August often marks the beginning of the back-to-school season, or the not-back-to-school season if you are homeschooling!

And we want to help you get ready for another year of doing science at home. Here are five ways to get read for a new year of homeschooling.

NOTE - When you choose to use one of our science programs, we have taken care of most of this work for you! You can simply scan over your teacher guide to make sure you have the supplies you need on hand and skip down to step 5.

5 Ways to Get Ready for Homeschool Science for this Next Year

1. Get Ready for Experiments

The first step for getting ready to do experiments is to plan them out. There are two options here:

1. Get a program with the experiments planned out for you and take a moment to read over the first couple of weeks of experiments just to see what you have in store.

2. Pull out those experiment books or pull up your Pinterest account and search for science activities that will fit the topics you have planned.

Your second step to getting ready for experiments is to gather the supplies you need for at least the first few weeks of experiments or for the entire year.

The last step is to prepare yourself for when things don’t go as planned. You will have an experiment that doesn’t go according to plan. When it does, you want to:

• Ask a few questions that will help you get to the heart of why the experiment didn’t go as planned.

• Then, discuss what should have happened or you can correct the problems.

• And try again if there is time.

Going through this type of analysis will help you rescue that dud and turn it into a positive learning opportunity!

Once you plan your experiments, get your supplies ready, and prepare yourself for the work, you are ready to dig into sharing experiments with your kids this next year.

More Homeschool Science Experiment Tips:

• 5 Tips for success with experiments at home
• Have you visited the realm of the failed science experiment?
• 100 Useful items for a science supply closet

2. Get Ready for Science Reading

Just like with experiments, your first step in getting ready for your science reading is to plan out the books you are going to use.

You can choose:

• Children’s encyclopedias (DK, Usborne, or Kingfisher)

• Living books (Sassafras Science)

• Textbooks (Prentice Hall or CK-12)

After you have the books you want to read from, the second step is to choose your reading selections. Start by figuring out how many weeks you have for each book and then divide up the pages you want to cover equally between the weeks.

Now that you have a plan in place for reading, you are ready for the last step of preparing for your discussion time. Yes, it is important to read the pages you have planned, but the discussion time you have afterward is the way you know your student understood and will remember the information you just read. You can use the following questions:

• Leading Questions–This type of question pulls out the most important information. 

• Broad Questions–This type of question will help you see what material the students have absorbed. 

• General Questions–This type of question will allow you to see what the students found interesting. 

Once you plan your reading, get your books ready, and prepare yourself for discussion time, you are ready to dig into reading science with your kids this next year.

More Homeschool Science Reading Tips:

• 50+ Books we love to use to teach science
• How do we narrate and what to expect
• Don't skip that science discussion time

3. Get Ready for Writing in Science

The first step to getting ready for writing is to decide how you are going to keep a record. You can choose:

• Comprehension worksheets,

• Notebooking,

• Lapbooks,

• Or some other form of writing.

I recommend using notebooking with your students!

Once you have a plan for writing, you need to get ready to be flexible! Remember, the main point of teaching science is to learn about science - writing is just a tool you are using. If your student hates science because of the writing, simply modify the writing expectations so that they are easy on your child.

The third step for getting ready for writing in science is to be prepared to assess your student’s work. We believe students go through six stages over multiple years:

1. Giving oral answers

2. Copying their oral narrations

3. Writing their own narrations

4. Finding and writing the facts

5. Organizing those facts

6. Summarizing those facts

The main thing you are looking for in your child’s writing in science is consistent progress year after year. 

Once you plan your writing, get ready to be flexible, and prepare knowing how to assess your children’s writing in science, you are ready to dig into writing in science with your kids this next year.

More Homeschool Science Writing Tips:

• Writing in Science: The Elementary Years
• Writing in Science: Middle School and Beyond 
• Writing in Science with a Well-Trained Mind {Interview with Susan Wise Bauer}

4. Get Ready for the Extras

Extras are all those fun things you sprinkle in throughout the year. These extras can be:

• Memory work,

• Unit projects,

• Related crafts,

• Field trips,

• And so much more.

All these extra activities should add value and interest to the core of your science plans.

Once you decide what you are going to add, you need to do a bit of legwork to get ready for the extras. Here are a few ways you can get ready for the extras.

1. Have your memory work selections printed out so you can reference them throughout the year. 

2. Have an art and crafts box with the supplies you will need for arts and crafts projects. 

3. Have a field trip folder with ideas in it. 

A caveat: Be ready to set aside those planned extras on the crazy weeks when life gets in the way. Do your best to add in those things that enhance your core science plans, but give yourself grace for the moments when that is not possible!

Once you plan out your extras, get ready with a bit of legwork, and prepare yourself for those crazy weeks. You are ready to dig into the science extras with your kids this next year.

More Homeschool Science Extras:

• The Elemental Science Activities Blog
• Memory Work Guides (Elementary and Middle School)
• Friday Fun Day
• Science Field Trip Ideas

5. Get Read for the Tough Days

There is one thing I want you to remember when it comes to teaching science—Plan for success but be prepared to be flexible.

The good news is that over the last four steps, you have done the work of planning your year of science! But you can continue to plan for success by getting tips to help you as you work through those plans. You can do this by:

• Reading books,

• Following helpful blogs

• Or by listening to podcasts.

Basically, you want to find a few places you can turn to when you hit a rough patch in your plans that you need to work through. 

Remember the beauty of homeschooling is we can be flexible! When you have one of those days, let things go or change things up. You are in the driver’s seat of your science plans, so adjust them to meet your needs!

More Homeschool Science Help:

• Book: The Homeschooler's Guide to Experiments
• Blog: The Elemental Science Blog
• Podcast: The Tips for Homeschool Science Show

We hope you feel encouraged and ready to dig into a new year of homeschool science with your kids!