Using Science Textbooks

While I’m very good at planning out my Weaver chapters well in advance (during the summer I plan through to Christmas break; during Christmas break I plan through to spring break; during spring break I plan through to summer break), I usually use Sunday afternoons to flesh-out my upcoming week. Today was no exception.

Back in February I told you about how I integrated The Timetables of History into our day as we studied Early American History. This week we’re focusing on science, and I’ve discovered a set of books on my shelves that will work superbly: Biology for Christian Schools, Volumes A&B.

We’ve been studying plants (roots, stems and leaves so far) and will look at flowers and classification this week. I thought it would be nice to get a basic understanding of how plants are classified, so I asked other homeschooling moms if they had any recommendations for botany books. One mom suggested I check for a botany section in whatever science texts I have on hand. Why didn’t I think of that myself?!

I’ve already graduated two sons, and my third son has only one year left. My daughter starts high school next year, and there’s another son two years behind her. I happen to have the above mentioned BJU biology book because one of my sons used it in a co-op class. Since I didn’t teach the class, I haven’t looked too closely at the book itself–until now!

What a wealth of information! Chapter 13 is all about the plant kingdom. The text is easy to read, with sidebars of info and photos. I’ve taken the first part of the chapter and split it into three days–splits that fall naturally within the chapter to begin with–and will have my daughter answer the review questions as she goes. I also found info on classification in Apologia’s Exploring Creation with General Science, which is also on my shelf.

Once we finish with plants we’ll move onto the human body. I’ll get info from the BJU biology text, as well as from the Apologia text, The Human Body, which is another text I bought for an older boy for co-op classes.

I LOVE finding little gems like this that make homeschooling fun and so much easier! How about you? What books have you found on your shelves that prove to be invaluable to your homeschooling journey?

Changes are Coming!

For the past two weeks I’ve been working on updating the Unofficial Weaver Pages. When I first created the page, I did ALL the coding by hand in Notepad using basic HTML. Then I used Dream Weaver, which is a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) program, and I was able to make changes faster. A couple years ago I got a CSS book and started learning how to use Cascading Style Sheets. For the past two weeks I’ve been working on moving the content from the old design (HTML) into the new design (CSS). It’s tedious, as I’m doing it all by hand once again, stripping all the unnecessary code and tweaking the CSS to make it all look as I envision it. I’ll still have more to tweak when this update goes live, but I want to get it up as soon as possible, so I’m only doing the major changes right now.

Would you like a peek?

http://unofficialweaverpages.com/

Head over there and check it out. (The navigation links don’t go anywhere right now, so please don’t feel too frustrated that you can’t see anything else–this is just a sneak peek, remember.) Then come back here and leave a comment about the new look. I’d love to hear from you!