Those are the two I'm eyeing right now, but I'm open to other suggestions. Needs to be secular, or easily adaptable if not.

We used NOEO Chemistry 1 this year, and while we liked the books and experiments, I couldn't *stand* the way the books are broken down to be read ~ like day 1 read pages 1-5, day 2 read pages 6-10 etc., even if was not the end of a chapter or section, we were supposed to stop reading. I'm probably just picky about that though ;), and my ds would complain if we stopped reading in the middle of a chapter, so I ended up just not following their schedule at all, and just reading the books and doing the experiments at our leisure.

I considered Noeo, but chose other curricula (I will be using Considering God's Creation and Christian Kids Explore Biology this coming year) because it didn't seem like much more than a reading schedule (and an expensive one at that!), and from what I've heard, the experiments aren't numerous or very exciting. You might check out R.E.A.L Science or Real Science 4 Kids. They're both meaty and secular and I've heard great things about both. We've also used and really enjoyed several units of Great Science Adventures (definitely secular, my sig photo was taken during the space study). You could always print out the book list Noeo has and supplement another curriculum with those books (and you could probably borrow most of them from the library and save yourself some serious coin, too). Just my two cents :)

Oooh, that's good to know about Noeo -- We also really dislike reading 3 pages of this book, 2 pages of that, etc. at a sitting. Of course, I know you don't *have* to do it that way, but still....

Thanks for the recommendations, Carol -- I've looked at Real Science 4 Kids, but haven't revisited it recently. And I haven't looked into Great Science Adventures at all.

:) Thanks again!

I have Real Science 4 Kids and don't especially like it. It's "meaty" alright, to the point of being too meaty. It needs to be re-written to be more kid friendly I think, and with more exercises/hands on learning.

And thanks for the heads up about "My World Science" -- I've never heard of it before now and I *really* like what I see on their website.

I am just buying the same kits that noeo uses (The Young Scientists Club) off of Amazon (or wherever I find them cheap. Rainbow resource sells all kinds of kits as well) and then I will get books from the library to go along with each experiment. My plan/goal is to do one experiment/topic per month. I'm starting with TYSC kit 1 that contains 3 different experiments. They are around $18-$24 for all 3, and books from the library are free... So about $60 for the year.

Well, I succummed and bought one of the "My World" packs -- I'll let ya'll know how it looks when it gets here. :)