Disclaimer: I received a membership to facilitate an honest review.
My daughter LOVES science. I see it as an extra subject I rarely fit in. Since she isn’t a comfortable reader yet, I requested to be a part of the review for Science4Us.com.
Science4Us
Science4Us.com is an online science curriculum intended for K-2. It covers 4 main areas of science — physical science, inquiry/the scientific method, life science & earth science. Each of these focuses is broken down into one or more areas. For example, Earth Science is broken down into Earth & Outer Space. There are 28 modules of material and they suggest about 8 days per module.
Science4Us.com has several computer-based assignments for each module and also includes additional assignments and information for teachers (and parents) to be able to teach the materials. They even provide an estimate of the amount of time it will take to complete each activity in the parent/ teacher section. The cost for a Science4Us.com Online Subscription is $7.95/month /student.
How We Used Science4Us
Working at a very gentle pace, you could absolutely get all the coursework for each module done in 8 days. In fact, my 6 year old daughter had all of her computer assignments for the Space module completed in 3 days, spending 15-30 minutes per day.
Each activity is designed around 4 E’s–engage, explore, engage, explain. She completed computer activities such as identifying objects from space, a little video about aspects of the universe, and classifying items by size (city, continent, planet, solar system). There were also game shows to reinforce the information learned. The extra printed assignments included things like vocabulary scrambles, drawing the universe with glitter glue, cutting & pasting space elements into their correct configuration, making an Outer Space newspaper and more.
Since I wanted to go super in depth with the topic she was working on we also did most of the additional assignments. There were a variety of types of assignments that may not be a great fit for Kindergarten, but worked fine for a second semester first grader or second grader. Because we already had planned to do a space unit study that month, we used Science4Us.com as our main tool and added in books and projects that I had been collecting. Because of this, we dragged the space unit out for 3 weeks doing an activity every day (we school 4 days a week). After the space unit was over, I let her go to town to learn about other areas.
I would say that for a kindergarten student, this would be good when your student has an interest to provide exposure to the subjects & areas. For grades 1-2, this could absolutely be a full science curriculum. Between the extra activities and the computer ones, they really learn a lot. And if you really stretched out each module and added extra materials, you could use it for almost 2 years and get the basics in each major area of science.
Summary
My daughter loved using this. If you have trouble fitting science into your busy days, this would be a good way to fit it in. The modules don’t take a lot of time and if you are in the bare-minimum season, they will hit all the basics in a fun way. If you have more time and/or they have more interest,
there is a variety of great activities to go along with each computer activity. And you will never forget because they will remind you :). First thing in the morning. Every day. Sometimes before your eyes are open. If only everything to learn was looked upon with such excitement!
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