Classification of Animals

We started our new curriculum about a week ago and so far, everything is going well. I added a couple of extra subjects for Courtney, so we will definitely be taking longer with this curriculum than we have before.

Even though I split Courtney and Megan up in regards to history, read alouds, and geography, we are still doing science together.  A couple of weeks ago, I finished up Science 1, even though I went through and made everything a little bit harder for the girls!

As I was preparing to pick our next science, I looked at science 2 and just thought it was another year of general science. It looked like a lot of repeat from the previous years and it didn't look like anything we would enjoy studying, again.  So I decided to skip science 2 and go on to science 3! I already had these lesson plans, so I just had to buy a few books and we were set!

I think the girls will enjoy this MUCH more because it is mostly biology.  We studied plants and animals in our kindergarten curriculum last year, so we haven't studied it in awhile.  This curriculum also pushes it ahead a little bit more, so it will be challenging.

We are starting off week one with talking about living vs. non living things and the classification of animals.  We are working through Real Science for Kids Biology 1 book. (Even though this is a curriculum by itself, Sonlight uses it as part of their science curriculum.)

On Friday, we talked about the five kingdoms of living things and tomorrow, we are going to keep dividing them. I think we are going to use this website for an introduction and then maybe read our lesson in our book. This seems to explain it better than the book, plus they use the example of classifying your Halloween candy, so I am sure it will appeal to Courtney!!

http://www.kidsbiology.com/biology_basics/classification/classification1.php

As we look at phylums, we may need to know what make a mollusc a mollusk!
http://animals.about.com/od/molluscs/p/molluscs.htm

We also may need to know what a nematode is!

http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/nematodes