Building Blocks of Science 3

Grades: 3rd

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Product Code: 366-130

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Retail price: $164.00
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Timberdoodle's Review

Exploring the Building Blocks of Science Book 3 Bundle 

Exploring the Building Blocks of Science Book 3 Student Textbook has 22 chapters. It introduces students to how chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy, and geology are used to study the planet we live on and the cosmos. 

 

Students learn about polymers, DNA, and mixtures. They study where plants live, the basic cell and photosynthesis, and how electrical energy and magnets work. They discover Earth's magnetic field, galaxies, Earth in the Milky Way Galaxy, and how the biosphere and hydrosphere shape Earth.

 

 Students begin the open inquiry with suggested questions found in the Teacher's Manual, which also has directions for guiding the experiments. The Laboratory Notebook contains 22 experiments that explore topics covered in the Student Text

 

Experiments include working with mixtures, making a polymer, observing photosynthesis and seed growth, making electric circuits, exploring electric charge, testing for porosity, observing geological features, modeling a galaxy, creating a comet, and many more. 

 

Each book has 4 chapters of the 5 core science subjects (chemistry, biology, physics, geology, and astronomy) and an introductory and a concluding chapter for 22 chapters. We offer a lab kit if you would like a convenient, time-saving way to get nearly all of the materials you will need for the experiments! This lab kit is already assembled with virtually every non-household item the curriculum requires, so you won't have to search for elusive components.

 

About Real Science-4-Kids Building Blocks of Science

Kids ask real science questions. Building Blocks of Science enables them to discover real science answers. Because science disciplines are so interlaced, learning one subject requires a foundational understanding of another. Building Blocks of Science addresses this by introducing students to the five core scientific disciplines of chemistry, biology, physics, geology, and astronomy.

 

With Building Blocks of Science, students learn science in a sequential and logical order, beginning with fundamental building blocks of science and expanding on these as they advance in grade level. Hands-on experiments for each chapter encourage critical thinking, experimentation, and creativity.

 

Exploring the Building Blocks of Science is a year-long program for grades 1-7, covering all five core disciplines. It's based on a spiral teaching method where subjects are repeatedly visited and built upon over months and across grades. This has proven to lead to better long-term mastery of facts and concepts.

 

Building Blocks of Science is written to accommodate both secular and Christian homeschoolers. The publisher, Real Science-4-Kids, has received several awards, including the Practical Homeschooling Reader Awards. The study bundles contain a student textbook, teacher's manual, laboratory notebook, printable lesson plans, quizzes, and a study notebook. See our optional lab kit here.

 


Features
Student & Teacher Bundle Includes:
Two books:
  • A full-color, hardcover Student Textbook that your child reads to learn the building blocks of science
  • A softcover Teacher’s Manual that contains information about how to set up the laboratory experiment and lists the materials needed
  • Plus the following digital products:
  • A Study Notebook that contains activities to help reinforce each lesson and provides a place for the student to record their ideas
  • An adjustable Lesson Plan to help you create the schedule that works for you
  • A Quiz set with 2 midterms and a final exam

  • View Building Blocks of Science Book 3 Sample. Sample set includes 3 chapters each of the student text, teacher’s manual, and laboratory workbook, plus the corresponding chapters for the lesson plan, study notebook, quiz question, and graphics package.

    Not sure if this is the right level for your student? Check out this assessment chart.

    Get the optional Lab Kit for Building Blocks of Science here.

    Publisher's Information:

    Student Textbook
    Pages: 151
    Chapters: 22
    Format: Hardcover
    Size: 8.5" x 11"

    Teacher's Manual
    Pages: 91
    Experiments: 22
    Format: Softcover
    Size: 8.5" x 11"

    Study Notebook
    Format: Downloadable product (student prints and assembles)
    Layout: Full-color (pdf)
    Answer Key: Black and white with instructions (pdf)

    Lesson Plan
    Format: Downloadable product (you print)
    Layout: Full-color (pdf)

    Quizzes
    Format: Downloadable product (you print)
    Includes: (2) Midterm Quizzes (chapters 1-11 and 12-22), plus (1) Final Quiz
    Layout: Black and white (pdf)

    Publisher: Real Science-4-Kids
    Faith-Based: No

    Building Blocks of Science 3 Review by The Art Kit

    review by The Art Kit

    ”The kids had a blast (they LOVE science experiments!!) and didn’t even mind it all that much when I had them record their hypotheses and findings in the laboratory notebook.”

    Read the Review

    Customer Reviews

    Based on 7 reviews
    57%
    (4)
    14%
    (1)
    0%
    (0)
    0%
    (0)
    29%
    (2)
    N
    Nina S.
    Fun and Engaging

    My Son likes the illustrations and colorful presentation. The reading stimulate questions and conversations and the experiments are always fun and engaging.

    K
    Kat
    AWESOME

    Fun way to learn and remember basics of science. The experiments are fun for all.

    R
    Rebecca S.
    LOVE

    This is such an amazing program! Colorful, fun, and hands on! LOVE it!

    J
    Jennefer
    We love this so far

    So my oldest loves science, and experiments. So he was eager to start with this fun looking bundle! I was a little intimidated at first, it being 3 books and a separate email with a pdf file to download, and me not being sciency at all... But scanning through the first 2 lessons, I am confident I can do this! We tackled the first 2 lessons, my sons actually learned some science, and we got to do experiments (thank you for those labkits!!). Happy mom, super happy kids... Look forward to going through these books the coming year!

    J
    Jana M.
    didn't work well for us

    When my third grader received this as part of his curriculum kit, provided by a charter, he was really excited! He was quickly drawn in by the colorful comic like illustrations in the textbook and the experiments were intriguing at first glance. As I parent I appreciated that the teacher's manual was a separate book and that I could reference different sections without flipping through my student's workbook to find the answers, which is the case with many workbooks available. I also liked the way the book was divided into different subsections of chemistry, biology, physics, geology and astronomy to provide a survey of the different areas of science. It seemed like the Building Blocks of Science Book 3 curriculum would be a lot of fun.

    We started the year with gusto, but that quickly changed to disenchantment. There were several reasons this didn't work well for us. First, some of the experiments didn't work well. A few that come to mind were the chromatography portion of experiment # 3 (Make It Un-mix) - you were supposed to be able to tell what color of food coloring each cup had by using the step by step process indicated by the experiment. We completed it as instructed, but the results were really lack luster and thus left us very disappointed early on in this year's science journey. Another experiment that sticks out is experiment # 20 (How Do Galaxies Get Their Shape) - we had a difficult time getting the iron filings to make swirling patterns in the corn syrup which were intended to represent how galaxies get their shape. There were a couple others that we had trouble with which unfortunately squelched our excitement and made it increasingly difficult to lug out our science materials.

    Another criticism we have of this curriculum is that some of the experiments are VERY similar or overlap so much that it feels like you are doing the same experiment over and over. We found ourselves wishing that they had just combined the experiments and made part I and part II. For example, Experiment # 10 - (Lemon Energy) and Experiment # 12 (Moving Electrons) could easily have been made into one experiment because for experiment # 12 you begin by building the lemon battery built in experiment # 10. We also found that Experiment # 16 (Moving Iron) and Experiment # 20 (How Do Galaxies Get Their Shape) were so similar in set up and execution that our student lost interest.

    Finally, and perhaps most critically, we had trouble tying it all together and forming concrete conclusions. The comic like illustrations that seemed like an asset in the beginning turned out to lack substance. Using at least a few real photographs would have helped our student to visualize some of the concepts being taught. Although the textbook does provide an excellent bullet point summary at the end of each chapter, the experiments didn't always reinforce these points. It doesn't seem that my student learned much by completing this science curriculum, but even more troubling was his increasing lack of motivation to complete lessons in a subject that generally is very intriguing to him. He was often overwhelmed by the amount of writing and space to draw pictures in the Laboratory Notebook (workbook) and had trouble relating it back to the readings in the text.

    Overall, some families might be inspired by the open endedness of this curriculum, but for us this was overwhelming, confusing and just not a great fit. We'll be trying something different in the coming school year.

    Jana,

    Thank you for taking the time to leave such a detailed review. Our customers will surely benefit from your experience. New for 2020, we now include the lab kit for this set in our elite curriculum kit, and we hope that this will help alleviate some of the frustrations with the experiments and also enable them to produce the desired outcome more accurately. Thank you again for sharing your experience!

    --The Timberdoodle Team