I've heard great things about Apologia. I looked through and it looks as though Astronomy is meant for the younger grades? Is that right? Have any of you used it and what is your opinion? Also, should we get the notebook as well? It looked fairly advanced for a 1st grader to me, but could we do the science without it? Thanks!!
We did their Astronomy when my boys were in first and k. It worked really well and they loved it. They learned a lot. We did not use the notebook. In fact, this is our fourth year with Apologia and we've never used the journals. They look neat, but I've never had the money to buy them. We made an astronomy lapbook that I found for free. I don't remember where I found it, though. I really enjoy Apologia. I feel like the Astronomy one is great for younger elementary.
I'm not sure what grades mine were in when we did Astronomy, but the youngest of them would have been K or 1st. We also have never used the notebooks. We did a lapbook for Astronomy, but I created it myself with different resources I found. There are many available though.
We're doing it this year for 1st grade. My son LOVES it and asks to do it often. We like that it goes into more depth-this for the child who always wants to know more than the book ends up telling him. I did buy the Jr. Notebook and have found it not working for us. It has a coloring page, some lapbook-like activities and some copywork in it. I'm not a fan of lapbooks and we don't do copywork and he doesn't like to color, so it's just not for us, though if those are things you DO use, it might work for you.
I used it for my kids when they were at that age as well. We didn't use the journal, really we just read the book, with a few experiaments thrown in. My dd loves to color so I try to have some coloring sheets printed off for her that match the lesson. We are doing Oceans now which is #4 for us. I bought the Dover Oceans coloring book for her to color in while we read. I am amazed at how much they pick up from doing it like that.