Uncover the best homeschool science curriculum and resources! Inspire young minds with interactive lessons and exciting experiments for a love of learning.
A Deep Dive into Our Favorite Homeschool Science Curriculums
Science is not my bag, baby. It’s something I struggled with in school. Yet, I find science very interesting and engaging, especially if it’s hands-on. When it came to homeschooling in the younger years, science was so fun and simple. As my children have aged, I have really gone back and forth on different curricula.
Some of the most popular homeschool science curricula out there just seems so dry and boring. It involves so much reading, worksheets, or expensive science kits. I was on a search for a homeschool science curriculum that was engaging, hands on, included quality and living literature, and was something I could use for both my elementary child and middle schooler.
While I don’t think there’s a perfect fit for us when it comes to science, there are a few homeschool science curricula that I rotate between. Today, I’d like to share those with you.
Heart of Dakota
Heart of Dakota is a Charlotte Mason and unit study inspired curriculum. It has open-and-go daily plans, living books, and fun hands-on activities with God’s Word at the heart. It will take you all the way from preschool through high school. I tend to call myself an eccentric homeschooler, as I don’t tend to fall in any one category, but I mainly align with Charlotte Mason and unit studies. I definitely lean more unit study when we’re studying science, but I love incorporating quality living books vs dry text books.
Heart of Dakota features several topics, such as history, bible, art, geography, and more. I tend to love their science and bible, so I have actually purchased several guides for their science and bible alone.
Also, I love that they offer easy hands-on experiments and projects with truly common household items. I very rarely have to buy anything I don’t already have. The experiments usually only take 10-15 minutes. The books are usually engaging and interesting. We incorporate notebooking as well, which my children enjoy.
I also love that HOD can be easily purchased second hand. Their facebook groups also provide free notebooking pages to mainstream the resources for me. Overall, HOD is my number one choice for homeschool science curriculum, at least for the grades and guides we are currently at.
Rabbit Trails Homeschool
Rabbit Trails Homeschool uses hands-on, literature-based science lessons, all focused on amazing nature studies. They have other subjects as well such as history, geography, Bible, and more. However; we have only use their science so far in our homeschool.
I love that Rabbit Trails include quality picture books. Even my almost 13-year-old still enjoys picture books. I also love that it has Bible, video, art, and notebooking incorporated as well. These are essential to our homeschool. I like that they give suggestions for lots of different activities. This allows us to pick and choose what we want. It feels more like a unit study this way. The only complaint I have is that they don’t really have science experiments, as much as they have science projects. Overall, I enjoy Rabbit Trails a lot! I’d have loved to have it especially for my oldest from 3rd-6th. I think that’s it’s sweet spot.
Simple Studies
Simple Studies is a Charlotte Mason inspired homeschool curriculum. They have several science topics, as well as history, character studies, and book studies. We have used a couple of their history and science guides. One reason we love Simple Studies is it truly is simple.
They have beautiful book lists, including chapter and picture books. Simple Studies incorporate Bible, copywork, narration, notebooking, poetry, coloring pages, and field guides. Some of the new guides include crafts and hands-on projects.
I really love Simple Studies for the simplicity and book lists. I think they are perfect for the K-4 age. Some of their guides go up to 6th grade and are able to easily stretch. As with Rabbit Trails, I feel like it doesn’t quite contain as many experiments as I’d like. As you can tell, this is something very important to us.
Our Favorite Homeschool Science Resources:
Teacher’s Pay Teachers
When we were making our own unit studies, I relied heavily on Teacher’s Pay Teachers. There’s pretty much anything you can imagine on there, in just about every price range. I still incorporate several of the printables, projects, and experiment guides when using some of the other curriculum I mentioned. If I still created my own unit studies, I’d still be pulling most, if not all from TPT.
Mystery Science
Mystery Science is a hands-on curriculum that teaches children how to think like scientists. I use it mainly as a supplement. Every video and activity we have done using Mystery Science, my children have loved.
Youtube
We love incorporating videos into our homeschool science curriculum. We are all visual learners in this family. Youtube has so many great channels, documentaries, and information. Here are some of our favorite channels to use for science:
- Homeschool Pop
- Freeschool
- The Good and the Beautiful Science
- Answers in Genesis
- Scishow Kids
- Peekaboo Kidz
- The Magic School Bus
Pinterest is a wonderful resource, especially for free resources. It’s is a giant search engine, like Google. You can find so many things and save them. This makes it extremely easy to plan unit studies and find resources to accompany your homeschool science curriculum.
Notebooking Pages
We love incorporating notebooking into our homeschool science. Here are a few of my favorite places to find free notebooking pages:
Library
As you can imagine, homeschoolers tend to live at the library. Even though we don’t always use physical books, we certainly use Hoopla and Libby to supplement with our homeschool curriculum. We very rarely buy books unless we are unable to get them at the library or online.
Want more homeschool science?
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Another science-related curriculum we love is ShillerLearning because it’s Montessori-based but doesn’t require any lesson preparation or knowledge of Montessori.
The math and language arts curricula is for 3-13 year olds and we used one kit for all four of our children. When they went into public school they were two grades ahead!
Wow, thank you for sharing! I will have to look into that one!