{REVIEW} The Good and the Beautiful Science: Mammals

“And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” {Genesis 1:24-25}

So at this point we have done almost all of The Good and the Beautiful science units offered {there are only two that we haven’t done yet} and I can confidently say that this was definitely in my top three. I don’t know if I could pick a FAVORITE but this is definitely one of my favorites.

IT WAS INCREDIBLE.

We genuinely loved and looked forward to our science lessons every day. Maybe it is just our family – but aren’t animals just the coolest?! We just ate up every lesson.

Topics

Introduction to Mammals
Live Birth & Lactation
Odd-Toed Ungulates
Even-Toes Ungulates
Elephants
Primates
Felines
Canines
Monotremes
Marsupials
Bats
Rodents
Bear
Endangered Mammals

Vocabulary & Science Wall

This was without a doubt – our BIGGEST science wall EVER! My favorite was when Mark would get home from work, and the kids would get out a “pointer” and give him a lesson about everything they learned!

Vocabulary for this unit included:

Mammal
Herbivore
Carnivore
Omnivore
Habitat
Ecosystem
Organism
Population
Embryo
Placenta
Gestation
Perissodactyla
Equine
Domestic
Breed
Artiodactyla
Ruminant Digestive System
Cud
Elephantidae
Proboscidea
Primate
Prehensile Tail
Feline
Canine
Pack
Dominant
Submissive
Monotreme
Marsupial
Echolocation
Rodentia
Ursidae
Hibernate
Keystone Species
Extinct
Endangered
Conservation

Supplies

When you first glance at the supply list for this unit, it appears to be a lot, but I think it’s a little deceiving. I actually found it to be a pretty light supply unit (which I secretly kind of love).

Science Journal

As with all science units for The Good and the Beautiful, a science journal is required. This can be as simple as a notebook or binder or more complicated. I give all of the details about how I put together our science journals here. I love them – they are worth all of the effort beforehand because they make my life super easy for our school day.

Read Alouds

The Good and the Beautiful has a “book pack” that you can purchase which has some pretty incredible books. We used:

Can You Track It? Mammals by Maggie Felsch and Shannen Yauger
Mammals of Small Pond by Phoebe Erickson
Marvelous Mammals from Down Under by Heather Horn

I always try and add some additional reading for my kiddos to do independently on their own. There are TONS of books with mammal characters in it and so there is a whole lot of possibilities. Jacob read A Wolf in the North Woods by Heather Horn. It was a little on the easier side for him but I think it’s great for that 1st to 3rd grade age/level. Sarah read Mole’s Hole by Jenny Phillips. This is a great beginning reader book so it works great for the kindergarten to 1st grade age/level.

Length of Unit

This unit has fourteen lessons in it. We try and complete two lessons a week and so I had planned on it taking about seven weeks. However, it took us much longer. Almost each of the lessons I split in two because of the time we were spending on them. But even though the lessons were long – they were PACKED with goodness. So we were happy to take our time and just enjoy and not feel rushed. So I would say plan for longer lessons and ENJOY!

Our Favorite Activities

Oh my goodness, so many AMAZING activities in this unit! Have I mentioned that this unit might be my favorite unit of all science units?! We loved it so much!

Our “Milking a Cow” activity is not going to be one easily forgotten! The kids loved trying to milk our little cow.

In the same lesson, we also did a “bursting milk” activity. This was neat to see how milk has both water and fat so when the dish soap meets the fat in the milk it moves around trying to join together. It was so fun to watch!

Another activity that was easily a favorite was with our lesson about odd-toed ungulates. Also, am I the only person who didn’t know what an “ungulate” was before this unit?! I had not idea. NOW I DO! After we learned about ungulate running we went outside and tested our own skills at running. Each member of the family (even Lydie!) took turns running different distances and it was so fun to calculate our numbers and put them into our graph. It was a blast.

We added in a lot of documentaries into our unit. We love the Disney Nature ones and added those as much as we could. The kids would get SO excited when something was said that we had learned already in our lesson!

If you’ve been around here for awhile, you know how much my kiddos LOVE art. For our lesson on marsupials, they got to try some aboriginal art and it was another highlight. I love how seamlessly The Good and the Beautiful can mix various subjects together.

There were many simple activities included within the lessons that just made things so much fun.

And I couldn’t finish our review without mentioning the MAP! This map is large (covers four pages) and came with beautiful stickers. The kids LOVED adding stickers to our map after the lesson was over. It was such a fun experience and added some geography to our science lessons as well!

Field Trip

At the end of our unit, we took a field trip to the zoo! The kiddos loved running around and sharing all that they had learned about the different animals. It was such a confidence booster for them! You can read all about it here.

Final Thoughts

Does anyone not like learning about animals?! Seriously, this unit was a BLAST! We loved it so much. This unit was FILLED with information but I never felt like it was overwhelming. I also loved the final lesson in the unit about endangered mammals and conservation. My kids left feeling this STRONG desire to help these beautiful creatures and treat them with respect. It was impactful and I am grateful for these sweet lessons and for helping them mold my little ones.