Alright, folks. Science is probably my most prep intensive subject and I am ALL DONE (YES, YES, YES!) for the upcoming year. I am so excited to dive into our four science units this year. Two units are repeats and two are new and it’s going to be awesome. AND this will be Sarah’s first year “officially” participating in science and I am so excited for her!
The Good and the Beautiful science comes in loose pages which leaves a lot of people wondering how to organize it. This is what I’ve found to work well for us and hope it is helpful for you as well!
Step 1: Flip Through and Pull
First step is to flip through your materials…and enjoy how beautiful it is! Truly, the science is incredible and gets me so excited. Science was always my least favorite subject in school but I have changed since using this curriculum. Things that never made sense to me before have come alive and I love it.
Okay, back on subject! As you are flipping through, I pull out all of the additional pages that we would need for lessons, mini books, vocabulary words, etc. These materials are usually behind it’s corresponding lesson.
Step 2: Laminate and Organize
Get out your trusty laminator, and start laminating those group materials. We are already cycling through units again and I am so grateful I have done this. Our material still looks fresh and new and it is so worth it to me.
Once I cut, laminate, and cut again, I organize all of my materials. I have a simple crate that I keep in our schoolroom with all of our additional “stuff” in it. I store history and science materials in these file folders and it is SO convenient. I divide it up by lesson and that way all I have to do is pull out our folder for the day.
Mini Books
For the mini books, I cut them out, and then laminate them front and back. Then I hole punch the corner and simply keep it all together with a ring. I have found this to be really helpful in keeping them nice and sturdy.
Step 3: Course Book
Now that you have all your extras taken care of, take what you have left over (which is all your lessons and worksheets) and put it together. The first two years that we did our science units, I kept everything together in a binder. I put everything in sheet protectors and then behind each lesson I added an extra sheet protector to put all of my extra loose items in. This worked completely fine.
However, what I do now is a little different. As I explained in step 2, I organize all of my extras in file folders now. The other difference is that I no longer use binders. It was mostly because I just didn’t love how bulky they were. I found I would take the lessons out of the binder to move into different rooms to do experiments and it just got messy and not very convenient.
I bought a proclick and it has become an essential homeschool product for me. If you are planning on homeschooling long term, I would definitely recommend some kind of binding system. So now, I bind each of the units. I love how much less space it takes on our shelf, how much more portable it is, and it just looks pretty.
Step 4: Science Journal
This last step is one I have refined over the last couple years and really love where we are at with it. The course will let you know when there is a worksheet, resource, or journaling your child will need to do. I am not a fan of loose papers and so I wanted to have a system in place where everything was ALL together. Thus, our science journal was born.
At the beginning of every science unit, it explains that your child needs some sort of science journal. This can be as simple as a binder. But, again, maybe it’s just us, but it seems like loose papers always seem to happen.
Go through PDF and print
When you order the physical product for science, you also get the PDF for free (isn’t that the BEST?!). So at this point, I hop onto my computer and start going through my PDF. I make a separate science journal for each child (so print as many multiples as you need).
I begin by printing a copy of the cover (I’ll explain more later). Then I go through each lesson and look for the nifty “Science Journal” icon. This makes it really easy to quickly scan through. I print off any worksheets or resources that the lessons direct me to. I also print of additional blank pages for any other journaling they may need to do.
Vocabulary
Before I get away from my PDF, I turn to the vocabulary pages. For our family, I ask the kids to write and/or draw the definitions of the vocabulary words we are learning. So I just make a document in Microsoft Word listing each vocabulary work and space for them to do that.
Then I print that off for each child’s journal.
Put it ALL together
Last step is just putting it all together. Once I have everything printed, I pull out my laminator again. I laminate each of the cover pages for all of the units we are doing that year. I also laminate an extra blank page to put at the back for added stability.
They I use my proclick to put the journal together. I put my units in order for how we will do them for the year, beginning with the cover page (so it’s nice to have it laminated because it then works as a natural divider between units), the vocabulary pages, and then the worksheets and journaling pages – then repeat for each of the units.
It is so nice to have everything the kiddos need all in one compact book. And, it’s become a sort of treasure for Jacob. He loves flipping through it and getting excited about different activities. And I’ve also found him going through his journal from last year in science, just remembering things. This just fills my momma teacher heart.
And you are…DONE!
And that’s it! Science definitely feels a little time consuming going through this process for each of the units. BUT, once this is done, every day really is “open and go” and that is so fantastic.
I’ve never done a science unit with The Good and the Beautiful that fell flat for me. They are all just magnificent and so well done.
If you want more information about specific science units – I would love to help if I can. I have written formal reviews about a lot of them and will link them here:
- Arthropods
- Botany
- Energy
- Kingdoms & Classification
- Marine Biology
- Meteorology
- Maturation & Sexual Reproduction
- Safety
- Space Science
- The Human Body, Part 1
- Water and Our World
