This is encouraging. I did order the General Science at a good price and going full swing with it. I'm praying it will be a blessing and that it works well for my son.

Thanks to you all! I'm sure I will have more questions as I go along. :)

We used Gen. Science this year for 8th grade.  I read the material aloud and we did the On Your Own and Study Guide questions orally.  We did not use the tests.  DD kept a notebook of vocab words and descriptions/diagrams of the experiments.  She is not a science person nor a strong reader, but she did agree that she learned a lot this year and is willing to do Apologia's Physical Science next year. 

We used it with my daughter, starting in 7th grade.  We used Donna Young's schedule and went along with her recommendations for Module 1 and one other (sorry can't remember which one) spreading those over 3 weeks.  With our breaks that year and life, we ended up doing it over a year and a half.  So we started the next one, Physical Science, in Jan of her 8th grade year.

She liked it, never complained. She is my very bright child.

We are getting ready to start it with my son in Aug. and I am doing some things differently.  Tweaking it for him.  I bought the lapbook from Currclick and will be using these pages, more notebook like then lapbook.  We will also be joining with 6 other families and doing the experiments together.  I am hoping this helps this particular child to retain the info and enjoy this book. The book alone would not be a hit with him.  

Blessings,

Vanessa

My daughter is working through General Science and really enjoying it. She wasn't really a science student before but this is working for her. She is definitely a reader. She liked module 1 because she said it was like history and she likes history. It was definitely long but she did well.
We plan to stick with the sequence from Aplogia.

I have to admit to not using her site enough for calendars/lab reports, etc. I printed out 2 lab report pages so my oldest has them ready (he chose the one that best fit him), the lesson plans for Gen. Science (there's 2 to choose from) for the next 6 modules, I think, and the TOC for Swimming. That one has check mark boxes and space for me to add pages to read and the supply list for experiments.

Looking at her idea, I suppose I could've done all of this myself, but sometimes I don't even realize I needed to do something to have a better plan. I just couldn't visualize *how* to do it, but I get it now, well, sort of, LOL.

At least it's free to try it out and see if it helps. The other would've cost me and I don't really want to spend the money if I don't have to. Yeah!!

I'm with you my3boys. If it's a challenging subject for me to teach, so I need guidance to pull me through. I'll check into donna's site and see about lessons. I was using her site just the other day for my school planning calendar.

In case anyone is interested, I did find several lesson plans for all of the Apologia sciences at Donna Young's site, for free, like Bookworm mentioned. I planned to purchase the other one I found but printed hers instead to try out using some type of lesson plan for my ds who is using the Gen. Science. She doesn't have one for the elementary books but has a printable TOC with experiment supplies needed (on the same page) and I plan to use that to help me better plan for my ds who is using Swimming....

I realize not everyone needs a lesson plan to get through this text (as much as I like it) but, like I said before, I feel I need something that says how many pages to read, etc., so my dc can be more independent.

DD used Gen science in 6th grade and she really liked it. Then we tried physical science for 7th and that was not a hit. She used apologia biology this year in 8th and likes it also.

I would be one of those moms who don't care to teach science. BUT I do want my son to learn! The funny thing is that I enjoyed learning science in school and loved studying pharmacology, anatomy, etc in college. I just don't like teaching it at this point in my life with 4 kids at different ages. It's hard, and I need a program they can be independently done for the most part.

I did see on another post a recommended DVD series called Biology 101. That looks interesting for the whole family. I wish I could see a preview.

I haven't had any problems with it myself, both of my boys really like both texts and don't want to use anything else. My problem has been not being able to get a good plan together for the daily readings. It's taken longer than I thought to get through and that would be okay if I had done that on purpose, LOL, and was spreading it out using living books, etc., but that's not the case. I want my boys to spend the time necessary to feel like they have really grasped the concepts, but not so long that they say, "Oh, that's right, we're using that for science."

My dc have taken community classes off and on, nature study time, etc., but I just feel the need to have a better "plan" to get through the texts in a reasonable amount of time.

I guess you could say that I just don't like texts to linger on forever and like to see it come to completion (not unit study type)

Hope that makes sense.

It sounds like the majority of those who found it so-so are those who are not too crazy about science to begin with.  

We just started Apologia's Flying Creatures, so far so go and I am NOT a science fan.  I am considering General Science for my older son for 8th grade.  He's going into sixth in September, and it's possible he'll be ready for it in 7th, but not so sure yet. 

In Mardels, sale on homeschool material.

I am looking at Alpha Omega Lifepac Science. Anyone know/care to share about this? It comes in boxes with each grade.

My son is not a sciency type either, but it is a good material, not cheap and he got past the 1st chapter and did well. Now the next son I'm thinking I might need the audio for him as he hears better. But we'll just see.

Overall I think its a good science especially being I couldn't do better myself.

We don't always like everything we read but some times I think we need to just muster through it.

So I should skip the general science one? Would that be missing too much you think?

I should say that if I were to do it again, I think I would still have my son do Apologia.  Our next oldest daughter - although it may change, shes not a huge science lover and I dont think this particular text will meet her needs.  I expect she will be doing the later Apologia texts, we have them and I do like them (Biology and Chemistry, anyways).