graphic organizers are cut out, folded, and glued, and students will—according to their ability—write information, draw, or color pre-printed images. Many of the organizers are added to throughout the course. Students will need a large zipper bag or another way to store the graphic organizers.
Students will complete one or more lab activities most weeks, using household and easily obtainable resources. (A list of lab resources is near the front of each course book.) Labs are sometimes prefaced with a question for students to answer, and the course book often includes questions to help students analyze their observations and arrive at a valid conclusion. Students will construct a lab manual from the student materials package in which they will write their predictions, observations, and conclusions. Some images in the student materials will be used for labs.
Day 3 of each week’s lesson provides you with a choice of activities that cover a range of learning styles and age abilities, although some weeks, they all seem geared for grades three through six. The activities might involve a game, research, discussion, writing, watching a video, presenting research results orally, or completing a scientific observation. Some might be done by the family, and some might be done independently by older students.
Parents should look ahead at graphic organizers to make sure they understand what is being done with them in each lesson, and planning for labs is essential. While this is not an open-and-go program, it is still relatively easy to use.
Summary
The Common Sense Science series should be great for hands-on learners who enjoy constructing graphic organizers and participating in lab work.
