How BookShark Made Science Lessons Simple for Homeschooling Multiples

Are you looking for a way to teach more than one child a few ages apart science in your homeschool? If you are anything like me, you have been trying to juggle and alter curricula to fit your child’s needs, beating yourself up trying to manage to teach two or more children at each of their levels with only so many hours in the day. Recently, I stumbled upon a pretty awesome curriculum that both of my children are learning a lot from!

*Disclaimer: I received this post for free and was compensated for my time. As always, I am sharing my honest opinions and was not required to provide a positive review.*

How BookShark Made Science Lessons Simple for Homeschooling Multiples

This year is my son’s first official year of homeschooling. It has been so stressful! I have a ten-year-old who is advanced in many of her classes and a six-year-old who is just getting started. I have been trying many ways to curb the overwhelm and stress of homeschooling more than one child. It is challenging. Usually, we follow a separate curriculum for each, but I recently tried letting them work together, and both of them are having a blast learning together! Please take a moment before I explain how exactly BookShark made science lessons simple for homeschooling my two children and pin this post to your homeschool board.

Teaching More Than One Child

A lot has changed since I decided to homeschool my children. One thing that changed significantly is that I started working, luckily it is a remote position, so I can still be here for my children, and my hours are relatively flexible so that I can get all our learning in. While I am incredibly grateful for my job and the important work I do, it has given me less time to plan lessons.

Since my son has started first grade this year, it is official homeschooling for us. This means we need to document everything. At the beginning of the year, I bought each of my children a science book that was going to be their primary curricula for the year, and we were going to supplement and find the perfect thing to teach them both at the same time. Of course, life happened, and trying to navigate two separate science lessons every week ended up not happening the way I would have liked. I mean, like at all, there were days, and even weeks, we skipped science. This made me stress out. I would be so worried about missing these lessons, trying to mentally figure out where and when I can fit them in.

I needed to make our homeschool simpler by condensing some lessons. Science was a big one for us. I needed to find a good science curriculum that would have enough depth for my older student, something that wouldn’t bore her, but she could dig her teeth into, especially since she loves science. I needed something that my son could pay attention to and receive a thorough introduction to science.

A Better Alternative

I started looking for a better alternative. I did a ton of research trying to find something that was the perfect fit for us. Something I can adapt with little effort for my daughter, who is older and more advanced and still use for my son, who is just starting. After my hours of research and consulting my homeschool groups and friends, I settled on BookShark.

Why is BookShark the winner?

BookShark offers so much to your homeschool:

It is affordable.
It is a secular curriculum, which means it is not based on religion.
It is literature-based, (there was a great bundle of books to support learning)
It includes hands-on activities and experiments that are planned out for you, including the majority of the supplies!
It uses a spiral approach. First, the basic facts are learned without worrying about details.
It is an all in one curriculum that offers books—activities, a DVD in lower levels, and again those fantastic hands-on experiments.

With such a jam-packed schedule, I needed something that was going to help me with the planning and make things easy. I knew after getting a promotion. I wasn’t going to have as much time to put resources together and make all the plans every single week and then have the energy to execute the lessons. BookShark made it simple and fun for us all.

No Magic Just Real Learning

While there are no magic curricula that do all the teaching for you, BookShark gives plenty of support with their books, an instruction manual, plans, and a DVD. It also offers a schedule that keeps things light and straightforward, including the 4-day recommended schedule. This built-in flex day helps you stay focused by doing just a little bit each day, and that day off offers you the option of added exploration, field trips or just getting caught up on science work if you prefer.

The schedule is set up so that you can use a variety of materials from the package each week. The kids and even the teacher is much more engaged with the diversity of approaches of instruction which meets each individual learning style. This was a massive plus for us.

The hands-on learning activities and experiments are lovely, as I am a firm believer that you learn more by doing than watching. I was equally thrilled by the colorful, illustrated worksheets that complement all the material perfectly.

BookShark has a lot of amazing read-alouds that offer even more support online in the form of videos and games. Then add in the fantastic DVD of science activities and experiments and activity sheets that each child can complete at their level.

Older children can dig deep on vocabulary, do additional research on the topic of the week and even demonstrate things to the younger child creating an incredible bond while learning.

I am so happy we found BookShark, I think we will be BookShark users for a while.

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