Sciences: notre étude de la biologie en homeschool pour CE1, CM1 et CM2 (années 2, 4, et 5).
(While I was typing this post my 9 year old made a model of the human body and its inner organs with cake fondant. “Now I can perform an appendectomy!”)
I mentioned in another post that I had purchased a book as well as some workbooks from R. Tavernier for our study of biology this year:
As I said before, I was disappointed with these books and don’t recommend them for homeschooling. Instead I used them to get ideas for what topics to study, and then I got books from the library or Amazon, and other resources from Teachers Pay Teachers or free somewhere online. In this post I will share you with the all the resources we used this term.
I should also mention that I divide our study of science and history into two terms, otherwise it is too difficult to fit it in. First term we did science, second term we are doing history. Voilà voilà, quoi.
My kids do most of their school in the morning, and then two or three afternoons per week we do science/history. We do it all together, because there is no way I could do three separate science courses.
Unit 1: la photosynthèse
Since the Tavernier book started with plantes chlorophylliennes, I decided we would do photosynthesis.
We started with this booklet from Teachers Pay Teachers.
I supplemented that with a couple pages from our English Usborne Science Encyclopedia. I wish I could find one as good as that in French.
Unit 2: la classification des animaux
We used another resource from TPT for this one:
We then did Classons les animaux from TPT:
The document comes with a couple different classification activities. For the first one, we organized (on our bulletin board – I printed them small) animals into amphibiens, reptiles, birds, mammals, and fish. Then there was an activity of organizing animals into their ecosystems. Then, with all that vocab up on our bulletin board, we did the Classons les Animaux workbook. Then we did the Mon Animal book. I recommend it! Here is a picture of our bulletin board:
Unit 3: Les dents
For our teeth unit we started by watching an episode of C’est pas sorcier on YouTube called “Comment prendre soin de ses dents ?” Next, I found a free teeth lesson online here from J’ai rêvé de l’école:
I supplemented these activities with a couple diagrams:
Then we did the teeth pages in Cahier d’activités CM2:
Unit 4: L’appareil digestif
For the digestive system, we started by watching a video from C’est toujours pas sorcier called Manger, digérer: l’aventure intérieure. I found a free link here, yay!
Then we worked through a little booklet that I made from this website: Le système digestif – myMaxicours
Here is the booklet:
Here is a great book that we got from our library:
I then made them draw and label a digestive system onto this guy:
(After M2 had her appendix out in January, she said she was shocked that her friends didn’t know what an appendix is. “Aren’t they forced to label organs in science class?” she asked.)
Lastly, I gave them a quiz that I made myself on My Worksheet Maker.
(For the second night in a row now, my oldest girls have spent their evenings making models of the human body and its organs out of cake fondant. Who knew? I wish I had thought of it sooner. It is nicer to work with than playdoh, and you can eat it.)
Unit 5: Les poumons et la respiration
For this unit we started with another video by C’est toujours pas sorcier called Respirer, c’est tout un art. For this one I was unfortunately unable to find a free link.
Then I made another little booklet and an activity for them to complete, from this website: https://www.magicobus.fr/sciences/respiration.php
The file:
Finally, we ended the unit with this activity from TPT:
Unit 6: Gregor Mendel
Unfortunately, we ran out of time to do all the systems of the human body. I really wanted to read about Gregor Mendel, which I had wanted to do for a long time but never got around to. So we read an English book called Gregor Mendel: the Friar who Grew Peas.
It was very good and I highly recommend it. We then started Gregor Mendel: le jardinier de l’héredité. We only got half way through and then we lost interest. It was a little dry, to be honest, and the level was a bit above my children’s French ability.
Then we bought some lilies and put them on our kitchen table and watched it bloom so we could identify its étamines and pistils. My kids pollinated the flowers… with their fingers. I suggested a paintbrush, but was ignored. Now we are watching if it will make graines.
I printed a couple pages to help us identify its parts and their function:
Taken from here: https://www.projetecolo.com/composition-d-une-fleur-les-differentes-parties-d-une-fleur-192.html
I saw on Teachers Pay Teachers that there is a store called MissFrenchImmersion, where you can buy full year science curriculums for grades 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, which are aligned to the Ontario provincial curriculum. They are quite reasonably priced, and in retrospect it probably would have saved me a lot of time! I haven’t tried any of them, but they look pretty decent from what I can see in her store.
What do you do for your homeschool science curriculum?
Leave a Reply