Friday, May 31, 2019

The Year Is Almost Over....



The current school year is almost over for record keeping purposes.  Is anyone else feeling this?




Thursday, May 30, 2019

Supercharged Science - e-Science Homeschool Science Curriculum Review





Teaching science just from a textbook can be so boring.  We recently had the opportunity to review Supercharged Science - e-Science Homeschool Science Curriculum, a fun video-based, hands-on approach to science.  

Science is a subject that I just feel like I struggle in teaching.  I have a basic grasp on topics, but fear if the kids may ask questions beyond my base knowledge.  It happens and most times I can find the answer, but it would be nice to have access to videos that I do not need to pre-watch for inappropriate content like I need to currently do.  

At Supercharged Science they want to take away the boring part of science, and help the educators out too.  There is not stacks of boring textbooks and piles of papers.  They want to take you into the fun stuff, the experiments and hands-on adventures.  They want to help provide your child with a strong foundation that will help them through college and beyond.



The Supercharged Science - e-Science Homeschool Science Curriculum includes over 900 science activities, experiments and projects for PK through high school.  They provide lesson plans, data/lab sheets, exercises, reading materials, and quizzes.  There are also videos of real scientists in action.  e-Science Homeschool Science Curriculum makes it super easy to use, even providing a full tutorial on how to start and advance through the course.  There is even a section on how to keep a science journal to help track your student's progress.

We have been studying Chemistry this last year, and we had the opportunity to go through projects in this section.



Using e-Science Homeschool Science Curriculum is very user friendly.  You can easily choose what section you would like to start in and work your way from there.  There are plenty of safety videos to encourage children to follow proper scientific processes, but still encourage children to explore through trial and error.  But you can choose by grade level also, and simply advance through each unit.  Very easy to adapt to your family's learning style and interest.

We started out by watching the videos and downloading the worksheets for the experiment.  The worksheets contain more reading about the science experiment and some history on the project.  They also contain experiment materials needed and questions for the student to answer typically after they have worked on the experiment.  And just in case you are struggling....the answers are there for parents that have students working independently.

Working on the Electrolysis project:




We did most of the experiment questions through oral question and answer, since we were working on the projects together.  But the reading material was very interesting to go through and gave us extra material to work with past the experiment video.  We were able to get excellent explanations about why things were happening.

Supercharged Science - e-Science Homeschool Science Curriculum is for use with students in K - 12th grades.  So you can teach multiple levels in a family using this program.  There are advanced topics for middle school students that are gifted, and also suggestions and ideas section for science fair projects.

But you can also choose by topic, which is how we chose to use the program since the girls were in the same science topics but different grade levels.  

Throughout each science topic covered, your student is encouraged to keep a science journal of the studies.  Not only do they keep notes on the experiments they have done, but she has also encouraged them to keep pictures in the journal also.  Since Caty struggles more with writing currently, we did not enforce the journal requirement.


I really like that Supercharged Science - e-Science Homeschool Science Curriculum has provided so much information and material at my disposal for scientific studies.  It definitely makes learning more fun!!  There is a flexibility that allows me to choose to present what I want to and when I want to.  Lesson length can be made as long or as short as I need to for that science class.  This works great for the different learning types and disabilities that we have in our house.  The kids can also work independently on many of the topics, which is great when you are working with multiple kids.

Several members of the Homeschool Review Crew were given the opportunity to review Supercharged Science - e-Science Homeschool Science Curriculum.  Click on the link below to see how they used this in their homes and what they thought of it.

e-Science Homeschool Science Curriculum {Supercharged Science Reviews}
Crew Disclaimer


Friday, May 24, 2019

Mom Goes Out, Medical Procedure, and the Science Fair



I got out at the first of the week!!  I met up with some friends and we went to see The Hustle.  We haven't done this is so long! We had a blast!


Lydia won a grant to help pay her show fees at Congress in the Fall.


Our last World Geography meal for the year was Taiwanese Beef and Noodle Soup.  This was a real hit with everyone.  So I will probably made this again sometime soon.  It was super easy.  We finished World Geography this week with our last two Asian countries of the Philippines and Taiwan.


Tennis is ongoing.  The boys and Caty are prepping for our regional competition coming up in a couple week.  So practicing a lot is the key.



Brayden is chugging away at his math.  He struggles with pre-algebra.  So when he finishes his level of Teaching Textbooks, he'll be concentrating on Life Skill math Since he will be graduating next year.


We walked down to our local library one day.  It was a great casual stroll and Caty enjoyed spreading dandelion seeds along the way.


Caty's ants attacking the goldfish crackers she just fed them.


Brayden has a pilonidol cyst.  So we had to go and see a surgeon.  He lived on Youtube the whole time.


Cycling is the best.  Brayden loves it.



Lydia's finished shirt from her Dr. Who history class.


Brayden had to go in and have the cyst drained.  We have decided to hold off on the major surgery.  The dr. seems to think he'll do fine with leaving it alone for a few months.  He did very well with the process today.


It was the last day of live classes for me.  One of my students gave me this little present.  Isn't it awesome!!

Lydia had a volleyball game and practice this week.


Cheerleading practice for summer competitions are well underway.


Finally....finally....our driveway is getting repaired.  This is a temporary fix.  But will be super helpful.


It was time for our Annual Science Fair.


Science Fair projects....  Caty with "Do Ants Prefer Salty or Sweet?"


Lydia "Does Pollution Affect Sea Turtle Eggs?"



This was a super busy week.  It was also time for the Annuals Sports Banquet for Henry County Special Olympics.






Lydia and I also planted flowers at the stable.



In her Series of Unfortunate Events Literature class, she needed to draw an eye...the way she sees it.  She also had to give descriptive words to describe a character in the book of the week.


4H season is in full swing.  Lydia is the Club President this year and she was up to give her demonstration.  She chose to present her grooming bag for Horseless Horse project.


I worked with the Cloverbuds.  We made "can" phones using string and plastic cups.


And wrote secret messages using baking soda and grape juice.  This was very cool to see.


Then we rushed home and hosted a How To Train Your Dragon 3 viewing party with our friends.







Joey and Wyatt were flying dragons.


This is how we roll and we survived the week....yet again.  I'm hoping for some downtime soon, but I know that it's not going to happen since summer brings new work schedules for all the kids.

Hope everyone had a great week!