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Our Experience with the Preschool Science Series

May 29, 2017 3 min read

Over the last few months, I have been sharing with you all how science has looked in our homeschool. Today, we are going to head back a few years to preschool!

We had a blast with Exploring Science several years ago and today, I am going to share what a week looked like with this program.

How we used the Preschool Science Series each week

Before we chat about what preschool science looked like in our homeschool, I need to add a caveat.

Preschoolers are fickle little creatures. If you have one, you know what I mean. 

One day, they can't wait to do school. They love every part of it and soak learning time like a thirsty man after walking through the desert. 

Other days . . . not so much.

When you look at a plan for preschool science, think of the teacher's guide as a buffet of options. Each week, you can pick and choose what your students will enjoy and don't worry about the rest.

After all, your goal for preschool science is to ignite a desire to learn about science. That's it.

So science should be fun! If you want to know more, read a bit about what I believe about preschool science.

Whew, with that out of the way, let's look at an ideal week.

What our weeks should look like

For our first full year of preschool science, we aimed to do science twice a week with Exploring Science.

On the first day of our week, we aimed to:

  • Introduce the topic and color the coloring page.
  • Do the demonstration from the week together and complete the corresponding page.

On the second day of our week, we aimed to:

  • Read one of the additional books on the topic from the library.
  • Complete the additional activity on the corresponding page.

The plan was that simple for us! If time allowed, we would add in the nature study idea for the week, but we didn't always get to those. 

What our week actually looked like

The above is an ideal week - I thought I would share with you all an actual week, complete with our son's responses to give you a better picture!

Here's how the first day of our first week from Unit 5 went:

  • Our son listened to the introduction patiently and enjoyed looking at the different seeds. But he refused to color the page - he wasn't a fan of coloring at that age. So I made a mini-book for him instead with an insert with the topic that he could cut out and glue into the booklet, which made him much happier. (You can see how we did this in the picture - I hope to make these available to all soon.)
  • After we were done with the introduction, we started the demonstration, "Pebble Plant." Our little dude was absolutely convinced that his pebble would sprout just like the bean did, which was super cute . . . until later in the week when he realized that it wouldn't. Anyways, we started our seeds and taped them to the fridge to "grow."

Time: about 15 minutes

Here's how the second day of our first week from Unit 5 went:

  • We read the book, How a Seed Grows from the Let's-Read-and-Find... series, which our son enjoyed. We chatted about how plants grow and review the main topic for the week.
  • Then, I suggested that we do the bean dream craft project to which he replied with an emphatic, "NO!" So we skipped the additional activity for this week.
  • Later in the day, we had a few seeds for our snack and I again reminded him of our topic sentence for seeds from the week.

Time: 10 minutes

And that's what an actual week of Exploring Science looked like in our home. I hope you enjoyed this peek into our homeschool!

Learn more about the Preschool Science Series

2020 Update - This post was originally written in 2017 and a few things have changed since then. The biggest of which is that Exploring Science is no longer available.

Although this program is now out of print, our current preschool science programs are similar to what was shared in this post. If you want to see what we have to offer, visit the preschool science main page to learn more about our programs or check out the links below.

Programs in the Series

If you have questions about preschool science, please feel free to leave them in the comments below!



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