Creek Edge Press.  Creek Edge Press.  One More Time – Creek Edge Press.

If you leave with anything from this post it would be have this name in the front of your memory – Creek Edge Press.

Its simple. Brilliant Really. Simple things usually are. Small index cards. Simple ideas to dive into. A homeschool mom that went before us – Wrote. It. Down.

Each day – on an index card – simple expectations for her daughter, but she saved them, and passed them on to us. And now, I’m passing them on to you.

We looked at the Chemistry set of cards. I read the wonderful teacher introduction book. But I looked at the little card for #1. And read the instructions. And just wasn’t sure.  Encyclopedia. Dictionary. Sumary. Lab.  On Chemistry. A little additional reading.  Basically, that’s all that is on the card.  

The student, aka – Nate, should have great books to dive into and find out “What is Chemistry?” Read about chemistry, and then find a lab that shows chemical reaction. I wasn’t sure. Would Nate do it? How much help would he need? How much work would he do?

He pulled out a few books – encyclopedias, dictionaries, little books from the library – started a fresh spiral notebook – and stayed at this little table for the greater part of the morning. On his own. Writing. Asking questions. Looking them up. I just watched.

He picked the lab for Naked Egg. We spent three days watching him take lab notes. We’d talk about why he thought the egg was floating, random questions in the car.  I just listened.

We were supposed to travel to Bend during the time of the local science fair. The day before the fair, we found out we weren’t going.  Nathan quickly sat down and wrote out a Project Board for his lab. It was really simple. Especially compared the the wealth of verbal information that had been tossed around, but he was confident, and he knew that the acidic acid from the vinegar had broken down the calcium and created carbon dioxide in the water. And that was the goal of Lesson #1, so I was pleased.

He gave a great presentation – everyone wanted to break his egg. (He soaked a new one for demonstration at the Science Fair.)

See that little pink packet on the table?  Creek Edge Press. Creek Edge Press. Our little index cards. It says that they are for k-6. They claim that students can have the cards, a cubby of materials (suggestions on their site), and that the child will learn. No huge curriculum book – just index cards. They call them Task Cards. You can read about their Educational Philosophy, Benefits and Distinctives on their site. What I can say – is that it matches what we are doing with other Charlotte Mason materials. Small amounts of information per week – jumping points – direction – and lots of books.

Second Task Card is Mixtures.  I had a bit of time in the morning, so I looked up Mixtures and Solutions and the other task points in a few books – marked them for Nate.  He really liked the tabs in his books.  Chemistry has become one of our favorite times of the week. And we do it the same way as Art, Composers, Geography and Nature.

Creek Edge Press – From their site:

Classical – The tasks point to key vocabulary that students will use in future years of study.  The tasks encourage students to read, think, and respond.  The research tasks facilitate a habit of reading for detail, preparing the grammar stage student for work in the dialectic stage. 

Charlotte Mason – The tasks rely on narration, in a variety of forms, as a primary means of response to reading and listening. The student encounters meaningful ideas and beautiful expression within the materials chosen for study.

Montessori – The parent prepares a learning environment and the student engages in research tasks indicated on the cards. While the topics on the cards are specific, the tasks are purposely open ended to allow for individual investigation and response at the student’s pace. 

They have Science, History, Geography, Culture, Art, Music and Grammar Reinforcement Task cards.  She offers a large list of book ideas to use.  I went through the library to glean quite a few, and then to the used books store to pick up a few more.  I never dreamed that we would be able to learn Chemistry in the same way we were doing our other CM studies.

Creek Edge Press – Are you getting it yet? Are you interested?  You know you want to click over and read through their site.

Now, I’ve got to tell you – that I did receive these cards and teacher’s manual as part of my time with The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew – and that we are just supposed to use them and share our experience and opinion – and that I’m not an affiliate or salesman.

But for as much as I’ve BEGGED you to check out how easy a time we’ve had with Nature, Art and Composers – I’m going to checking in from week to week to share our studies and BEG you to check out this company.

For younger children, I’m not entirely sure that they’d be able to look at the card and just “do it”. I give a disclaimer that Nathan has been doing his work this way all year – so it was easy to jump in. Jon has wanted to do more biology and physics this year than chemistry, which is fine.

I encourage you to visit the Crew Blog and see how my crew mates’ experience with Geography and Culture, American History, Ancient, Medieval, Early Modern and Modern History, Life Science, Earth and Space, Physics and Chemistry.

You can get your set of Task Cards for Chemistry and Great Scientists for $18.00 from Creek Edge Press!