{REVIEW} The Good and the Beautiful Science: Paleontology

This last summer, The Good and the Beautiful changed their science curriculum. We have been using The Good and the Beautiful for our science curriculum for the last five years – and we LOVE it – so I was very unsure about the change. It was one of those situations where “if it’s not broke – why fix it?!” to me. There were several changes that occurred, one of which is that their science units are now targeted for Grades 3 – 8. Sarah has been doing these units since she was in kindergarten and this left me confused about how to move forward (since she is in second grade). I ultimately decided to continue having Sarah work on science together with Jacob. This was one of the reasons I loved their science units – because they were designed for a wide range of grades. So Jacob and Sarah did this unit together. But I did decide to have Benjamin do a separate science (more on that later).

When they introduced the new curriculum, they released a new PALEONTOLOGY unit. My kiddos have been itching to do a unit on dinosaurs and the verdict is in – we still love The Good and the Beautiful science (but we do miss some things)!

Belief Statement

At the beginning of the unit, the Good and the Beautiful did have a “belief statement” for this unit. They explained that this unit had “been written with a focus on basic Bible principles, allowing all families to use this unit and add in their specific beliefs.” They also included that this unit would work well for both those who favor a “Young Earth” belief or an “Old Earth” belief.

Topics

Introduction to Paleontology
Discovering Fossils
Introduction to Dinosaurs
Land of Giants
Carnivores and Herbivores
Sky and Sea
Fossils in Ice and Tar
Introduction to Archaeology
Excavation
Artifacts
Around the World in Ancient Days

Vocabulary & Science Wall

Vocabulary for this unit included:

Paleontology
Fossil
Impression
Petrification
Permineralization
Dinosaurs
Extinct
Pneumatic Bones
3D Reconstruction
Carnivore
Herbivore
Pterosaur
Plesiosaur
Permafrost
Archaeology
Strata
Stratigraphy
Excavation
Artifact
Ecofact

We do not have a science wall for this unit. That is one thing that was a negative for me in the new unit. In prior science units there have been an abundance of pictures and information that we could put on our science wall. I don’t know if it was just this unit, but that was very much lacking for me. We all missed that – we loved seeing our schoolroom transform into whatever unit we were studying.

Supplies

I felt like this was a pretty light unit when it came to supplies. There was really only one lesson where supplies were needed that I don’t usually have on hand. So that is a win!

Student Journal

This is probably the biggest change with the science courses. In previous courses, each child would need a binder or notebook of some kind to keep their worksheets and it is also where I had my kiddos write their vocabulary words. Each year I would make my kiddos their own science journal and they loved them.

Now, the Good and the Beautiful has “Student Journals” to accompany the course. These are an additional cost to the course and I know most have loved these new additions. For me, I did not think it was difficult to make our own science journals, so this doesn’t enhance a lot for me. I also felt like some of the “worksheets” were a little bit of busy work. Some I really did like, but I loved how it was before where I felt like it was not a worksheet heavy curriculum and I don’t want to lose that.

Videos

There were several videos included throughout the course that you access online and I felt like they were beautifully done. There were three in this course, including:

Paleontology: Discovering Dinosaurs
Dinosaur Fossils: Pieces of a Puzzle
Archaeological Sites: Famous Finds

Books

We read two books together as we worked our way through the unit:

The Ultimate Dinosaur Guide by Heather Hawkins
Amazing Archaeological Digs by The Good and the Beautiful Team

We also had several books from our own family library that went well with this unit. We added special shelving in our schoolroom this year – which allows us to have a science shelf to display our current unit’s books. The kids loved this addition and were frequently pulling these books off the shelf to read.

Ancient Animals by Molly Sanchez
Uncover a T.Rex by Dennis Schatz
Dinosaur and Other Prehistoric Creatures Atlas: The Prehistoric World as You’ve Never Seen It Before by DK
Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Life by Professor Anusuya Chinasamy-Turan

I normally like to have additional books for the kids to read that I assign individually that go with our unit. I didn’t have much, but I did have Sarah read Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne. This is the first book in the Magic Tree House series. I would recommend it for ages 7-9 or Grades 2-4.

Mini Books

Mini books have always been a part of the Good and the Beautiful science. However, they used to be assembled and put together. Now they are included in the course book and you read them from there. There were two in this unit:

Terrors of the Sky and Sea
Artifact Analysis

Length of Unit

This unit could be completed in about six weeks. However, it took us a little longer. I don’t think the lessons themselves were too long, but because we were reading books out loud that took up some of our science time. No regrets! For us, it took about eight weeks.

Our Favorite Activities

World of Discovery Map Activity: We learned about discovery hot spots around the world where dinosaur bones are often found.

Finding Fossils Activity: I hid “Fossil Detective Cards” for the kids to find and describe the conditions that they were found.

Permineralization Activity: The kids created fossils by burying small toys in a mixture of cornstarch and water. Then in a later lesson, they got to excavate their toys using “tools”.

Dinosaur Classification: Using dinosaur cards, classify them by shared characteristics.

Leaves and Oxygen Activity: An experiment to see how oxygen effects growth. We found that more oxygen, animals grow larger.

Record Holders: We went outside and measured how long some of the record holding ancient animals actually were.

Staying Warm Activity: An experiment to find that larger animals have a smaller surface-area-to-volume ratio and so lose heat slowly enabling them to survive in cold environments.

Bread Layers Activity: We put four layers of bread and stacked things in-between and squished them together. This helped explain how when archaeologists are excavating, things that are older are lower down.

Cookie Excavation Activity: We modified this a little bit to use what we had – but the kids learned how archaeologists excavate by using grids. The kids “excavated” mini chocolate chips from pumpkin bread! This was definitely a favorite.

Around the World in Ancient Days Game: This was a end of unit review game where the kids were able to claim a discovery by answering questions correctly. Having a review at the end of the unit was something I always wished there was – so I appreciated that addition!

Field Trip

We try and go on a family field trip to go along with our units. This time we went to Dinosaur Ridge! We had such a fun time looking at dinosaur tracks and exploring this nook of Colorado. CLICK HERE for our full post.

We also reminisced on our trip we took a couple years ago to Dinosaur National Monument! CLICK HERE for our full post.

Final Thoughts

Overall, we really did love this unit. I think it is interesting how drawn to DINOSAURS little kids are! My kids had a fun time teasing me on how bad I am at pronouncing different dinosaur names. There were lots of activities that were very doable. But best of all – there was a lot of learning that happened which is the most important thing!