We have used materials by Dr. Jay Wile for my older children, and when I heard he was writing a new program for elementary ages, I was most certainly intrigued. Dr. Wile is planning a five book series, and as of this writing, two of those are out. I had the opportunity to review Science in the Beginning, and I am impressed. I wish I had this when my teens were younger, but I will be using the series with my younger children.

The set consists of a gorgeous, not-too-thick textbook plus a “Helps & Hints” booklet. Just $39 covers everything you need, though you can get a supply kit or lapbook from outside vendors. Unless your household is seriously lacking normal “stuff,” I do not believe the supply kit is necessary.

This book is arranged by days of creation, with twelve “regular” lessons and three “challenge” lessons per Creation Day, for a total of 72-90 lessons. It should be obvious from this structure that this text is using a creation perspective. Most of the topics are pretty obvious, but to summarize:

• Day One lessons cover light and energy, plus the human eye.
• Day Two lessons cover water, states of matter, solutions, and some weather.
• Day Three lessons cover geology topics, and plants.
• Day Four is astronomy focused.
• Day Five lessons include biology of sea and air creatures, but also some amazing lessons on flight.
• Day Six is mostly biology, including lessons on the senses.

Each lesson is set up so there is a reading assignment, some sort of hands-on assignment, and review questions. The review is split up by levels, so you can choose which is most appropriate for your students. Let’s look at a lesson from early in the course, and how it worked in my household.

Lesson 21 is part of the “Second Day” and it is titled “Water is Cohesive and Adhesive.” This lesson starts off with about 3 sentences of reading, and then you go right into the hands-on part. Like most of the activities, this truly does use household items. You need some basic kitchen items like a stove, a pan, a cup, water… and an adult. The idea is that you heat up an empty pan, pour just a bit of water into the pan, and watch what happens. What should be observed is that some water “sizzles” and immediately boils away, but some of the water comes together into a single drop that “skates” around the pan.

After playing with this for a while, we sat down to read the rest of the lesson. This lesson has about a page and a half of text (plus a couple pictures). It is truly written at a level that elementary kids can understand (and so can their parents!) The gist of the lesson is that water has cohesion (water is attracted to other water) and adhesion (water is attracted to other things too).

The review section is split up by age. The Youngest Students (roughly K-2) answer a couple of questions (“What does it mean when scientists say that water is cohesive?”) and almost everything they do in any of the review is discussion.

Older Students (roughly grades 3-4) need a notebook. This happens to be one of the harder assignments for older students, as they are asked to write an explanation of what happened in this experiment.

The Oldest Students (roughly grades 5-6) do the Older Students assignment, plus they are asked about adhesion and cohesion and why you have to consider both when trying to determine if water will “bead up” on a surface.

Because we are science-oriented, when it comes to the review sections, I discuss the youngest student part with both kids, then both the 2nd and 4th graders do the Older Student notebook work. Usually. In this case, I let the 2nd grader dictate and I wrote for her. I then have my 4th grader do the assignments meant for the oldest students, sometimes allowing him to dictate part of it as well.

Altogether, a science lesson usually takes us around 45 minutes, sometimes a bit longer. We could easily do a lesson every day, completing the course in 18 weeks, but we’re busy with other things too and I’m not in a rush. A pace of three lessons per week, including the Challenge Lessons, would result in a 30-week course.

Overall, what I love about Science in the Beginning is that it includes everything I want from an elementary science program.

• Real science, with real science terminology. It is presented simply, but it is not dumbed down.
• Easy to use, as I don’t have to think about how much to do on any given day.
• Lots of hands-on, but none requires fancy equipment or truly unusual supplies. (There is a list in the beginning of the book of all the harder-to-find supplies, and that includes items such as a compact fluorescent light bulb, a bird’s feather, the bone from a T-bone steak, and a live earthworm.)
• A variety of topics are covered in each book, as the series is using a historical framework to cover science. I think that is a great thing for elementary ages.
• There is hands-on every day. And if for some reason, you can’t do a particular activity, the description in the book is usually adequate for the kids to get it, but I wouldn’t want to rely on that too often!
• Future volumes (Science in the Ancient World is available now) are said to include information about the scientists. I love scientist biographies as part of elementary science especially.
• When it says multi-level, it means it. For younger students, you read, do and talk. Older students have to think a bit more critically about the information presented.
• You can easily switch around from day to day just how much you require of your students.

I have a hard time thinking of any cons, other than the fact that the series is not yet complete. I think it is deep enough for families like mine, yet simple enough for families who are intimidated by science.

I will be purchasing more books in this series, though my daughter may be too old for the last one. This course is a fantastic addition to the elementary science market, and I am so glad Dr. Wile decided to write for the elementary crowd.

Product review by Debra Brinkman, Assistant Director, The Schoolhouse Review Crew, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, July, 2014