Rose Academy: Supercharged Science Review

Science isn't my favorite subject to teach...one of the reasons is because of the mess and the fact that most of the time when we would do experiments, they wouldn't turn out like they were supposed to. And that's why I decided to give this new curriculum a try. We have had access to Supercharged Science for the past couple of months for review purposes. WOW! WOW! WOW! This is everything and more that I've looked for in an online science program/curriculum. Because we were able to review this curriculum with a full year of access to e-Science Homeschool Science Curriculum for all levels, K-12, we have really been able to put this curriculum to the full test. (Thankfully my microwave was clean as we documented this experiment!)

Have you ever thought to microwave a bar of Ivory soap? Well, that's just what this project prompted us to do. We don't use this kind of bar soap in our home, so the actual experiment part had to wait until we purchased the soap. It was super inexpensive and I think we got three bars for around a buck, so needless to say, this experiment was replicated multiple times. My 14 year old son even extended the experiment by microwaving multiple chunks of soap at one time. Let's just say that, yes, the bars expand.

I was really curious about a few things in this curriculum. First, I was curious if this curriculum could be completed mostly independently by my 14 year old son. Second, did these experiments TRULY use easy to find items that we would either have on hand OR be able to purchase easily and inexpensively. By easily, that requirement was that my 17 year old would be able to drive my son to the store and that they would both be able to go in and find said items quickly and easily. Yes, the experiments all use easy to find items. We didn't always have all of the items at home, but they were easy to find and inexpensive to purchase. There are a few chemicals needed in the chemistry section that you might need to order online or go to a special store, but if you look ahead and plan, it won't be an inconvenience.

You can basically access this curriculum two ways--by topic or by grade level. I much preferred for my son to access the curriculum by topic. Just look at that impressive topics list! This allowed him the freedom to access any video that he was interested in. Each unit includes a shopping list, reading material, videos, exercises, and experiments. There is truly a ton of information included in each unit. You should definitely have the freedom to complete as much or as little as you want. If you do everything, you can literally make this curriculum last for quite a long time.

The creator of this curriculum has quite an impressive resume. AND she is available to answer questions as they come up as you are working through the different lessons. Simply post your question after the lesson and she will get back to you. You can also see other questions and answers that have been posted, which is really helpful in case your question has already been answered.

I highly recommend subscribing to e-Science Homeschool Science Curriculum from Supercharged Science. I wasn't disappointed. All of the experiments that I previewed were pretty simple to conduct and many of them have that WOW factor that kids are looking for. For my son, I was able to just let him go through things quite randomly and try whatever he wanted. He did make note when he needed specific supplies that we didn't already have at home. For those projects, he would just be able to go back and complete them once we had the needed items. With the subscription, you pay one price for ALL of your students making it a reasonable and affordable science curriculum.

One more thing I wanted to note: The entire website is being overhauled and re-imagined to make it even more user friendly. I just had a sneak peek at the new site, and it's super! I can't wait to have access to it because it is organized really well and will make science learning even that much better.