Earlybird Start-Up Science

This colorful series from Singapore Math introduces early concepts in life science, physical science, chemistry, and earth science to the very young. Each book focuses on one of these sciences, and contains 29 lessons and an answer key. Each page of the book focuses on a different topic and presents a short informational segment, followed by questions or a hands-on activity. The material is presented in its simplest form, and most often the questions repeated at the end simply ask the student what was discussed at the top of the page, although in some cases, it might be helpful to have read a little more material on the subject as well. The range of subjects is pretty impressive, including animal habitats, parts of the ear and eye, how seeds sprout, electromagnets, conductors, circuits, mixing colors, evaporation, how sound is made, sinking or floating, seasons, solar system, milky way, constellations, meteors, food chains, and more. As an example of a lesson, the one lesson in Book 3 features a short paragraph on the properties of some common materials, followed by a blank chart. The students must decide whether some other common materials such as wood, glass, plastic, rubber and others are hard, if they can be bent, if they last a long time, and if they are attracted to a magnet. After that activity, several common materials are listed, and the student must match these to the item or construction it can be used to make. All activities are generously illustrated with friendly, cartoon-like animals and objects, and altogether the books have a "fun," relaxed look about them, even though the concepts are fairly well-presented and a little more serious that I've seen in other early elementary science programs. Inexpensive, and easy-to-use, these books could easily make up a complete science curriculum for the early grades, although you may want to supplement with a little more reading, especially with interesting related library books to broaden their horizons a little more. - Jess