ScienceSaurus Student Handbook 2014 (Grades 4-5)

From Great Source, the company that brought us the oh-so-handy Write Source handbooks, come these bright and colorful science handbooks. In fact, the organization and layout of the ScienceSaurus handbooks is pretty similar to the Write Source handbooks. Each 500+ page book is divided into chapters on general scientific information, the branches of science, and useful reference material. In the Grades 4-5 handbook, chapters include Doing Science; Life Science; Earth Science; Physical Science; Natural Resources and the Environment; Science, Technology and Society; Almanac and Yellow Pages. The organization for Grades 6-8 is similar except there are two general introductory chapters - Scientific Investigation and Working in the Lab. The Doing Science (Gr. 4-5) and Working in the Lab (Gr. 6-8) chapters offer a lot of useful information, including how to use basic lab equipment like a hot plate, a triple-beam balance and a microscope; how to take accurate measurements; how to design an experiment; and lab safety. The topical science chapters feature basic scientific concepts from each branch of science like you distilled "the essentials" from a text on each science. To give you a small sampling of the information included, lets look at Earth Science in both books. In Grades 4-5, topics covered include earths structure, rocks and minerals, soil, erosion, plate tectonics, earths water and the water cycle, weather and climate, the atmosphere, weather systems, severe weather, climate, earths rotation, the seasons, phases of the moon, the solar systems and constellations, space, and more! In Grades 6-8, the Earth Science chapter covers a lot of the same topics but at a more sophisticated and detailed level. The Almanac chapter in both books features the role of numbers in science (and how to use them), study skills, and using maps, charts and graphs. The Yellow Pages are another nice feature. These sections include time lines of scientific discoveries, short biographies of famous scientists, tables of word roots related to scientific terms, and a nice glossary and index. Throughout the handbooks, there are "sciLINKS" which give references to web sites related to the topic presented which can be accessed through the sciLINKS website (much like the Usborne Internet-Linked books).

These well-designed and information-packed handbooks would be a nice resource to reach for when writing about science, creating a science project, or when the information they need cant be found in their textbook. These books are wonderful as a reference book, and are also correlated for use with the Science Daybooks by Great Source. See the Daybook description and curriculum bundles in the science curriculum section. The 05/06/09 copyright versions are in the bundles, but we also offer the 2014 versions of ScienceSaurus, which have identical pagination but some updated photos and content. Both copyrights will work with the Science Daybooks. ~ Jess

Items in this section tend to be instructional frameworks, or unit studies with a "core" teaching resource supplemented with additional text and/or activity resources.