Review of ScienceandMath.com

Hailey absolutely loves science!!  It’s one of her favorite subjects and she can never get enough of it.  We haven’t found a science curriculum to use next year, so when I was given the chance to review ScienceandMath.com I was really excited to check it out!

So, what did we think of ScienceandMath.com?

I used ScienceandMath.com with Hailey, age 7 for a second grade science curriculum.  You can start anywhere you want with the DVDs.  You can pick a topic that is interesting to your child, you can pick experiments that you already have the materials on hand for, or you can just go in order.  You can do it any way you want.  We did several experiments each week, and I picked them based on what Hailey thought looked like fun and that we could easily come up with the materials to complete the experiments ourselves.

The first experiment we watched was called Color Changing Milk.  We watched it on the DVD first and learned why it works the way it does through a very detailed explanation.  Then, we tried it ourselves.

We put some milk on a paper plate (whole milk works best) then we put some drops of food coloring onto the plate.  Hailey dipped a Q-Tip into Dawn dish soap and then touched it into the drops of food coloring.  The results were really interesting!!

Hailey watched the lesson for Lift an Ice Cube with String.  Then we tried it on our own, using a cup of water, an ice cube, string and salt.  We learned why we put salt down on icy roads and sidewalks.

Hailey was amazed that it worked!

We also watched the Simple Lava Lamp lesson.  Hailey tried it on her own using water, food coloring, vegetable oil and salt.

It’s hard to see in the picture, but it did create a lava lamp effect.

There is so much to ScienceandMath.com.  This is just a small sample of some of the lessons and experiments we tried.  I really liked that the lessons were done for me, I just had to watch them with Hailey.  Science has never been easy for me, so it was kind of like having a science teacher here doing the work for me.  Of course, I had to help her do the experiments, but they were fun and simple.  Hailey also really enjoyed watching the experiments and always wanted to do several each day.

So, here is what is boils down to for me:

Pros:
Hailey enjoyed it and asked to do more.
We just had to watch the lessons, I didn’t have to do much ahead of time except gather a few materials.
I didn’t have to buy any materials- we had everything around our house that we used.
The lessons were very educational.
These videos can be used for a wide age range.

Cons:
The only thing Hailey did not like about the program was that sometimes the explanations of the experiments were a little too long.  I found the explanations to be very interesting and I learned quite a bit.  But, while Hailey loved the experiment portion of the videos, she lost interest in the explanations as to why they worked the way they did.

Want to see some more of ScienceandMath.com?  Check them out here:

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ScienceAndMathCom

Science4Us.com Review

When I started homeschooling Hailey this past fall I had no idea that her favorite subject would be science.   The curriculum we were using included science, but it was very light and only a couple of times each week.  Hailey was begging to do science every day and wanting it to last longer than just a couple of minutes.  I started doing some unit studies with her, but it was very time consuming to research everything and come up with activities and experiments.  Plus, science was definitely never my strong subject. So, when I was given the chance to review Science4Us.com I was so excited!

I was able to review the Science4Us.com Online Subscription.  This program is intended to be used with children in kindergarten through second grade.  Older children can use it as a review of things they have probably already learned.  A monthly subscription to Science4Us.com is $7.95 per child.  This is an online program, so you will need a computer with internet access to use it.

There are 2 different accounts set up- one is for the parent/teacher and one is for the child.  The parent/teacher can decide which topic to cover- there are 4 different sciences: physical, inquiry, life and earth/space.  Within those topics there are many different sub-topics.  For example in the physical science you can choose to study matter, energy or force and motion.  Once you decide what you want to cover, you will see a page like this:

Hailey is waiting for one of her assignments to load.  The assignments all loaded very quickly for us, so there was no unnecessary waiting.

This is one of the activities she did and we discussed the answer.

Of course, we had to have a little bit of hands-on fun when learning about magnets!

This is one of the offline activities that came with the magnet unit.

Hailey really enjoyed the magnet unit and loved every online activity she did.

The units are also tied in with some language arts, and there were language arts activities related to magnets (or whatever the particular topic of study happens to be).

This is just one more example of some of the offline work.  Hailey had to take different words and put them together so that they stated one of the facts she had learned about magnets.

We did the space unit as well, which was also a lot of fun.

Hailey had to write or draw a picture of what she would need to get to space.

She also did a little report about the different parts of space she had learned about.

She created a book about the different parts in the universe.

One of the pages in her universe book.

This was one of her favorite offline activities- she pretended she met an alien on her journey to space and had to draw a picture of what it looked like.  This actually got her creative juices going and she decided she wanted to write an entire story about her alien.

As you can see there is a lot to Science4Us.com.  There wasn’t much work at all on my part.  I looked everything over before Hailey did it, and printed out some of the offline activities, but for the most part the program did all of the work.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about using an online program for school, especially for science where I think there should be a lot of hands-on activities.  But, I really feel that Science4Us.com provides a lot of opportunities for hands-on learning, especially if you use the offline work.  Hailey absolutely loved Science4Us.com.  She begged to do “just one more assignment” every time!  Some of them are short, so I let her do a few at a time on some days.  It’s wonderful to have your child begging to do more science.

So, here is what is boils down to for me:

Pros:
Very easy for me to implement.
Hailey loved it and begged to do more.
The lessons were very interesting and educational.

Cons:
The only thing I did not like was during the assessment at the end of the unit- Hailey was taking her test and accidentally clicked on the wrong answer.  She had just told me the correct answer, so I knew she knew the information.  But, her answer was automatically submitted, so she missed one on her test… and because of her personality she insisted on taking the entire test over so she could get 100%.  I think maybe it should be set up so the child selects an answer and then clicks submit, to take away the chance of accidentally picking the wrong choice.  This was definitely not a huge deal for us though.

I highly recommend Science4Us.com- we really loved this program!!

Want to see some more of Science4Us.com?  Check them out here:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Science4UsSays
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/science4us/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Science4Us
G+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/112259351657747584252/