Love the concept and incorporating experiments into lessons, but the manuals need to be updated and in one book. Having to read between three different books and trying to figure out the schedule and time frame is frustrating. The schedule should be on one page easy to look at and the rest of it should be in 1 book. We are still going to attempt to go through it, but I was bummed it wasn't as simplified as it could be. Hoping updates are made!
Hi Caitlin. I just wanted to let you know that we actually just fixed this. We just released our updated 2025 version Lab Manuals, which include the experiment guides in them. We changed it so that there is just an Instructor's Guide for you and a Lab Manual for the students that contains everything needed. I hope this helps for future years!
I was chased by instagram ads for months until finally late one night, I pulled the trigger. We’ve never found a curriculum that works for us for science. It was either all reading and writing or super time intensive experiments with no real learning experience.
This curriculum there’s great books with a real rhyme and reason on learning benchmarks. And then very easy and fun experiments that are almost always possible for my kids to do with minimal effort on my part. The experiments are fun and take 15 minutes and really clearly showcase what they’ve just learned about.
My 4th and 5th graders do the reading on their own and then we verbally do the lab book work (it would be a lot of writing if we didn’t).
I was thrilled to buy our first Noeo kit and dive in this year. I've discovered a couple things:
What I love: my 5 and 6 year olds love the read alouds and are engaged in the experiments. It really is not boring at all; yay!
What I don't love:
1) Juggling three workbooks. That is not, in my opinion, "open and go." Would love to see these consolidated!
2) Not all of the experiment items are included in the kits, and most of the "common household items" I actually don't have in my house, and needed to go out and purchase, which was just one more organizational obstacle for me. Again, not "open and go." We are currently stonewalled and can't complete an experiment because I don't have anything styrofoam on hand, and refuse to buy a whole package of styrofoam plates just for one experiment. Kinda annoying.
3) I wish there was a coloring page/activity page for each lesson for younger grades instead of note-taking. For now, I have them answer the questions orally because the lab journal has just too much writing required for kindergarten and first grade. I am also printing off various activity pages for each lesson wherever I can find them online, which my kids love but it is a lot of extra work for me.
4) What would really be the icing on the cake for me, would be an extended book list of titles I can check out from the library to really bulk up the read-aloud portion. We rely heavily on reading time with our younger kids and the included books are great, but I've had to do additional research to find enough on-topic reading. Overall, for my family, this is currently a 3 out of 5 stars because of the above issues, and I'm not sure if we will try again next year with another Noeo kit based on the amount of additional prep and supplementation I've had to do to make it work for us. Perhaps for older grades it would be more successful!
Me and my kids love this curriculum! It’s broken down well and is very interesting and fun
My daughter loves doing it. She is preschool age and I read everything to her. I almost had my second grader use this curriculum, but decided to push him to biology 2 with his older sister and I’m glad I did because this I would be much too easy (and boring) for him. I will say, so far we have only been talking about the weather and that is not biology, to me, it’s Earth science.
My kids are really excited about this curriculum and often tell me cool things they read, but we are really disappointed by the microscope. We can’t see anything with it no matter how much we adjust the focus and it’s a real disappointment to my kids and me.
Also, I have stopped using the reading questions because I found my kids would read just to fill in the answers instead of reading to learn. We have switched to them writing a summary of what they read and 3 cool things they learned about. They seem to be learning much better.
My daughter looks forward to science class now and it's easy for me to follow. Love it.
This program is everything it advertises - a living book and experiment based biology course. We like how short the lessons are and that most experiment items are included in the kit. If I could offer any constructive criticism, it would be to make one teachers book instead of three. The program feels cohesive, I understand the intent behind the separate books. It would just be more convenient to have all the information for any given day on one page. However, that’s an incredibly nit-picky gripe. We love Noeo and will be using it again in the future! We also use MasterBooks science alongside Noeo to add depth. If you’re on the fence about this program, you can find gently used editions on eBay for fairly reasonable prices. Overall - solid program, easy short lessons, *most* materials come with it. No regrets here! The lessons leave plenty of margin for rabbit-trailing when desired, and are not overwhelming when going through a tough season of bare-minimums. Highly recommend!
We love all the of the noeo packages we have got so far!! This one in particular is really fun for the kiddos!
We absolutely love Noeo Chemistry! It is easy to follow and understand and the experiments help solidify the concepts taught in the lesson. My kids look forward to doing science and retain what they learn.
I love this curriculum so far! I have been searching for a classical, Christian, living book Chemistry curriculum for my elementary aged kids and this fits the bill! One bit of feedback however: I am seeing MUCH redundancy between all of the books. If the instructions for the experiments were included in the instructors manual, it would function as a stand-alone text, as opposed to having to buy 3 separate books to piece it all together.
We purchased this grade 1-3 curriculum for my daughter in 2nd grade. I found the readers in particular to be geared toward a much younger learner than the average 2nd grade student. Content and experiments are very similar to the curriculum we used for kindergarten science called Discover & Do, so it was disappointing to see that we would be repeating a fair amount of things we’d already done two years ago. Experiment packets were stocked with rather cheap materials that didn’t always match the experiment presented. This left me scrambling for substitutions and improved materials on several occasions. One specific example is the Petri dish that came sealed already had something growing in it, so there was no way to complete the week 5 experiment. I reached out to the company twice for a replacement item but was given no response. The guides and lab manual are very flimsy materials and all but 2 readers are paperback, which is disappointing considering that we paid $267 for the entire kit. While I think the curriculum itself is ok, I think the course we purchased was completely overpriced compared to other resources available elsewhere. Sadly, it’s a lesson learned too late for us as we missed their deadline for return/refund, so be on top of checking out your full year of resources early on to be sure it’s a good fit.
We are having so much fun as a family learning about Chemistry. The easy to set up experiments have become one of our favorite parts of homeschool.
Love that this lends itself so easily to the scientific method. And it is really easy to get out and go with. It pairs really well with our Classical Conversations cycle 3 work.
My two boys, ages 7 and 9, love doing their Noeo science! They really enjoy the experiments! I love that it’s not super long lessons, and they maintain their focus!
The experiment were very simplistic and could have easily found information online to do them. I did not feel that is was worth the expense to have the materials gathered for you since most were common household materials. If I didn’t already have the item at home they were readily available to purchase and would have been much more affordable.
Got this for my kindergartner. She loves it! The experiments are fun and she is learning so much already. It’s all very user friendly. The instructor’s manual is perfectly laid out and so helpful. We are very happy with it and definitely plan to continue using this curriculum.
So thankful for this curriculum! It is great for multiple ages moves quickly, but is well flushed out. The kids really enjoy the different readers and
Experiments.
My Grandson age 5 loves this. Wants to do more science. I ordered a second book and experiment kits for my older Grandson. But, he didn't try. Age 8.
But, my granddaughter watched us do an experiment and 3 older public school children took over the 2nd kit and wow they love doing it ages 9, 10 and 11. They said at school they never done anything like this.
I love this curriculum. I tell all my friends about it. It’s easy to use. My kids are excited to learn and look forward to the experiments. I wish they had other subjects. We will be a lifer now.