Apologia Blog

• Judy Gehlert Reath Perhaps find a poem to help her memorize the planets? That's what I did when my 5yo was interested.
• Kathy Ulrich Balman Maybe make some planets out of styrofoam balls and have the 4 yr old help paint them.
• Apologia Kristina, do you have a Junior Notebooking Journal for your 4 year old? You could pick and choose some from there he can do. Also, you may be able to find some preschool printables, age appropriate books from the library. My children are 9 years apart–my daughter always "tagged" along with my oldest and helped him do experiments and hands on projects. She even did some of her own–it's amazing what our little ones pick up! ~Michelle
• Kelly Kortright Different colored balls and sizes and lay them out like the solar system naming them
• Colleen Butler Coar Making a solar system for snack time, differents fruits for each planet.
• Kathy Ulrich Balman Or go stargazing. Our local nature centers here in GA are doing lots of family stargazing events maybe contact your local ones to see if they are too.
• The Homeschool Scientist my son loved the planet song! he knew the planets from a very young age
• Kathy Ulrich Balman Oh yeah look up the oreo moon phases thing on google or pinterest that is lots of fun too.
• Kristina Best I have the jr notebook for my 9 yr old but not the younger one. I didn;t think he would be able to do that.
• Apryl Copeland Blakney Do you think it's too hard for a first grader who will be six and a half?
• Mary Jo LeBlanc Four year olds love to memorize facts. Pick at least one thing per lesson to commit to memory. There are also TONS of printable graphics online that a little one can color while listening to big brother's lesson.
• Kaja Peebles Ramsey We enjoyed making a puppet show of how the 3 bears went to each planet and found out a reason why it wouldn't be nice to live there so then they came back home. I wrote the script with some help from my kids. Then they performed it as I recorded and rerecorded the different scenes on with our webcam on the computer. Then I edited it and sent it to Grandpa.
• Judy Gehlert Reath I switched to the jr Notebook for my 2nd grader, when it became available, and it made a big difference! I plan to get 2next year for my 3rd and 1st graders. so, yes, I think it would be good for a 1st grader.
• Brooke Shanabrough Helf We are doing Astronomy with my 9, 5, and 4 year olds and they all love it. They sit in on the reading. (I did not get journals for the younger two, but they have a composition book they can draw in while I read.) My 5-year-old has learned SO much and really loves it. My 4-year-old has learned some but she isn't as into it too much yet.
• Janelle Wright I had my son draw each planet (and the sun and and moon) on a single sheet of paper, as we studied each one. I put them in a notebook. I took a picture of him and cut it out. Now we go through the notebook, and he visits each planet with his cut out picture (like a paper doll). We talk about each planet as we visit. Make it fun to look at them over and over again.
• Merranda Goode Vander Kelen I feel like my 4 year old has absorbed so much this year, just from listening in! He sometimes journals in his own little blank notebook I got for him while the older 2 do theirs. I let him lead on it, some days he participates alot and others not so much.. But when we review, he seems to have retained so much! I love APOLOGIA science.
• Jill Bauer check out pintrest
• Jessica Lee Starnes There is a local park (Cane Creek Park) in our area that is having a nature week and on one of the 4 days they will have an astrology day, each day is different, you might check your area for some enrichment like that.
• Jessica Lee Starnes In teaching a PE class in my Home school Co-op I searched online and found a Solar system Rhyme to do as a group to Jump Rope. I bought a large rope from Lowes to allow group jumping while learning the Solar rhyme.

​What do you think? How do you involve your youngest kids in science?

Thanks to all the great contributions from the party! One more of these on the way tomorrow!