To round out our Homeschool Science year we got to review e-Science Premium Membership by Supercharged Science.
Science is one of those subjects that homeschool parents can dread. Maybe we had our own struggles with science when we were in school. Maybe we had to deal with dry lessons and not enough help figuring things out. But whatever the struggle eScience aims to change that and offer a new experience for our children.
I always like to find new ways to boost the science in our home and e-Science Premium Membership is a complete online homeschool science curriculum that parents can do with their kids or, if they are a bit older, the students can go through eScience independently.
Owner Aurora Lipper an engineer, who used to work for NASA has created a full online science curriculum covering all grades from Pre-K through high school. Through her experiences and education she discovered that to learn science you have to make it hands on and you have to make it fun.
Now I think it's great she's bringing that NASA experience to the homeschool community. And it explains the ton of fun and easy science experiments in e-Science.
If science has never been your forte and you're worried about how to provide a good science program in your homeschool you'll want to give e-Science Premium Membership at try.
e-Science Premium Membership is K-8 for $37 and full access to K-12 for $57. We received full access to K-12.
So you can use eScience for all your children ages Kindergarten through High School.
When you enter into e-Science Premium Membership it's easy to get overwhelmed because there is just so much information. But luckily Aurora has it organized a few different ways to help walk you through it.
First of all definitely open your welcome email from e-Science since there you'll find a getting started PDF which will help you pick the right path for using e-Science with your family.
Since my daughter is in the third grade Aurora has organized the specific topics that children generally cover in the “Third Grade”.
In each section of each unit you can print out the reading sections to make it easier to work through with your child or read online if that is comfortable for you. I chose to print.
Aurora says you can start with the reading assignments or with the experiments. Whichever you feel is most beneficial.
Like the image below the links to navigate eScience are on the right hand side. Lesson Plans, a supplies list for the experiments, experiments with videos, and more depending upon the unit that you are in.
There are 20 Units, a Science eCamp, Math fun, Science Fair Projects, and Teaching Resources center within eScience.
How did we use it?
To give you a more accurate view of eScience I should tell you how we used it. There is a lot to access inside this program and everyone goes at it differently.
We had actually been preparing to study the body, under the topic of biology, when we started reviewing eScience.
When I went to start eScience by Grade the body wasn't under biology as maybe that's not a topic usually covered in the third grade so I went back and started he program by Unit.
We chose to start our e-Science Premium Membership by topic.
We jumped into eScience right at Unit 19 – Biology 2 , Skin, Bones, Muscular and Cardiovascular.
There is an intro video for this unit that really got us prepped for what was to come.
When we clicked into the rest of the lessons there was a list of experiments with videos to do. Here is where I got a little confused. Were we supposed to do all the experiments and then continue on go directly to the reading section linked on the sidebar?
When I clicked further another member had the same question as I did so I followed the answer Aurora gave and we went through the reading and then started on the experiments.
Like I said, everyone uses the program differently. For our homeschool I felt it best to read through Lesson 1 of the unit first and then tackle some experiments. I chose to print off the lesson and we read through it first.
In the skin section of the unit we learned all about cells, and tissues, how the body regulates itself, and what we're made of.
Sweet Peanut is incredibly interested in keeping the body healthy so finding out more about how the body works is a wonderful treat for her.
There is no set timeline for how long it takes to get through a lesson. You go at your own pace. Since the lessons are broken down into headings I chose to cover a heading each day. This way I could make sure that what we covered was understood. Since we covering a topic possibly at a higher grade level bite sized pieces, I felt, were best.
We also did some experiments to really get a feel for what we were learning. You can see visuals from a few we did such as…
- Rubber chicken bones and rubber eggs
- Mechanical Hands
The experiments were fairly easy and I like that for the most part Aurora did her best to not make you run to some obscure store for supplies. True you might need to pick up something off your beaten path for a few exercises but we were able to purchase items for the experiments we did at the local store. And one experiment only required a clock!
How do you do your science classes?
For our science classes I read the text to my daughter (as in school away from home). In this case then we would look through the included diagrams together and discuss them. Next day I would tell her about the experiment we would be doing. She helps me gather supplies and we set everything up. If it's more than a one day experiment we go as far as we're going for that day and then put things aside to the next day. At the end of the experiment we talk about what happened and then blab to everybody we know about the cool experiment we did. Then we take a test/quiz/ exercises to review what was learned.
How did we like it and my thoughts.
There is so much going on in e-Science it's easy to get overwhelmed. But take a deep breath. If you've been wanting a great homeschool science curriculum this is it. And if you have questions Aurora personally answers them which is nice.
I wish we got to start this at the beginning of our homeschool year. There is so much there and you can tailor it to your child.
I'm torn between using it according to grade level or by unit. By grade level we would have missed the body and the way it works which is of particular interest to my daughter. But going outside of the grade level meant that the information might be a little beyond her…or maybe not. We went on anyway and she did go back and read more on her own since it's a topic she loves dearly (eating healthy).
I really like e-Science. Aurora knows her stuff and you will get more than your money's worth with this science curriculum. You may have a budding scientist on your hand after a few lessons.
Aurora also encourages the keeping of a Science journal. I haven't talked my daughter into one yet. We do keep notes for some experiments but only if there is a nice typed out form for us. We're weird that way. So I guess that would be something I need to do.
Right now Aurora is giving all the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog followers full access to e-Science for just $1. Just follow this link => www.superchargedscience.com/opt/tos-review-esci-trial-04-2014-2/
Or you can get a mini science emailed to you at this link =>
You can connect with eScience at these places…