Homeschool Science Boot Camp Day 2: Get Ready for Science Reading

Welcome to day 2 of Homeschool Science Boot Camp! Today we are going to get ready for science reading. So grab your pencils, paper, books, and a cup of coffee – let’s get started!

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Highlights

Alright, so to help you guys prepare for this next year of homeschool we are in the midst of 5 days of boot camp. We have already covered experiments in day 1 and as you know it’s not your typical military-style boot camp, but we are doing the work to get ready to teach science for this next year! Let’s dig into day two where we are going to get ready for reading.

#1 – Plan out your books.

Just like with experiments, your first step for 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)

#2 – Get your reading selections ready.

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.

#3 – Be ready for discussion time.

Now that you have a plan in place for reading, you are ready for the final step of mentally preparing for your discussion time.

Yes, it is important to actually 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 types of questions:

• Leading Questions– This type of question is designed to pull out the most important information. 
• Broad Questions– This type of question will help you to 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 mentally prepare yourself for discussion time, you are ready to dig into reading science with your kids this next year.

Additional Resources

If you still feel uncertain, here are a few more tips: 

• Ep. 23 - Should I use l living books, encyclopedias, or textbooks?
• 50+ Books we love to use to teach science
• Ep. 36 - Finding Scientific Information 101
• Ep. 15 - How we use technology to learn about science