Introducing . . . Seashore Science!

I cannot believe this day is finally here!  I have been working on this resource (and, you know, an entirely new brand and website) since the start of the year and it feels SO good to finally share it with you!

Seashore Science (and the entire Homeschool Glue brand) was created out of a void I was unable to fill in our own homeschool.

You see, I love family-style learning.  I've found with daughters fairly close in age and with an extremely rambunctious three year old, my girls like to do as much learning as they can together (they rarely leave me or each other alone so they would be learning what the other learned anyway) and I only have so much time where our three year old is peaceful and happy before she needs some devoted mom-daughter time, so family-style learning is the best solution for our family.

Plus, we didn't decide to homeschool so I would send each child off to do their own thing while I taught each individually.  There is nothing wrong with this, but it was not my vision when we started homeschooling.  I wanted to learn as much as a family as we could.

So, when I was looking for a science program to use for my girls for next year that was:

• Affordable
• Family-Style
• Based on Charlotte Mason Principles
• Filled with Living Books
• Easy to Implement
• Filled with Simple, Hands-On Activities

I literally could not find what I was looking for.  I searched for months.  Just when I would find one that looked amazing, it would cost a few hundred dollars.  When one was filled with living books and activities, it would be hard to make family-style.  Some had amazing activities but were far from a Charlotte Mason approach. 

The whole time, a thought in the back of my mind kept pestering me, "Why don't you just make it yourself?"  After a couple months of searching, I finally truly asked myself why I didn't just create my own because I cannot be the only mom struggling to find a science curriculum that checks all of these boxes.

So that day, Seashore Science and thus Homeschool Glue were born!

 Seashore Science was created based on a simple curriculum I put together a couple summers ago for my daughters so we could have a lighter homeschool day but still continue our learning over the summer.  We fell in love with Thornton Burgess' chapter books that I read to my girls for my oldest daughter's first grade year.  So, I picked up The Seashore Book for Children by Thornton Burgess and we started our day reading it and watching videos I would find with the different sea creatures we encoutered in the book.

Seashore Science takes this concept much further, making it a robust science curriculum, but it does not take even an hour to implement, and you as the parent can pick and choose which parts of the feast I offer you want your children to partake in!

 The 86-page Teacher Guide contains:

• Detailed instructions
• Book lists with 3 core books and 40 living picture book (with links)
• 2 schedule options (4 days/week for 10 weeks OR 2 days/week for 20 weeks)
• Extension activities for older children (middle-high school ages)
• Field trip ideas
• Movie + documentary recommendations
• Weekly supply lists
• Weekly grids (shown above)
• 40 daily lessons

Each lesson is built upon a chapter of The Burgess Seashore Book for Children.  So, almost every lesson children will:

• Read one short chapter in the Seashore Book 
• Do an additional reading in one of two informational (and beautiful) ocean anatomy books that builds upon something you learned in the main reading
• Read a living picture book (QR code and link included to a video read aloud for most books when available so you can still read the book even if you cannot find the book in your library)
• Watch a short video (usually under 5 minutes on Youtube about a creature or feature of the ocean you encountered in the main reading for the day)
• Discuss a vocabulary card (you can also display there in your space)
• Complete a written narration in the Student Notebook (three versions included for different writing levels)
• Half of the lessons also included a main or bonus activity (see below)

The Teacher Guide includes 10 main activities and 9 bonus activities to deepen learning and make learning science a lot of fun!  The main activities take something the children have learned and bring it to life.  For example, when children read about salt water, they do an activity about Dissolving the Earth's Crust.  When children read about jellyfish, they make a stinging cell to help illustrate how stinging cells work.  The bonus activities are fun open-ended activities aimed at the younger learners (preschool-second grade), but all children love them.  These are activities like making ocean playdough, an edible coral reef, and underwater viewer, and an ocean sensory bin.  The activities are designed to use mainly things you have on hand and not take much time to set up.