I was very excited to start using God's Design for Life this year with my son. He was finally in 5th grade and I thought this curriculum would be perfect. I had heard that it worked well for a variety of ages, so I was excited to also include my kindergarten age son for some "family school" time. I had researched and researched, and even watched an interview with the author and loved the philosophy behind the program. Sadly, however, the curriculum did not work for us - AT ALL!
I know this curriculum works well for many people, but I will explain below why it didn't work for us in bulleted form:
1. First of all, the content in the curriculum is so advanced my youngest son wasn't interested in the least. In the lessons we did, there actually was not a whole lot of fluff, the content was great and full of helpful information. But since my youngest son wasn't interested at all, that was one downside to the program for me.
2. In the Taking it Further/Challenge section, the answers are not always included in the lesson. When checking my son's work and looking at the answer key, I would see a lot of information that was nowhere to be found. The question did not state that it was a "research question" and yet many of the questions had to be answered with research, prior knowledge, or scientific intuition regarding the content of the lesson, but not things that were explicitly taught. We found this very frustrating!
3. We discovered the science experiments are not in the least optional, or peripheral, but very integral to the program. Much of the teaching is done through the experiment and the experiment worksheets, and many of the lesson questions are about the experiment. I prefer when experiments simply reinforce the lessons, or demonstrate what was taught, but are optional. We found this a little difficult to deal with since we hadn't planned on doing too many of the experiments, unless we thought they might be extra fun, beneficial, etc. This made the lesson worksheets a little less fun to complete, and a little confusing, since we hadn't done the experiment.
4. The quizzes were pretty challenging considering how little reinforcement the program provides. For a quiz requiring that much memorization of terms, I would think there should be spiraled questions in the homework, flash cards, something in the teacher's manual that could guide me to help my son learn and retain the information. In fact, there was nothing of the sort.
So despite my research on this program, I guess I didn't do enough because it didn't last more than two weeks in my house. I really wanted this program to work for us, but it just didn't. I know that many people love it and it works for them, but I wanted people to see another side of using the program so families can have more information in selecting a curriculum.
So what did we do?
Enter Rod and Staff Science!
After spending money on God's Design for Life, I knew I needed a more inexpensive program. I also knew I should use a program that has a reputation for helping a homeschool parent, to help a child, gain mastery of information. I never thought I would use Rod and Staff Science, but we love it! It covers science exactly how we like to discuss it in our home, and covers the exact topics that we like to discuss in our home. It is titled "God's Wonderful World" and it really does live up to the name. We have had lessons on waterfalls, how mountains have a rainy side and a dry side, hurricanes, tornados, crustaceans, grasshoppers. I have also heard wonderful things about Apologia science, but I don't think I could handle the whole year on one topic, so I love how these textbooks have a more traditional format of spiraling through key science topics that students should master. I love that this science book actually has "natural law" as a vocabulary world and explains miracles as something that God does that does not follow natural law. It truly is a great curriculum that reminds me why I am homeschooling: to integrate all subjects with truth and virtue.
(Also, there are "Taking it Further" type activities, but they are always optional. If the question requires research, the question will state it. Experiments are not required to learn from the curriculum as in God's Design for Life.)
I'm sure there are people that think Rod & Staff Science 5 is just a "boring" textbook, but really, sometimes textbooks do work and are helpful. I tried another program that is supposed to be more Charlotte Mason, but my son and I needed more structure in order to know how to discuss and retain the information. Because the information is so well presented, I can tell when he doesn't understand something. The concept behind narration doesn't have to always be oral, students can write their narrations. I can tell when my son's answer shows lack of mastery, or only 80 percent understanding. I think this is because Rod and Staff curriculum was made by educators that know what works. Since the content is focused around beautiful, important parts of God's creation (and also just things about the world people should know as an adult), I think it is important to master them and I love that Rod and Staff Science helps with this.
So, while it may not be popular, this old-fashioned, structured, traditional curriculum is working wonders in our home this year. And besides, what else is a textbook but a bunch of living books glued together with helpful worksheets in between them : )
If God's Design for Life or purely Charlotte Mason science works well for your family, that's great! All homeschool parents have their unique strengths, and all students have their unique strengths, and that is the great thing about homeschooling: We can all choose what works best for our family.
Thank you for reading!