2nd Grade Homeschool Science Curriculum Review

In this post, I talk about how we use Building Blocks of Science 2, Science in the Ancient World and Abeka’s Enjoying God’s World for a busy, hands-on, science-heavy academic year.

In my experience, having been a homeschool student and now being around fellow homeschool parents, I’ve seen science time and again get pushed out of the way for the more important “core subjects” of math and reading, most especially in elementary. And even though I can see now how expensive, messy and time-consuming teaching science in your homeschool can be, there are a few reasons I believe it’s important to make the time and financial investment to start off science strong and at a young age.

In The Absorbent Mind, Maria Montessori wrote these apt words:

When all are agreed that the child loves to imagine, why do we give him only fairy tales and toys on which to practice this gift? If a child can imagine a fairy and fairyland, it will not be difficult for him to imagine America. Instead of hearing it referred to vaguely in conversation, he can help to clarify his own ideas of it by looking at the globe on which it is shown. We often forget that imagination is a force for the discovery of truth. The mind is not a passive thing, but a devouring flame, never in repose, always in action.

So help your kids focus that imagination – that force for the discovery of truth – on anything and everything, from the structure of an atom to the way the planets and other heavenly bodies behave. Children can understand so much more than we often give them credit for.

And as much as I believe that mathematics has its own raison d’être apart from science, I think kids appreciate seeing the major applications of what they are learning in mathematics. The importance of doing their work accurately, learning to take measurements and even read a clock can all be explained as being important for their studies in science. If your student loves all things science and not arithmetic, this might be a good thing to help them keep in the forefront of their minds when pulling out the math books.

Science in the Ancient World

Apparently this is the second book in the series, but it picks up with Thales in 625 BC and goes to Leonardo da Vinci. There are 90 lessons, all of which have an experiment of some kind or hands-on activity to illustrate the concepts being taught. Each lesson is about 3 pages, but that is more than enough for this textbook. The lessons cover a lot of material in-depth, so much so that I was worried that most of it was going over my daughter’s head. This could easily be stretched to be a stand-alone science curriculum for second grade.

PROS

• Scientific discoveries are presented in chronological order, which keeps the variety of topics covered cohesive and logical.
• The book does contain many quality photographs and artwork of the scientists talked about.
• The ever-changing nature of science and the importance of being open-minded despite the current dogma of the day is highlighted incredibly well throughout the book – like Aristotle’s geocentric view of the universe being accepted as fact despite other scientists at the time believing that to be wrong.
• Because every lesson has an activity or experiment, it’s easy as the teacher to pick and choose which ones you want to do if you don’t feel like doing them all.

CONS

• I wish there was a bit more hand-holding with some of the experiments. Some are a little trickier to make work than others and it would have been nice to have a bit more guidance from the thin accompanying “Helps & Hints” booklet.

Exploring the Building Blocks of Science 2

If you get the set, it comes with a hardback student textbook, a lab manual and a teacher’s manual (for the experiments). There are also digital downloads, including 2 midterms and a final exam, some study notebook pages and some rather useless lesson plans (unless you’re teaching this in a school and have to turn in lesson plans – then it would be quite convenient). There are 22 chapters, all less than 10 pages each. The topics are chemistry, biology, physics, geology and astronomy. There are 4 experiments per chapter, some more involved than others. For physics, some of the “experiments” involve simply timing your student running, while there are chemistry experiments involving boiling red cabbage to make an indicator and test various acids and bases. For the biology section, the experiments require a decent quality ($$$) microscope.

PROS

• There are many good quality experiments to keep your science-loving student interested in the material.
• The use of a laboratory notebook is a great way to keep a young student involved in the experiments and not just entertained. It’s also very realistic in terms of what students will encounter as they study science at a more advanced level later on.
• The study notebook pages are a good review activity, even if you don’t use all of them.

CONS

• I don’t see how this could possibly be sufficient as a stand-alone science curriculum for a full academic year. There simply isn’t enough material.
• The laboratory notebook can involve quite a bit of writing – possibly too much for a young second grader. So you might want to skip some parts or help out your student.
• The student textbook does not contain photographs – only poor quality cartoon pictures.

Enjoying God’s World

With less than 200 pages and the most involved activity being to watch a pinwheel turn in the wind, this would not cut it for a student who is really interested in science, unless the teacher did a lot of extra planning and prep. If you’re just looking to check off science for the year, you could stretch this out. But it’s quite juvenile for a second grader.

PROS

• This is a reader, so my daughter can read this to me instead of vice versa.
• It covers several topics, from human anatomy to animal habitats.

CONS

• There are very few “experiments” or activities that we didn’t already do in Kindy.
• It reads more like a devotional than an actual science textbook most of the time.
• No one topic is covered with any depth, to the point it’s even difficult to call it a textbook at all.

Sample Schedule

• Monday – Building Blocks of Science: read chapter and do experiment.
• Tuesday – Review yesterday’s science lesson by doing the Study Notebook pages together (usually a lot of writing, cutting and taping).
• Wednesday – Read a lesson and do an activity in Science in the Ancient World.
• Thursday – Read a lesson and do an activity in Science in the Ancient World.
• Friday – 20 minutes of reading Enjoying God’s World

For a look at the rest of the subjects and books we’re using for second grade, check out Classical Second Grade Homeschool Curriculum Midyear Review.