Scienceworks for Kids Series
Katy Z. Allen
Evan-Moor Educational Publishers
www.evan-moor.com
18 Lower Ragsdale Drive
Moneterey, CA 93940-5746
1-800-777-4362
Living Things is one of six units in the Scienceworks for Kids series, grades 4-6+.
This reproducible workbook contains over 20 hands-on “investigations” of living things. Included are teacher information pages, learning diagrams, step-by-step lessons and instructions, and worksheets for recording observations.
Don’t be fooled by this little workbook. The projects are big, and require some big preparation and supplies, such as “a variety of potted plants,” owl pellets (they say you can find these on the internet, but don’t tell you exactly where to get them), microscopes, hand lenses, glass jars, mushrooms, radish seeds (you plant 40 to 50 at some point), potting soil, gravel, bought flowers (a wide variety—for dissecting), old socks, meal worms, yogurt containers, aquariums, earth worms, wrapping paper, disposable gloves—whew! I’m tired! But that’s just part of the list! The workbook is written for classroom use. Reading through it, it seems like someone sat in on my 7th grade life science class and dictated the experience into a book.
Although the book seems to be solid scientifically and offers an abundance of information and activities, from a homeschooling standpoint, this is not a feasible product. This book would work for a homeschooling co-op (classroom style), or for a family that wanted to spend a lot of time and effort on science—but this book does not work for me! I tried to assess whether the book could be adapted for homeschool use, but that just didn’t seem easily doable. The “preparation” part for each “investigation” just overwhelmed me and was too much for my little homeschool. If you want to play “full time science teacher” and you want big school science—this is your book. If you want a nice, focused, homeschool text book with simple student activities and questions, and simple experiments with simple supply lists, this is not it.
—Product review by: Camilla Anderson, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, July 2008.
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