The first science course I purchased came with a very large (Can you say voluminous?) teacher’s manual. The instructions told me to read the manual and then verbalize what I learned to my children. This worked pretty well for the first few days. And then—boom!—real life happened. Everything took twice as long as planned, including dealing with my children’s tears, complaints, crying babies, and arguments. Contributing to the chaos of my early days of homeschooling were the nonstop laundry, the phone, and the nuisance of everyone expecting a home-cooked lunch and dinner every day! Faced with the complications of real life, I quickly realized I didn’t have time to read, study, learn or prepare a lesson for a subject that wasn’t one of the three R’s. Needless to say, science fell by the wayside that year.

Charlotte Mason eschews verbal teaching over the reading of engaging, living books.

So I knew that my perfect science course would not come with a laborious teacher’s manual. Rather, the course would teach me alongside my children. We would sit down together and discover science as a family while reading aloud. Science would be easy and enjoyable to teach.