Janice Van Cleave Science Books

After checking several of the Janice Van Cleave science experiment books out of the library, I was happy to find a couple in a clearance bin. These are great to have as part of your home library. Many of the experiments use items that you already have around the house. Earlier in the week, we did an experiment that used ice, sand and salt. A17 loves science so we'll be doing more of these.

Planning for Next Year

I am starting to plan for next year based on some choices A17 has made for science topics. Some of these topics include volcanos, polar bears, pumpkins, and birds.

We will start off the school year with a unit on the human body. I am gathering resources from several places including Little Otter's Science Curriculum. This is a wonderful human body study geared toward preschool--first grade and would work well for some special needs students. Our library has many of the books on the suggested reading list.

I will also be taking pieces from several HOAC lapbooks including Human Body and Germs.

We will doing some projects from this book.

In addition to science units, we will be continuing with Touchmath. I am considering supplmenting Touchmath with some living math books from the Mathstart series. I have read a lot about a Living Math approach on Kendra's and Heather's blogs.

Since A17 has been very interested in arts and crafts, I have been putting together a unit for him on art which I hope will have us exploring some different types of projects. We will be using this book :

plus some stories about artists and their work. One of these is the Katie series by James Mayhew.

We will also be checking out the Smart About Art series and Touch the Art which is a board book series with textures.



I like to have a general plan down on paper and then tweak things as we go along. If A17 is really into something I want to be able to spend more time with it or if interest is flagging I can switch gears.



If you are homeschooling or creating a meaningful day, have you made any plans? Comments and links are welcome!

Science Experiments

A17 loves science! This year we have had fun adding science and experiments to all of our units.
While we check out tons of books from the library, it is nice to have some experiment books of our own so we can do an experiment any time. I have found some neat books at the half price bookstore and in the bargain racks at Borders.

Here are some of our favorite experiment books:

Janice VanCleave's Science Around the Year
Janice VanCleave's 203 Freezing, Frosty, Cool and Wild Science Experiments
Janice VanCleave's 200 Gooey, Slippery, Slimy, Weird and Fun Science Experiments
Pop Bottle Science
501 Science Experiments
DK Kitchen Science
The Everything Kids Science Experiment book