Science4Us.com ~ Review ~ Teaching Science To Early Elementary
My kids love these fun online science lessons. They are self-paced and easy to use and understand for young kids.
Disclosure: I received a free copy of this product for review, all opinions are 100% my own.
Science is one of our family’s favourite subjects. So I was super excited when I heard about Science4Us.com!
As part of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I had the opportunity to review Science4Us.com Online Subscription for the past several weeks.
What Is Science4Us.com?
Science4Us.com is a complete standards based curriculum for grades kindergarten to 2 grade and serves as review for grades 3 to 5. The main part of this program is online and interactive, something our children love!
Topics included are:
Inquiry
Science Tools
Physical
Matter ~ Materials and Mixtures, Observing Matter, States of Matter, Changes in Matter
Energy ~ Energy Sources, Light Energy, Heat Energy, Sound Energy, Electrical Energy, Energy Transformations
Force and Motion ~ Location and Perspective, Motion, Force, Magnets, Simple Machines
Life
Living Things ~ Living and Nonliving, Plants, Animals
Balance In Nature ~ Food Webs, Habitats, Eco-Awareness
Earth/Space
Earth ~ History of Earth, Materials, Features, Weather
Space ~ Exploring the Universe, Earth in Space
When you first log into your teacher's account there is a welcome video I highly recommend watching. After that is finished there is a series of videos at the bottom of the screen that area is also very helpful.
These show you how to use the notebook, and student guide and how math skills, literacy skills, and other activities are taught. Science4Us.com also offers a scope and sequence if you want a guide to follow.
There are two menu boxes in the middle of your teachers' screen. The first one is the Account Tools.
Under here you can access the menus for managing your account and your student accounts.
The next menu box is Teaching Tools. In this box, you find links to Lesson Plans, Teaching Strategies, Student Reports, Assignments, and the notebook.
When you click on the lesson plan link it takes you to a new screen. Along the top are tabs with drop-down menus for the subjects listed above.
You select what module you would like to work on. Then it opens to a lesson plan screen for that module.
On this page, it lists the module description, and core concepts and has a list of essential vocabulary for this unit.
Under this, there is a professional development section. Here you can download a PDF called the teacher to explain printable or watch a video containing the same information. This gives an overview of the module for both the teacher part and student part along with ideas for discussion.
On the right side of the screen, it gives an estimate of how long this session will take. Also available is a teacher's guide.
This includes directions for the module for grades K-2 and worksheets that can be printed.
Also beside the module name is a “Quick Assign” button. Clicking on this brings up a new menu where you can select all or part of the module and assign it to your student.
Under the Student Report menu, you can see a chart showing all of your students, when their last login was, how many times they've logged in, how many activities they've completed, how many activities they have opened, how much time has been spent and the work they've saved.
In order to see their progress on each module, you have to select it from under the topic tabs. Then you see another chart showing their progress.
When the student logs into their account there is also an interdiction video for them to watch. This is very helpful and I suggest watching it!
If you have assigned assignments to your student they will appear in the middle of the screen. In the top right of the screen are 4 books of science on each for inquiry, physical, life, and earth/space.
Students can click on one of these books and then select what module they would like to work on. In each module, there are videos that introduce and teach the topic.
Then there are interactive games and notebooking activities to work on. Many of the activities also include math work and language arts, such as the SillyBull’s game where students unscramble and work with syllables for that module.
How We Used Science4Us.com
We are a relaxed style of homeschoolers and our children LOVE online learning. It really appeals to their right brain strengths.
I was super excited to review this product because although science is one of our favourite subjects here, I’m getting near the end of my pregnancy. I’m tired and have been on partial bed rest. I was glad to have a way our children could continue to explore science without turning the house into a complete chaos of mess!
Although Science4Us.com offers a scope and sequence you do not have to do the lessons in any order. I simply showed my children how to use the site and let them pick topics they were interested in.
They were free to work a bit in life science and then a little in earth science if they like. We haven’t used many of the printables because not all of my children enjoy worksheets and I found the online activities with the online notebook to be enough for them right now.
Of course, if they want more it’s nice to have them available!
Our children have really enjoyed using Science4Us.com and we will definitely continue using it for the rest of our subscription time. After that, if they have expanded their content, I would be interested in keeping our subscription as well.
Improvements to the site that I would love to see would be an easy way to see what module each child worked on last.
Right now the only way to find the progress is to go to each module and look at the charts. It would be great if a summary was emailed to the parent/teacher and it had a last used in the dashboard. My only other wish is that they continue to expand their content for higher grades! I’m hopeful that they will.
