It’s hard to find science books and lessons that don’t revolve around the theory of evolution. I’m always having to edit out millions of years, and how humans are related to animals and plants.
That’s why I was really excited to try this new Christian Homeschool Science Curriculum.
As part of a sponsored post from Kendall Hunt Publishing I received a Free copy of ByDesign. All opinions are honest and I was not required to give a positive review.
ByDesign Christian Science Homeschool Curriculum
When my ByDesign Science set came in the mail I flipped through all of the materials; Student Edition, Science Journals, and Teacher Edition. The first thing that really stood out was the beautiful images. There were no cartoons and very few drawings. Everything was pictures of real animals, plants and examples of scientific principals.
When using the curriculum, I included all of my children in the lessons. Although I received 1st grade, my kindergartner was captivated by the images in the book and was happy to sit and listen as we took turns reading.
The teachers guide is very complete and offers lesson plans to schedule your learning. We like to take an interest-driven approach so I just read a couple pages and then asked my children if they’d like to hear more. We continued reading a whole section. My 1st-grader, Audrey, continued to flip through the book looking at the pictures and asking questions. That’s what science is all about, right?
Curriculum Features
Right off the bat, the book attributes God as the maker of all living things. Throughout the book there are scripture references for Bible study and questions that help children connect the Bible to science. We LOVED it!
The book is well organized so you can easily find extension activities, scripture verses, and questions to ask your children.
For each main section there are science journals to help children go through the scientific process for the concepts they are learning in the text.
Science Activities
The first section of the student edition is about living things. We read the section about plants and decided to go one of their ‘Explore-a-lab’ activities.
We enjoyed a nature walk collecting leaves and other plant material to take back home and sort.
This activity was the kind that you can break up and make it last the whole week. That way you can keep up with all your other lessons, or you can combine this science curriculum into your writing, reading, and math lessons. There are ideas for all of that in the teachers manual!
Next we sorted all the things we collected and talked about the different things we found. I asked my children if they knew some of the plant names of the things that we found. They knew a few, but had no clue what some of them were.
As we made prints of the leaves, I continued to remind my children what we read in the ByDesign book about plants, the different parts, what they need to live, and what day of creation God made them.
We labeled our prints so we could remember what kind of trees they were from and it was great time! I can’t wait to explore the rest of the book with my children and learn more about God’s beautiful creation! Why not join us and purchase a copy today!
Christian Homeschool Curriculum from Kendall Hunt
Although this is a publication of the Seventh-Day Adventist church, I found that all of the Biblical Principals in this science curriculum were in-line with my non-denominational Christian Faith.
If you would like to learn more about this Christian Science Program for grades 1-8 as well as preview all the levels, go to the ByDesign website.
Kendall Hunt also provides faith-based programs in Reading Language Art called (Pathways) and a New Kindergarten program (Stepping Stones). In addition, Kendall Hunt offers Talented and Gifted programs in mathematics (M2 and M3) as well as products developed in collaboration with the CFGE (Center for Gifted Education) College of William and Mary in subject areas such as language arts, social studies, and science.
patty says
Hi there,
I am looking into ordering by design curriculum as well. How’s it going with you so far?
Dolph Hoover says
Your children’s leaf art are giving me ideas. I might start painting again because of this.
Forest Trail Academy says
The leaf art is really awesome. This really generates the creative ideas of the children in turn your children’s creativity improves.
Forest Trail Academy recently posted…Going Up on Main Street with Your High School Diploma
Dolph Hoover says
This reminds me of that one hilarious time when our high school teacher made us a fossil project based on the instructions on the textbook using plaster of Paris but it totally went wrong and it didn’t look like what it should similar to the book illustrations.
Andre Beluchi says
Janine, what you and your husband are doing for your kids sure reminds me about the christian school that my daughters are enrolled in. Right now they are in a christian school leadership program that teaches them about science and all other type of nature stuff. It’s something that left an impression on my wife and I.
Mary says
I started doing Christian home school work for my kids too! Great post
Drew says
Very interesting curriculum here. It’s nice to see good home school lesson plans out there. Thanks so much for sharing!
Abhi says
This is something interesting and loved the leaf activity. Thanks for sharing
Christina says
It’s good to hear you were so pleased with the passages. Relating science back to God can be a rare find in today’s literature.
Rahul says
This is downright indoctrination. There is undeniable evidence that we are indeed related to animals. If we weren’t, how the hell would our eyes work the same as other animals, how’d we have keratin- which some other animals share (Rhinos), how would we have certain body parts.
I don’t think you understand what related to means. It just means we share similar DNA.
Janine says
That is just not true. We don’t have the same DNA as animals. A common design is just as much evidence for a common designer. Just because we are teaching something that you don’t agree with, doesn’t mean it is indoctrination.