I'm changing my science curiculum for my 4th & 6th graders. They just finished 4th grade science and am looking at God's Design, Apologia, or Abeka. Anyone have preferences or experiences with these? Anyone ever use the Apologia lapbooks and what are they? Which is most time-consuming and which do they learn better with?
I have seen Abeka, its okay, Apoligia is awesome lots of good deep learning there! And I have not seen God's design.. we are finishing off Considering God's Creation science ( it is a mix of biology and earth science with a little life science in there too) we only got half way through what could have been a years work but we got really interested in some of the lessons PLUS we did Human anatomy with Lyrical Science at a co op. They thought I was silly doing more than one Science but we all really enjoyed our lessons! ALL THREE OF THEM! HA! And I did NOt like science before APologia and Eagle Wings! Check into Eagle wings, It may seem younger but the Scientist Detective pages ask for a lot of good information and they even suggest web sites for further studies for you 6th grader! http://www.christianbook.com/Christ...=344539&event=ESRCN&item_code=WW&view=details
Apologia for the upper grades is very academic ~ the questions require thinking not just fact regurgitation! I used Abeka last year. Tests only on if the child understands the facts, not if they understand, can apply & reason from the facts. Apologia works on the last premise. My Ditz is doing General Science this year & struggles quite a bit with it because she can't get by with just cruising it. We too are doing Exploring God's Creation & it is awesome. I really, really like this curriculum & there are plenty of activities that are fun, don't stretch the budget & creative.
Considering God's Creation is good for the ages you have. I did it with I think grades 3, 5, and K. It worked well for us, and we went from that into Apologia General Science for my oldest one. As Celtic said, there's LOTS in it, and you really have to read, study, and think. I will be starting "Christian Kids Explore Biology" with my younger two, grades 3 and 6. That's also by Apologia.
We are using God's Design (by Debbie + Richard Lawrence) We are loving it. (we have the whole set, but are currently working on "Our Universe" + "The Animal Kingdom". Even though I would prefer a secular program this has been good to use, as my daughter believes in creation and my son in evolution, so it has bought about some great discussions !! Each day there is information to read, then the kids and I discuss the questions orally, before they write out their answers, then there is an activity to do ( all using items from home or ones that are easily obtainable) It is a great series, but most of all, the kids love using the books.
The "Christian Kids Explore..." Series is actually Bright Ideas Press. It's a great series, I think. My dd did the CKEChemistry and LOVED it! She was 5thish grade (where she would be if she was in school) this year.
Thanks for the correction, Deena! I got out my Apologia catalog and found out what I had isn't what I thought it was, but that's OK!
We've used Abeka in the past and have just recently switched to Apologia...my kids love it! This year we'll be doing Biology with my high schoolers and Zoology with the little one.
We're using Apologia Zoo 2 and Real Science 4 Kids Chemisty & Physics Level 1 (for my oldest). We haven't started the RS4K yet but it looks like a good fit for my 5th grader (who hates science). If you look at Considering God's Creation and like it, I own it and would love to sell it. It just wasn't a good fit for me as a teacher and therefore didn't work as well for my kids. I have the TE and one unused student book (which copies can be made for each family member)....plus I have 2 student books that are missing the first lesson or two (but copies can be made from the unused one). My TE also has the audio CD that goes with it. You can PM me if you decide CGC is what you want and are interested in my set. Also, there are yahoo groups for Elementary Apologia, RS4K and CGC. Right now, I'm a member of all of them....lol. Rhonda
As far as CGC goes, I would reccomend you getting a Student Book for each child. Yes, you can copy (and the author gives you permission to do so!). But if you copy the whole book, you end up spending just as much as if you bought it, and if you buy it, the authors (both hs'ing moms!) make money from it. Now, I did NOT buy a book for Phillip, because he was pre-K at the time. Much of the workbook was too much for him. I only copied from his sister's book the pages I thought were appropriate. Also, there is LOTS of tedious cutting. I found that it works better to enlarge some of this stuff. Other stuff I copied onto tagboard (uh, Card Stock!).
Yep, that's what I had planned to do for my K son too which is why I have one unused student book (his) and then the girls used some of the pages from the first 2 lessons but then we "jumped ship".....which is why I have 2 books with almost all of it unused :lol: It is a great concept...just not good for me as a teacher....science is not my favorite subject so I needed a bit of a different approach to get me "excited" so that I could convey it to the kids.
No, I ordered the biology, and I'm really excited about starting in the fall with both Faythe and Phillip. But for some reason, I thought it was one of those Elementary programs that Apologia put out. If I had realized, I probably would have bought it anyway, especially if I had been able to get my hands on it first. It really seems good, and I know you said how much Alanna liked it.
Just have to put in a quick vote for Apologia. It's the first science curriculum that I enjoy teaching and my dd enjoys learning from. I've even had neighbor kids ask if we can do science when they come over to play. They enjoy listening to it also. Very easy experiments that drive home the concept.
Honestly, I need pictures right there. It was too hard for me to pull together pictures, etc from books beforehand to keep my kids attention. While the notebook is good, it was too much cutting, pasting, etc for my taste. Now my girls LOVED the idea of it and they LOVED the audio CD Songs. We ended up going with both SOS (for my 3rd grader...5th grader tried it but hated SOS) and then doing Apologia Zoology 2 as a family. My 5th grader will also be doing Real Science 4 Kids Chemisty/Physics Level 1. As I posted previously, CGC is a good fit for many families and I have friends who have used it successfully. It was just more work than I could commit to science in our first full year homeschooling. We also moved three times in 13 months (which didn't help). Now that we've seen other options, we just aren't interested in giving CGC another go. Rhonda
We have not done any lapbooks for Apologia but I know there are some for sale on various sites (or you could just do your own). We just use the notebook pages from the Apologia website or extra notebooking pages from the Elementary Apologia yahoo group. Rhonda
Rhonda, the reasons you mentioned were why I liked the CGC program. The teacher book has it all written out in read aloud form and I can read whether I really understand each thing before I read it or not did not matter because it explained a lot while I read it. Maybe it is not supposed to be done that way but the person I bought mine from had things highlighted and everything for me, so that was helpful I am sure.
TMOM, you're right. It's all right there except NO PICTURES. My kids always wanted to "see" it. They hated that I could just read them stuff but they're visual kids. They didn't want to color it, but to see it so I'd have to spend tons of time finding it online before or after, heading to the library, etc. Because we were always packing or unpacking, it just wasn't handy to do all the prep and just didn't fit me because I never felt prepared enough to begin (so I'd just delay science altogether). When we got to lesson 2 on space, we went off on a tangent and did our own things which turned out better than if we'd actually done the lesson. I found some GREAT VHS tapes from the library made just for kids/classrm and my kids loved them, we went to a planetarium show at the Children's museum.....which all just led me to believe that we needed something different or I should just throw together my own from the get-go or find something that better suited all of our styles. Like I said, I know CGC works wonderfully for MANY, MANY families (some are good co-op friends), it just wasn't the best fit for us last year.
