Science4Us.com Review

Do you have a science curriculum you love for your K-2 students? Is it engaging? Do your kids ask to do it? Or do they dread another day of “school”? We have found a great younger student science program to share with you called Science4Us.com Perhaps you and your young science students will love it too!

We are currently reviewing a six month subscription to Science4Us.com Online Supscription an interactive online science program. It is produced by the same wonderful folks from another program my kids love called VocabullarySpellingCity.com

What is Science4Us.com?

The Science4Us.com curriculum is a complete, standards-based, core science curriculum for students
in Kindergarten through Second Grade.

K-2nd
Grade Science

Review for 3rd-5th Grade Science

Over
350 Online Lessons,

Hands-On Activities and Worksheets.

Web-Based.

Available on iPad in 2014.

Correlates
to National & State Standards.

Builds
Math & Language Arts Skills.

Automated
Reporting

Great for Homeschool Portfolios.

Science4Us.com Online Subscription costs $7.95 per student per month.

Science4Us curriculum is divided into 28 modules that cover 4 areas of science: Physical Science, Life Science, Earth/Space, and Inquiry.

Science for you motivates kids and expands their learning of various science and developmental skills, science concepts and understanding, literacy, procedures, through computer-based digital learning, virtual investigations, and through fun explorations of science.

How we are using Science4Us.com

I have four kids signed up for this program and they are ages 5, 6, 9, and 11. My Preschooler and Kindergartner are working on this program together, and the other two are working independently. The younger two are so excited to be doing big “school” with the same program as their older siblings. They enjoy watching the videos and doing the hands on learning activities. The 9 year old and 11 year old have been using this program for review of things they have learned.

Each day my kids spend about 25 to 30 minutes working with this interactive program doing the tutorial online videos, and correlating activities. When they sign on, they have their own science lab dashboard and can choose a book of science to study, watch a video, complete an online activity, etc. I also print off worksheets, science sheets, crafts, experiments, etc for them to do offline too. All the links are provided in the curriculum. The dashboard also helps the kids keep track of their learning progress.

The program literally teaches the kids itself and requires as much or as little imput from me after I get them started. However, I can expand what they are learning as much as I want too by using the printable lesson plans and additional activities.

Each grade level has their own level of challenges and activities and worksheets, but I love it that all the grade levels can be learning the same topic and information at the same time. This makes teaching various age levels so handy for the teacher.

You can go as fast or as slow as you want. My older kids are completing this a little faster than recommended. There are 28 modules, and it takes approximately 8 days (sessions) to complete a module, or approximately two weeks (-2days). Or go faster if your child is comfortable at a faster pace, and accomplish this curriculum in half the time which I think is very reasonable.

Here is a sample of subjects covered, and a link to lesson plans and scope and sequence information for Kindergarten age:

Materials
and Mixtures, Energy
Sources, Heat Energy, Location and Perspective, Motion, Force, Science Tools, Living/Nonliving, Plants, Animals, Eco Awareness, Materials, Weather

Be sure to check out the website and review the lesson plans and scope and sequence for First and Second grades too. They have really done a great job putting all of this together for the students and the parents. I love how easy the lesson plans make teaching these subjects. You just follow the steps, have the kids review the videos, do the online challenges, do the offline challenges, etc.

So far, we have worked on the subject book area of EARTH/SPACE. Space unit is divided into two areas: Exploring the Universe and Earth in Space. Earth unit is divided into 4 areas: History of Earth, Materials, Features, and Weather.

So for example, when we studied the WEATHER module, there were 8 session days in the lesson plans including videos and online challenges, each taking about 25-30 minutes to do. There were also 8 offline activities, one for each module, and these mostly entailed worksheets and observations of the sky for this subject. In this subject, we mostly focussed on procedure, tools, vocabulary, observation, and recording in learning this subject.

Vocabulary we learned about included: data, forecast, hail, measure, meteorologist, observe, precipitation, rain, rain gauge, record, severe weather, snow, temperature, thermometer, weather, and wind.

The kids learned about normal patterns in weather, seasons, and extreme weather (tornados, hurricains, blizzard, drought). They identified accessories and clothing, etc. to assist them in living with various weather conditions too. The kids filled in worksheets such as the OWL (Observation, Wonder, Learn) Charts, drew pictures of extreme weather, used weather vocabulary worksheets, made a weather book with flash cards, graphing, colored pictures, and more.

Currently our weather has been bitter cold for almost two months. We have had record breaking temperatures, and near record breaking snow fall totals for our region. We currently have had over 50 inches of snow for this winter. The kids are not happy about the current weather. But it was fun to observe the current weather in context with learning in this interactive online curriculum.

I think this is a great homeschool science curriculum for young learners. Science is fun! Science curriculum should be fun too. This program will fit right in with a wide variety of homeschool and classroom applications.

Be sure to connect with Science4Us.com on social media to keep up with all the latest news:

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/

Be sure to check out what others on the Schoolhouse Review Crew had to say about Science4Us.com