How to Write Your Own Scient Curriculum for Homeschool

If you homeschool, you know how valuable it is to save money at every turn. Writing your own science curriculum is a great way to do this. Don't worry, we're not talking about writing an actual science textbook or anything like that. We're talking about planning what you're going to teach each year and research and find lesson plans as well as schedule activities or lapbooks to go along with it. Let's get started.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• internet
• printer
• library access

1. You can decide based on your child's interest what you will teach each year in science or you can use a general outline. Go to World Book Encyclopedia's website and find their curriculum guide (The link to the guide is listed below). They have a year per year guideline of what a child should learn in each subject. This is helpful all around but it is what I make the starting point for my yearly science curriculum.
2. When you get the list you will want to save it as a word document and you can add things between that. Think of it like an outline for a paper. For this example I will use 1st grade science. The first three topics listed are:
   * Grouping and classification
   * Living and nonliving things
   * Animals
3. Now take one of these and get more in depth....what do you want to teach about it.
   This is an example:
   
   Living things and their habitats-
   
   a. Forest Habitat
   - detail forest, animals, animal homes, and food sources
   
   b. underground habitat
   - detail underground, animals, homes and food
   
   c. desert habitat
   - detail desert, animals, homes and food
   
   You can go as in depth as you would like here for each of the topics. If an idea pops into your head while doing this about a specific thing you could use for teaching it then jot it down underneath it. For example... if you think building a diorama of a habitat would be helpful, put that down... or a field trip to your local zoo, include it.
   When you have everything down and detailed, think about how much time you will want to spend on each section. Most school years are around 36 weeks, divide that by the number of topic divisions for a general idea. Plus if you would prefer to spend more time on one topic than on another, then allot for that.
4. Finally at least a month before it's time to cover that topic (and sooner for those who are very well organized) then you'll want to research it. Go to places like Core Knowledge website to find lesson plans (website below). See my other article about finding free lesson plans.
   Search your library's catalog to find any books about the topic that would correlate. You can also search for lapbooks that cover the topic that you might be interested in doing.
   Then as the time approaches you will be prepared to start the lesson.

Tips & Warnings

• You could also print this out and place in a 3 ring binder to keep from having to go to the computer to access it whenever you need it.
• Don't worry, it may sound more difficult than it actually is.
• You know your family best, always keep this in mind when planning anything for homeschool.