I was wondering if any of you use or have used either Considering God's Creation or Apologia Exploring Creation with..(Astronomy, Botany, etc.)? What are the pros and/or cons of these different science curriculums? My children will be in 4th and 6th grade. They are currently using A.C.E. I am looking for a change after they are done with the A.C.E. paces and am trying to decide which science curriculum to use. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
Considering God's Creation (A Beka) is good, I think. But it's a lot of book work and tests and quizzes (if you choose to do those). We used A Beka science for a long time, and liked it. We just switched to the Apologia this year, and my kids are REALLY enjoying it! It may be just because it's a change. But it's also hands-on, which my kids like, and explains things thoroughly, and has them keep notebooks of their experiments and things, which is more what I am looking for. Some people have said they don't like A Beka science, but we didn't have a problem with it, and the kids learned very well. www.homesciencetools.com has kits for different science programs available. They aren't too bad of a cost, and they save you from having to run out for this and that to do the experiments with. They have them for Apologia and LifePacs, not sure of they have them for A Beka or what other ones. The kits can be big time savers, though they're certainly not required!
I've not tried the elementary Apologia stuff, but we did spend two years going through CGC. I started it with grades 3, 5, and preK. We finished it this past fall with just the younger two (now 1 and 5). Your kids are a good age for it. There's a lot of cut-and-paste, and some of it is rather involved. I've taken the book to the library on occasion and made blown-up copies to cut out. That helped more than once! CGC covers a wide range of science. It gives a good overview. One thing I made the older two do also was to add the vocabulary to their notebook. Like Deena, my oldest is working with Apologia Science now, but not at the elementary level. I'll be starting "Great Science Adventures" with the younger two tomorrow. I will be covering machines and technology, something not covered in CGC. If you decide on CGC, you'll be best off buying TWO student workbooks, unless you want to copy the whole thing. You CAN do that, but probably by the time you did thw whole book, you wouldn't save that much. I did copy for my youngest, because there was so much stuff that he wasn't able to do.
We are using ACE for math and social studies this year. We used the entire curriculum last year, but felt they needed a little more hands on stuff. So we ended up with Considering God's Creation for science. My kids are 4th and 6th grade now. They love it. Like Jackie said, if you choose this, get a workbook for each child, it is worth the money. That has been one of my kids favorite subjects this year...not because they love science...they just love the projects! (is that good or bad???)
I have used the the Astronomy, Botany and now the Swimming Creatures of the 5th day and can't say enough good about the books. The books are beautifully written, beautiful illustrations and Jeannie Fulbright has a website where you can download for free the notebooking pages. I print off each child's notebooking pages and put it into a 3 ring binder. My boys are not real big fans of a lot of coloring,etc..So the good thing about this is that you can if you want or don't have to. The pages all have graphics,pictures and lines for writing on. Too, the experiments are very homeschool friendly, answers to the questions are at the back of the book and Jeannie Fulbrights pages can be used with lapbooking as well. My oldest is in 6th grade and is halfway through Apologia's General Sciencem, the middle school book. The whole series from elementary to middle school to high school is wonderful with lots of *Creation Confirmation* parts which I appreciate.. Hope that helps.
Tina, What notebooking pages do you run off to use? I just got the Astronomy book for my dd9, and haven't gotten very far at all yet, obviously, so am wondering about that!
Yes, Tina, that helped quite a bit. Is it better to do the books in a certain order? I have seen the notebooking pages online. They look interesting. On the Apologia website I found where they give a "lab list by module" giving a detailed list of all the supplies needed for each lesson of the books. May I ask if you used the supply kits or did you get things as they were needed? Again, thank you all for your help.
Deena and Darlene.. Here is the link for downloading all the free notebook pages....Happy Downloading! I LOvE them..They make going through the book so easy... http://jeanniefulbright.com/Notebook.html There is no particular order, you just cover which topic suits your fancy. The only thing about the latest two,the Swimming Creatures and the Flying Creatures is that they suggest you do the Flying Creatures first because it talks about classification,kingdoms,etc.and in the Swimming one, they don't cover that, just kind of assume you know it... Soooo, ME..ROFL.....I do the Swimming one first because. ...I wanted tosave the Flying creatures when its spring and we talk about birds,etc. So far so good....If we get to something we don't, we just cover it and go on..They only give suggestions, nothing is in concrete.. And no, I didn't get the science modules because its sooo homeschool friendly as far as experiments, that if you have been hsing any length of time, most of us have in our homes what they list for doing your experiment with. If not, I stay ahead a chapter or so and pick up something like purple cabbage or so if we need it..No biggie... Does that help?
Glad you said that. I was wondering if I should order the Botany for next year. We're using the Astronomy this year and I thought the kids would enjoy doing animals next. So I know to get the Flying Creatures first. Thanks!
I ordered the Astronomy book for a really good price (that's always a plus) today so I can get a look at it before it's time to put it to use. We'll give it a try and see how we like it. If it doesn't work out then we'll try CGC.
