This curriclum is built upon a few Charlotte Mason principles: living books, self-education, notebooking, and hands-on learning. Let's look at Lesson 5!
Every daily lesson page is open & go, with QR codes and links to video read alouds (if you cannot find the picture books in your library) and videos for each lesson. Besides having the books on hand and corraling some activity supplies, all you need to do is open the Teacher Guide and get started!
SEASHORE SCIENCE READING
Every lesson is built upon one short reading from the living book The Seashore Book by Thornton Burgess where kids encounter sea creatures through the perspective of forest creatures discovering them for the first time. In this lesson, the children will be read aloud chapter 5 where Danny Meadow Mouse sees a hermit crab for the first time! The book offers amazing descriptions and photos (or illustrations if you get the illustrated version) of the seashore, sea creatures, and different ocean features.
ADDITIONAL READING
Every lesson has an additional short reading from one of two ocean anatomy books to build upon the learning done in the Seashore Book. Because we read about hermit crabs in the Seashore Book, we read about hermit crabs in Julia Rothman’s Ocean Anatomy book. This additional reading gives children more information about what they learned and also offers illustrations, anatomy diagrams, and fun facts that build upon what they just learned in the previous reading.
PICTURE BOOK
Every lesson has a living picture book reading. In this lesson, children will read A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle where a hermit crab finds different items in the ocean to decorate his shell, but he eventually grows too big for his shell and must look for a new one. Parents can check out the book from the library or scan the QR code to watch a video read aloud of the book.
VIDEO
Every lesson has at least one short video (usually under 3 minutes) that builds upon the learning. In this lesson, children watch a video of a robotic hermit crab with a camera that is lining up with real hermit crabs to switch shells. Although the descriptions are incredibly vivid and realistic in The Seashore Book, being able to sea the creatures and other ocean features in video format brings all the learning together and paints a full picture of what the children learned about in their readings.
HANDS-ON ACTIVITY
Half of the lessons in Seashore Science include hands-on activities. Half of the activities are "main activities" that are encouraged all families to do to deepen their learning. These activities are aimed at later elementary aged students and middle school students, but can be enjoyed by younger children as well. The other half of the activities are "bonus activities" and these are open-ended activities that are aimed at younger children (preschool through early/mid-elementary) but can be enjoyed by all children. This lesson inclues a bonus activitie where children can put together an ocean-themed sensory bin to enjoy for the rest of the term!
NOTEBOOKING
The curriculum comes with three student notebook styles so every stage of writing has a notebook to use. Children will draw and write about anything they found interesting in the lesson. The methodology behind this practice comes straight from Charlotte Mason whose philosophy inspired this resource. Charlotte Mason writes about the importance of narration and notebooking in her volumes. She stresses the importance of narration, or telling-back what you learned, for helping children retain information, make connections between subjects, and to reflect upon what they have read. Notebooking taking this further by having students draw and write their narrations. Children can decide what they found most interesting in the lesson and draw about and write about it. This uses self-education by the children taking ownership over their learning and deciding what they found to be the most important and interesting that they want to reflect upon. The youngest students have coloring pages and a place for parents to help write the narrations. As children progress in their writing, they can draw their own pictures and write their own narrations with two different line styles to choose from included in the curriciculum.
Learn more about Seashore Science and how to try a week for free here!