106 Days or Apologia Exploring…

I think the general concensus is that Apologia Astronomy is the best/easiest to start. Also, I don’t think there should be any prep work other than confirming you have the supplies for the experiments (or you can buy a pre-made experiment collection for yourself).

At her age, she can do the experiments herself. Otherwise, it’s reading and narration-some use the notebooking.

Rachel

Megan, the experiment kit is definitely not someting you need, but for convenience purposes; the items required for the astronomy experiments are household items and generally easy to find otherwise; Jeannie designed it specifically that way.

I’d suggest one of two things since you are busy and working:

1-when you buy the book, look on the list and go ahead and buy everything she’ll need for every experiment and set it aside in a special box for her to get to when the time comes (perhaps even prelabel which Lesson/experiment it will go to, that way she won’t have to come and bother you with unecessary questions). Those items would be strictly off limits for anything else until she finishes the book.

2-buy the experiment kit where it’s laid out for you (the majority of the items anyway, not all, but I don’t know what’s missing as it seems pretty complete) and not concern yourself with it. At Christianbook, here it is and there is also a PDF of the contents that you can compare with the book and decide what makes the most sense to you. I don’t know that one or the other is a cheaper way to go as you’d be buying full stock of items that you only need a little of in the actual experiment. Just a thought. Plus, are you going to read aloud and have her narrate? If not, her having the notebooking journal(with sample) may prove useful or oversee her making her own notebooking journal from Jeannie’s site).

Again, neither the notebooking journal nor the kit is necessary, it’s just up to you considering your situation and dd’s personality. My son read it himself and retained everything without narrating. My dd required the journal to break down the info. for her more because there is a lot of info. and she likes “activities” on paper unlike my son, who jut likes to read, read, read, do the experiments as personally compelled and verbalizes it.

The best prices for all these definitetly seem to be at Christianbook, unless you can find a textbook used from Amazon or another used source.

HTH, Rachel

I haven’t used Apologia;s stuff – but I found 106 days very easy to use.  Renting the books from the library is about as difficult as it gets really.  There are experiments too – but nothing too labor or time intensive.  You should be able to look at 106 days on this site to get a feel for it.