Science 2 is a science program designed for children ages 7-9. It is a classroom program that has been successfully adapted for homeschool use. This program covers Geology, Ornithology, and four different topics in Physics (matter, forces and work, simple machines, and sound and light). The Science 2 Homeschool Kit includes a scripted teacher's manual, a resource CD, photo cards, a tool kit, and student materials. You will need one set of student materials for each child, and these can be purchased individually. The tool kit includes the unusual items you'll need to complete the experiments (magnets, balance, a prism, a xylophone, 3 books about birds, owl pellets, a pulley and cord, a mineral collection, and more). For each lesson you will need to collect materials from around your house as well (examples are a plastic water bottle, paper clips, and aluminum foil). The resource CD includes slideshows, teaching masters, and student masters.

Science 2 has 80 lessons and is intended to be a year-long science course. At the beginning of each lesson in the teacher's manual, there is a shaded box that lists everything you'll need for the lesson (student sheets, items from the tool box, and any items you need to collect). For each of the 6 units, there is a consumable student booklet that contains a few short paragraphs about the day's topic, as well as places for the student to record information about the day's investigation or experiment or to record examples of the concept being taught. In addition to this booklet, there is a review sheet for the child to do either later in the day or the next day. There are eight review lesson built into the program, and eight assessments are given throughout the course.

I'm using this program with my 9, 8, and 6-year-old sons. We all enjoy science, but it was one of those subjects that we would often run out of time for because of the time it would take to prepare, or the lessons were just too long for our day. Science 2 has been getting done consistently because it is an open and go program, requiring only a little time to gather materials for the day's lesson.

Using Science 2, our science lessons take about 30 minutes from start to finish. We begin with the review sheet from the last lesson. The review sheet has a few questions about the previous day's lesson, and answers are fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, or true/false, so there is not a lot of writing. Also on the review sheet is a section titled "look back." Review questions in this section can be from any previous lesson, and page numbers are given in case the student needs to look up the answer in his student booklet. Also included on some worksheets are questions that ask the student to apply what they have learned. After we complete the review sheet, we work through a new lesson. Lessons begin with a brief reminder about what was learned in the previous lesson, and then new material is presented. Since the teacher manual is scripted, I found it very easy to present new concepts to my children. After the new concept is presented and discussed, the child is asked to follow along in the student booklet while the teacher reads the paragraph(s) aloud. The students are then guided through the paragraph(s) and asked to highlight important definitions. The student also keeps a Science Word List, recording new science vocabulary words that come up during the lesson. Each lesson also includes an experiment or physical example to demonstrate the concept being taught. These really catch my boys' attention and have helped them understand and retain what is being taught. A recent experiment we completed involved using the balance and hexagrams (both included in the tool kit) to determine the mass of objects (gathered from around the house), and my sons recorded their findings in their student booklet.

I am enjoying working through Science 2 with my children. My boys continue to ask to do science every day, and the lessons in this program are simple enough to prepare and short enough to complete that we regularly get science done. I consider this program to be a success in our homeschool, and I would recommend it.

Product review by Courtney Larson, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, January 2009