We strive to do as much of our science outside in the form of nature studies.  I was excited for the opportunity to review Learning About Science Collection, Level 2 from WriteBonnieRose.  It looked like it would be the perfect fit for our homeschool science curriculum.  The eight books in this collection study life science, earth science and physical science while helping to encourage further discussions, journaling and activities.

Books in a Variety of Science Topics

Learning About Science Collection, Level 2 includes eight study books, geared towards grade 1-3.  The books are as follows:

• Understanding Food Chains
• Why Do Animals Hibernate
• Plants: How They Grow and How They Help Us
• A Closer Look at Body Systems
• The Cycle of Water and Types of Clouds
• The Solar System: Planets, Earth’s Moon, and Constellations
• Forces and Simple Machines
• Scientists and the Scientific Method

Hibernation Discussion

We started our review with the book called Why Do Animals Hibernate.  I first printed the digital copy of the book that we received by printing 2 pages per sheet.  The book describes hibernation and then every 2 pages discuss a different animal and how they hibernate or other ways they survive the winter. Your child can trace the keyword and colour a sketch of the animal.  In this case, the keyword is usually the animal being discussed.  It includes bats, bears, chipmunks, groundhogs, hedgehogs, frogs, snakes, turtles, squirrels, beavers and raccoons.

My son was very interested in learning about how the animals hibernate.  We worked on one animal per lesson and since the lessons only take about 10 minutes, we usually worked on about 4-5 lessons per week.  At the end of each lesson, we would then talk about the animal in a bit more detail and look for an online video to help expand our learning.

I loved how easy is was to pack up this book and take it with us on our nature studies.  We even found a few of the animals discussed in the book. We talked about what they were doing in relation to hibernation.  My son was excited to share what he learned in his lesson with our family.  At the end of the book, he completed the small review that was included and was very proud of how well he remembered all of the interesting facts.

Learning about the Water Cycle and Clouds

We thoroughly enjoyed working through The Water Cycle and Types of Clouds.  Each of the pages discuss a different part of the water cycle and the last few pages describe different types of clouds.  This book works great for taking to the lake and sitting on the shore to read and work on. We would take this book with us as we went for a walk around the lake and then have a little discussion about the page that we were working on.

For the clouds portion, we laid on a blanket and looked up at the sky and identified the types of clouds that we were seeing. This led is a discussion about predicting the weather based on our observations.

There is also a review at the end to practise the terms related to the water cycle and clouds. Your child learns the shapes of stratus, stratocumulus, altostratus, altocumulus, cirrus, cumulus, and cumulonimbus clouds.  After each lesson, we would also pick up of favourite resource book that talks about the water cycle and expand on the lesson.

Food Chains and Ecosystems

Understanding Food Chains takes your child on a journey through various ecosystems and includes a small food chain on the bottom of each page that they can colour and add the sun, other animals and an arrow. It touches on how the sun plays an important part in the beginning of every ecosystem.  It includes the arctic, Australian woodlands, boreal forests, coniferous forests, deciduous forests, deserts, grasslands, marshes, mountains, oceans, ponds, rain forests, and the tundra.  We hope to come back to this book again when we study the ecosystems in more depth. For now, it was an excellent introduction into food chains.

Incorporating into Our Future Homeschool Science Curriculum

I plan to use Plants: How They Grow and How They Help Us in our homeschool science curriculum in September. We will take the book with us when we do our nature study.  It will help to guide our outdoor nature lessons for the month. When we get back into the house, we will also do some further reading.  I really like to incorporate videos as well, so I will find one video per discussion.  We will then work through the remaining 4 books later in our schoolyear.

Learning About Science Collection, Level 2 from WriteBonnieRose helps your children expand their vocabulary, practise their colouring and printing skills while learning science.  The lessons are short and easy to incorporate into your homeschool.  It is convenient to be able to take the books with us on our nature study and then expand on the topics with other reading materials and videos.  We look forward to trying the other levels that are available.

Check out more reviews from the Homeschool Review Crew about the following collections:

• Learning About Science Collection, Level 1
• Learning About Science Collection, Level 2
• Learning About Science Collection, Level 3 (Print)
• Learning About Science Collection, Level 3 (Cursive)

As one of my readers, you can save 50% on the bundled Learning About Science, Levels 1, 2 and 3 with the coupon code REVIEWCREW50 through to August 15th, 2018!  This means that you can get each set of ebooks for only $6per set!

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