I picked up Zoology 2 and we began it this week - I was thrilled with the notebooking journals, and that my younger kiddo has her own Jr. Journal while my older one has his regular one. However, there is a TON of reading each of the 2 days a week it recommends using the program! We are finding it very dry and when added with the writing in the journals, it is taking up a LOT of time. Is this normal, or am I doing something wrong? A friend mentioned it is easy for her and her 2 kiddos, so I am wondering what others think as well. At the moment, I am carefully reading everything on my own and taking detailed notes from which to teach. With my two ADHD kiddos, I need to keep it as engaging as possible, and since this is not my favorite subject (uck!), I am having to learn a lot, too.
Alexis LOVED those books and read all of them. I haven't seen the new journals that go along with the books - but I do know that we are using the journal for Physical Science and we like it. We also supplemented with DVD's on topics as well. Of course I didn't use it as a "lesson" - she just read and looked as she went and picked up on certain animals and went off on a lot of tangents on different animals and it worked out great - she actually learned a lot.
Apologia is one of those "a little something for everyone" kinds of curriculum. You're not expected to do everything. The book has projects and experiments, and the journals (which are new compared to the textbooks) are just supplemental springboards to come up with more ideas. We use the journals for the crosswords, a little notebooking, and the copywork. We may or may not use the crafty stuff at the back, and we never do the extra reading. In the book, we may or may not do the experiments and stuff. For example, we loved the experiments for astronomy, but the zoology & botany ones are usually live animal, regional, or seasonal stuff. We're not doing those. We do a book per semester for 1st thru 6th, going through the series twice. For 1-3 grades, I do an overview (read the text myself and pull out the important points from it). For 4-6 grades, the kids read the chapter for themselves and answer questions to be sure they know what they're supposed to know. BTW... there are reviews with answers in the back of the textbook for each chapter (they go along with the review questions in the journals). It's a cheat sheet way for parents to know if their kid is learning something when you didn't have time to read the whole chapter that week. LOL! Try not to compare yourself to others, even if they're using the same curriculum you're using. Everyone approaches it differently, and again, this isn't an all-or-nothing sort of publisher. They give you way more than you need so that "sciencey" kids won't get bored and can really spend 2-3 weeks per chapter digging in. We spend 1 week per chapter, and going through it twice the way we are, we really end up doing 2 weeks per chapter in the long run, but without dwelling so long on each one. Hope that helps!
Thank you all, as usual! I am just feeling incredibly bogged down with it - both of mine are dyslexic and even the older one in 4th may not be able to get through the chapter in anything resembling a timely manner, lol! Thus, I am having to read and teach it, rather than hand it to them, which I wish I could, but do not see happening with any subject soon, ergh. Amie, spreading it out over the entire year must be wonderful to be able to supplement when you find great resources and take the pressure off, too! Dana, it sounds like science is definitely fun and student-led with regards to the book - sounds like it was the perfect way for her to enjoy and learn! 2littleboys, thanks for the sage advice - I can see that we will not be including every little thing, yikes! My kids have *extremely* slow processing times (I think their neuropsychologists were actually a bit surprised with just how slow their processing is, especially given some of their areas of strength) - picking and choosing will be the very best thing indeed. I am still in the school mindset, especially having worked in the schools...and I am scared to death of missing something, omitting something, or not preparing them adequately. I wish I had homeschooled from the start just so I could adopt your schedule with Apologia! Oh, well...I still have my 2-yr old to start with in K, right, hee hee?! Thank you again - you helped me a great deal!
It can be overwhelming.. I just purchased the anatomy book for my 9 year old and I'm feeling the same way.. I did find a blog that has power point and videos that go with each lesson.. I haven't really looked to see exactly WHAT it was that the power points cover.. I'll post the blog so u can look. I'm almost positive that she has stuff for all the books..
Well, I didn't find the zoology.. BUT she does have botony and anatomy.. Her blog name is meet penny..
