Hands - On Science

Hands-On Science by Elizabeth Brough is geared towards K-6 and is the first volume of a series. Volume 1 is Particles in Motion chapters include, Thermodynamics, Weather Climate & Water, Aerodynamics and Astronomy. For $29.95 you get a whole years worth of science, click here to download sample pages.

I love the way each chapter is connected, while you could utilize only the chapters you wanted to it would not be as effective. The author planned the curriculum so that each lesson goes into the next allowing students a greater understanding of why?

Each lesson has two options for the experiments so younger children can learn on their level and older children as well. Experiments can than be carried a step further with the further exploration segment.

While the experiments were easy enough to do the boys hated the fact that the first lesson incorporated math. This was too much for them and they quickly abandoned ship. I tried to explain to them the importance of understanding density and volume were important, but to no avail.

The lesson on clouds however, held their interest and led to the Internet for further research on clouds. My 12 year old and I mostly browsed through Google images utilizing the book as a guide for the different clouds.

Over all I love how the author's personality comes through instead of dry writing. Lessons are short enough so children don't get bored listening, but spend more time doing. A list of materials is included in the front after the how to use section. Some lessons also include simple games and suggested reading.

While the author did include charts to use they were part of a whole page. It would have been nice to have those in the back of the book for easy printing. I would have liked to have seen some online links along with the reading suggestions.

We will be using this book more for my 6th and 8th grade boys. Even if they don't like the math.