The girls and I have been thoroughly enjoying our review of the e-Science Homeschool Science Curriculum from Supercharged Science.
Created by former NASA scientist and mechanical engineer Aurora Lipper, e-Science is an online Science subscription that allows you access to thousands of videos, lessons, experiments, and printable materials for grades K to 12. The materials are arranged either by grade level, or by topic. We chose to go by topic.
There are 20 units (so far), plus a few intro units, and units on Teaching Resources, Science Fair Projects, and one of Raine's favorites--Mathemagic.
When you click on a unit, you go to a page that introduces the topic, and the concepts that will be tackled, and a link to another page that lists the actual lessons.
On the lessons page, you will also find links to downloadable PDFs of additional readings, worksheets, lists of materials for the experiments, and links to the actual lessons. The video lessons run about 15 to 20 minutes on average, but she has some videos that are a couple of hours long!
Breeze chose to work on Unit 7, Astrophysics, and Raine went with Unit 16, Life Science 1. I downloaded and printed the entire packets for each unit, so they could read along with the lessons, plus I got my needed quizzes (we have to submit graded paperwork to get our DepEd credits). The packets also include the answer keys, and I was pretty happy about that. I also printed a set each of Math puzzles and games from the Mathemagic unit, for the girls to play around with when they had some spare time.
Aurora says that you can just let the kids loose with the e-Science program, so that's exactly what I did. The girls had their own screen time schedules, and they watched the videos and did a couple of the experiments. I was pretty pleased that Breeze (who just turned 9) got together the materials for her Magnetic Tornado experiment. She and Raine (who is now 12) got the whole experiment going, and I just showed up to take a few (bad) pictures.
The experiment didn't go as expected, or as demonstrated in the video, but it was a good opportunity to discuss what could possibly have gone wrong (like they didn't have the right washer size, or the masking tape they used wasn't waterproof enough to prevent leaking), and that scientists do have to deal with mistakes and failures.
Raine, on the other hand, tried to do the placebo effect experiment. Except that beforehand, she told me she was doing that activity, so she couldn't get me to believe her colored water was flavored--and her Dad outright refused to drink suspiciously colored fluids. Another experiment fail, and another opportunity to discuss factors that could affect the outcome of your experiments. Other than those (plus a couple more that Raine did on her own), we haven't been able to do more experiments because we haven't been able to gather all the materials (which is why I have long been drooling over the Supercharged Science - Science Mastery program, which comes with all the materials you will ever need). But the girls have been pretty happy watching the experiments on videos.
What I love about e-Science is that it's really comprehensive. And Aurora can explain things in a way that even younger kids can understand. While it is most likely way above her head, Breeze is beginning to grasp the theory of relativity, for example. It intrigued her so much that she even wrote about it.
And there is just so much available material that I don't think you can finish everything the site has to offer in a year. Even if you go through the lessons by grade level, there is just so much to cover.
Another great thing about Supercharged Science is that they have good customer service. I emailed them about a concern, and they were able to reply and fix it in a few hours (considering the time zone difference). And I've also seen the comments on the lessons--Aurora does answer any questions or concerns on the lessons, so that's a good thing.
There is one most annoying thing about Supercharged Science though. It's the sheer number of marketing email messages that you get! For example, for the summer e-camp campaign, I got several messages inviting me to enroll, and some of the messages are countdowns, like last day to enroll; a few hours later it's the last hour to enroll; and then finally some time later, there's a last 30 minutes email. Then the following week, there's a campaign about having a few more slots left, and another barrage of email. I don't even bother reading them anymore.
Other than that though, this is one of those products that both the girls and I are happy to have reviewed, and I would truly recommend the e-Science Homeschool Science Curriculum from Supercharged Science. I am hoping that we could also enroll for another year (the $37-$57 per month subscription fee is a bit beyond the budget at the moment). This is truly a favorite product.
Other families have also tried Supercharged Science. Click below to read about their experiences.
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