Experience Astronomy

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

The past month or so, Silas and Titus have been using Experience Astronomy: Elementary from Journey Homeschool Academy. This has been a great addition to our summer learning and I'll tell you why! First of all, I had planned for them both to study astronomy this coming school year. I figured this would be a great introduction to and supplement for our astronomy studies! Second, they have really enjoyed this course! It is fun, interesting, and super easy to implement!

WHAT IS JOURNEY HOMESCHOOL ACADEMY?

I had never heard of Journey Homeschool Academy before receiving this course to review. Journey Homeschool Academy was created by Luke and Trisha Gilkerson, who have written several parenting and homeschooling books and write a blog together. They offer several courses including Experience Biology: Upper Level for high school and Experience Biology: Elementary.


WHAT IS EXPERIENCE ASTRONOMY: ELEMENTARY?

Experience Astronomy: Elementary is a 1-year course for elementary students ages 6-11 years old. The course has several components. First there is a video. This is the core of the program. The video is around 15 minutes long and it's incredibly interesting and fact-filled! We have all learned so much from the videos. In fact, one morning when the boys were watching it, my 12-year old daughter was sitting with them. She looked at me and said, "This is actually super interesting!" and then proceeded to tell me what she was learning from the video. I know they're effective, too, because both of my sons can answer almost all of the review questions correctly.

Next there is a short memory video. This video goes over the memory work involved in this course - the facts that your children really should memorize. There are also memory cards you print and cut apart that you can use as a drill, review, or even games.

Each lesson has a downloadable activity guide. This includes addition reading suggestions, scripture copy-work, review questions in a quiz format, the memory cards, and a hands-on activity. The hands-on activities are fun and very doable with easy to find supplies and easy to follow instructions. We use the review questions as an oral review and my boys do the copy-work. The copy-work is available in print and cursive. My 8 year old uses the print and my 10 year old uses the cursive.

These are the lessons:

1. Why God Loves Astronomy
2. Who Moved the Sun?
3. Blazing Summers, Freezing Winters
4. Spring Forward, Fall Back
5. Hello, Moon!
6. There are Giants in the Sky
7. From North Star to Southern Cross
8. Stories in the Sky
9. More Stories in the Sky
10. Watch out For Wandering Stars!
11. Around the World
12. Blackout!
13. Bye Bye Moon
14. Falling Rocks and Shooting Stars
15. Galileo's Head Was On The Block
16. Earth- Baby Bear's Porridge
17. Man on the Moon
18. Mr. Golden Sun
19. Mercury - The Swift Messenger
20. Venus - Earth's Fiery Sister
21. Mars - The Red Planet
22. Space Rock and Roll
23. Jupiter - By Jove! It's a Giant!
24. Saturn - Put a Ring on It
25. Uranus - A Topsy Turvy World
26. Neptune - The Blue Giant
27. Ice, Ice, Baby (Too Cold)
28. Planets Galore!
29. The Immeasurable Heavens
30. The Heavens are the Lord's Heavens

You can purchase the student pages and student cards separately or you they are available to download with the purchase of the course for $129. This is a great price for the year-long course!

HOW WE USED IT:

We used this each week. The boys would watch the video, and then I would ask them the review questions and work on the memory cards. They would do their copy-work and the hands-on activity a different day. The first hands-on activity we did was to make Shoebox Planetarium. The instructions were easy to follow and we had a blast with it! We took it into my closet and shined a flashlight through it onto the ceiling. 

We used a waffle box because we didn't have a shoebox. 

We also had to draw the sun, make a blueprint of our house to see which windows got the most sun in the morning and evening, find north without a compass, and more.

WHAT WE THOUGHT:

I really love Experience Astronomy: Elementary! The videos are engaging and interesting. They are a great length - they're not too short where you feel like you didn't learn anything or too long where you child starts to lose interest. The extra materials are also a great addition! The copy-work is nice and the hands-on activities are fun. I like the supplemental reading lists and memory cards. Being able to have the review questions from previous lessons is also a great way to make sure your children are retaining what they've learned. It only takes a few minutes to review the lessons! I love that it is presented from a Christian perspective and the author has such a passion for astronomy. He gets so excited in the video lessons and he really loves what he is teaching. That's always a plus! 

Experience Astronomy: Elementary would be a great science curriculum for any homeschooler! See what other reviewers thought about Journey Homeschool Academy by clicking the banner below.

Homeschool Highlights: 3/23/20 - 3/27/20

This week was a hard week. We had a family friend pass away. The lady that let us borrow her bag of Peru souvenirs fell off of a ladder this week and passed away. She was such a wonderful lady, so funny and sweet and full of kindness and joy. She will be greatly missed. And we can't even have a funeral right now. They are going to bury her and then have a service in April - hopefully everything will be on the way back to normal by then.

Rod is still in Texas working. He should be home in 2 - 3 weeks. They are considered necessary workers (gas workers) and have to have permits to be out! We miss him, especially in light of everything that is going on.

Also, from now on Homeschool Highlights will link up before noon. It's hard for me to get it linked up early in the morning!

In geography this week, we traveled to Nigeria. We completed our country fact sheet, mapping sheet, flag sheet, and Children Just Like Me worksheet.

We made Nigerian drums out of tin cans and paper bags.

We did a quicksand experiment using cornstarch. We used army men to show how quickly you can sink in the quicksand if you're standing up and if you fight it. If you lay flat, you don't sink as quickly. The kids loved the way this felt!

When they put some in their hand and rolled it into a ball, it became hard. They held out their hands and it turned to liquid! Then they squeezed again and it became hard again. They thought this was so neat.

We only have 7 countries left to "visit" this year. We have really had fun with Expedition Earth!

In science, we started a gardening unit to finish out the school year. On Monday we kicked off the study by making "dirt pudding" and showing the layers of the soil.

(Kind of hard to see but we had graham crackers, golden Oreos, pudding, Oreos, chocolate chips and gummy worms.)

We also started our seeds for our garden this year. We seeded out carrots, onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, okra, sweet corn, watermelon, strawberries, cantaloupe, black-eyed peas, and squash. I still need to seed out the cucumbers, lettuce, and a few other things but we ran out of trays!

The kids loved being involved in this. They each had their own tray and chose what to put in it. We used craft sticks are markers to remember what we planted.

We did a few soil tests on the soil in our garden plot. We added vinegar to one soil sample and baking soda and water to another. The soil didn't react to either one, which means our soil probably has a neutral pH balance of 7. That's great news!

with vinegar

with baking soda

We are doing an earthworm test later today.

Zeke had a "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" theme this week for Tot School. He played in some rainbow colored rice. We hid laminated cards with the animals from the book in the rice. He found the pictures and put them with their match. We do two cards at a time, and he does great!

He also painted the animals from the book the correct colors. We are laminating them and making his own book.

He loves painting!

We did a lot of playing outside, cleaning inside, and watching TV. I ordered our curriculum for next year - Volume 1 of KONOS - and I've been looking through it. It's tough being ordered to stay home. We live in Louisiana, which has the fasted spread of COVID-19 in the world. That's sort of scary, but we do live very rural which I'm hoping will help us not to catch it. It's been nice having the big kids home from public school - they help with Zeke a LOT.

Random shots from the week:

Zeke loves this hammock and he loves being outside.

Mercie started a cross-stitch of our cat.

I don't like this picture of me (it's not flattering at all!) but I do like how one of the kids captured Zeke and I talking. So sweet! 

How was your week?

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Dragonfly Magnets (100 Days of Art Day 12)

We are studying dragonflies in science this week and have learned so many interesting things about them! Did you know that a dragonfly can fly up to 35 miles an hour? I saw a really cute dragonfly craft on Pinterest and decided to recreate it my own way.

All you need for this project is:

craft sticks

packing tape

Sharpies

googly eyes

plastic gems

white glue

magnets

The first thing to do is tear off a piece of packing tape about 8 or 9 inches long and then fold it in half, sticky side in. These will the wings for the dragonfly since their wings are mostly transparent.

Next we drew the outline of a dragonflies wing on one of them. We then put the others on top of that one and traced it so they would all be about the same size.

 

 

Then we used Sharpies to draw the veins of the dragonfly's wings. (These veins provide support for the dragonfly's wings so they can fly so fast and perform many mid-air tricks, like hovering and flying backwards and even upside down!)

 

The kids colored a few portions of the wings in different colors and then cut out and glued the wings to the craft stick.

We added jewels and big googly eyes to complete the dragonfly! Dragonflies have the largest eyes of any insect, which is why we used big googly eyes! Of course, they have compound eyes with thousands of lenses, but the googly eyes will have to do for this craft.

We added magnets to the back so we can hang these on the refrigerator!

(Titus age 7)

(Silas age 9)

(Mercie age 12)

 

They look beautiful held up to the light! It is a rainy, cloudy day here which is why our lighting is terrible.

 

Here are two books we read about dragonflies!

 

 

Check out our other projects in my 100 Days of Art Challenge!

 

Day 1: Learning to Draw

Day 2: Pyramids

Day 3: String Art

Day 4: Optical Illusion Art

Day 5: Kandinsky Concentric Circles

Day 6: Rainbow Paint Chip Mosaics

Day 7: Llama Valentine Box

Day 8: Minecraft Valentine Box

Day 9: Model Insects

Day 10: Symmetrical Butterflies

Day 11: Butterfly Feeder