Getting Started: Video-Based Homeschool Curricula

How to Use a Science Shepherd Video-Based Course in Your Homeschool

You’ve purchased homeschool curriculum from Science Shepherd, your package just arrived and you're excited to get started . . . but you’re not sure where to begin. “Help!” This guide is for you! We’ll walk you through all of the material for our video-based courses, where to find digital downloads and online streaming access, and how to use each learning resource in your homeschool.

This guide applies to our video-based courses: Astronomy: God’s Universe, Earth Science, Introductory Science, Physical Science, and Unearthing the Bible. For our Textbook + Video curriculum, we'll have a separate guide coming soon.

Schedules

To start off, schedules for all of our video-based courses are available as PDF downloads at scienceshepherd.com on the corresponding course and product pages – look for the heading “Additional Information” – or on the student portal. We’ll talk a bit more about the student portal below. These schedules are merely our recommended daily/weekly scheduling; feel free to modify and adjust each schedule to fit your family’s needs for homeschooling.

Now, let's review the material that might be included with your purchase. Keep in mind that the exact material and format of your specific order may vary.

Video Course

The core of your course – whether Astronomy: God’s Universe, Earth Science, Introductory Science, Physical Science or Unearthing the Bible – is the video lessons, the “Video Course”. The video course is where all learning material is presented. This is available for these courses as either online streaming or a DVD (set). If you purchased the DVD option, they should play in any DVD player or DVD drive on a computer - yes, those do still exist - and are region free, so you should be able to watch them globally. We say should because we can’t test every DVD player/drive, but they are manufactured to be playable on all DVD devices, globally.

If you purchased the online streaming option, there are two different ways/paths you will receive your course access. If you are a family that is new to using our material, meaning this is your first Science Shepherd online video course and have not enrolled in any free previews, look for an email or two from us welcoming you to our student portal and/or stating that you are now enrolled in [insert name of video course]. This email will contain a link to set your password and login for the first time. Following that initial login, you’ll be able to visit our student portal at courses.scienceshepherd.com directly to login.

If you are a returning family and have previously purchased an online course from us and/or have enrolled in one of our free previews, after you complete your purchase the new video course will automatically be added to your existing account on our student portal. You should receive an email confirming your enrollment in your new course, but you can simply login to your existing account on our student portal at courses.scienceshepherd.com to get started, without needing to wait for that email.

Once you log in to the student portal, enter your new video course by clicking “Start Course” (by the way, this will automatically change to “Resume Course” once you start competing material), take a few minutes to explore the layout to get familiar with the left-hand menu (“hamburger” menu if using a mobile device) and video player. To progress into the main course content, you must visit the Creative Commons module and click “Mark Complete”.

Critically important note: Our system automatically sets up online course access based upon the email address used during checkout, and does so within about 15 minutes of completing your purchase. If you do not have course access as outlined above 15 minutes after completing your purchase, be sure to check your promotions and spam folders, and also confirm that the email address you used during checkout was correct. If you still do not have access to your new course after checking those, please contact us.

Workbook

The second resource that you may have received is a workbook, either as a spiral bound book or as a PDF that you download and print at home. Note that the Unearthing the Bible workbook is available only as a PDF download. If you purchased a workbook PDF, your order confirmation email will include a link to download that material. It will be towards the top of that email in red text. Alternatively, you can log in at account.scienceshepherd.com and access a download link through your order details there. Note that this “account” login is different from the student portal video access login discussed above.

Whether you purchased the PDF or spiral bound book, we recommend taking a few minutes to flip through it to see how it is laid out. Many of our workbooks include a “how to use this workbook” section with a few sample questions. Also note the information contained in the header for each class/lesson. The class number or week/day number will correspond to the class schedule, the lesson videos on the DVD menus and the online video student portal, as well as the answer key (see below) to help make following along easy.

Answer Key

Finally, you may have received the answer key(s) for the workbook(s) that you purchased. This is available either as a softcover or PDF. Note that the Unearthing the Bible answer key is available only as a PDF download. Again, if you purchased the PDF answer key, check your order confirmation email or account.scienceshepherd.com, as outlined above, for a link to your download.

As you take a few seconds to flip through the answer key, note that each lesson/class follows the same numbering system as the workbook and videos.

Important note: The Level A and Level B Answer Keys are not identical. If your family has students in Level A and Level B for a given class, we recommend having both answer keys to make grading and checking work a bit easier.

Using Your Homeschool Science Material

Now that you are familiar with the material you received for your course, you may be wondering what a day of science class should look like. In short, whatever works best for your family/student!

In all seriousness, there’s no one “right” way to work through our video-based courses, although the starting point each day of class will be the video lesson. The video course is where all learning material is presented, and the student workbook serves to reinforce and highlight key points to help keep students engaged. To complete the workbook, you can have your student(s) follow along with the video, completing the daily questions as the video lesson plays, or, if you would like more of a “how well were you paying attention in class?” approach, you can have your student watch the entire lesson and then complete the workbook. Either way is just as valid, and the method you choose for your family should be what works best for you. You might even have one student watch the videos and then complete the workbook, while another student completes the workbook as the video plays.

What about pausing, rewinding, or rewatching? You can, and should, do all three, as needed!

What about Level A and Level B students working together? They sure can! For Introductory Science and Physical Science, the Level A and Level B video lessons are exactly the same, so your Level A and Level B students can watch each lesson together while completing their differing workbooks. For Astronomy: God’s Universe and Earth Science, Level A and Level B share the same “core” lessons, while Level B contains additional, “Level B only” lessons. This means your Level A and Level B students can watch those shared lessons together, completing their different workbooks, and then your Level B student will watch the “Level B only” lessons and complete the workbook questions for those lessons. Of course, your Level A student can watch those lessons, too, he/she just won’t have any workbook questions to complete (Pro tip: This is a great way to expand the scope of Level A, without overwhelming your student with a larger, more challenging workbook). Note that the “Level B only” lessons are designated by a decimal place in the class number, like Class 8.1 or Class 10.2.

In addition to the video lesson questions, each workbook (except for Unearthing the Bible) contains activities/labs. These should generally be completed as part of the class/lesson they immediately follow in the workbook. However, they do not present any new, essential learning material, but serve to further reinforce what has been learned in the videos, so you can “reschedule” labs/activities however works best for your family. You could consider a weekly or monthly “lab day”, or even a summer “lab week”.

That sums up all of the material for our video-based courses! We hope this helps you get started quickly and enjoy a great year of science!

Until next time!
Science Shepherd