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106 Days with CGC or Elementary Apologia with Notebooks??
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I’m trying my to decide between using 106 Days/Considering God’s Creation and for that matter the other suggested SCM living science books or using the Elementary Apologia books with Notebooks. What do you use and why?? Science has been our most difficult subject that get done b/c it typically is so hands on.
How old are your children?
For us, 106 Days beats the Elementary Apologia books, hands down. Not that the Apologia isn’t good, but the other is better (imho). We’ve used the Swimming Creatures (w/out a notebook, but we had printables) and we’ve used the Astronomy text (w/a notebook). The astronomy probably went as well as it did because I purchased the science kit from Rainbow Resource so we had all of the lab supplies. I am so much more impressed with the binder full of projects from 106 Days than I am with the Astronomy notebook.
My .02.
Good to know. My kids are 9, 6, 4, 2, and 1 month. Do you think I can pull it off with a bunch of little kids? Did you use CGC with it?
Yes, because the lessons are designed to be short. Plus, if it is not short enough, you can easily break up a lesson into two lessons.
It’s the read aloud books in the 106 Days that I wouldn’t want to miss with my (your) 6 and 9 yo’s. And, yes, we used the CGC along with it. There were only one or two lessons that used CGC that we didn’t use to its fullest. I’m thinking like a game or something, otherwise we did it all. I think we even went through it again when my boys got a bit older so that my little guy could participate. Plus, my middle boy got it all at a different age than he was first time around, so that was an added bonus.
I hope this helps.
I need to look through it more. Sounds great! I noticed that CGC is only sold as an ebook. Should I look for the print version used or is the ebook easy to use? I’d guess there is a lot of printing.
I had CGC as a printed book along with the TG (used the TG somewhat). If you can get it in an ebook that might be better as you only use certain pages in the student book that correspond with the lessons in 106 Days. You’d be making copies for your 9 yo and 6 yo so you might like having the ebook instead of the printed book. I love ebooks for making multiple copies but I know others don’t 🙂
I’ve never used the 106 Days study but it looks like something I would have loved using had I discovered it when my kiddos were little. We did use Considering God’s Creation. We didn’t use it as is but pulled out units that interested us or that went well with a living book we were reading. We did really enjoy the parts we used.
I did use bits and pieces of the Apologia books and even tried one of their notebooks. My experience was that we got bored studying the same thing for such a long period of time and the notebook just turned into busywork and pressure to fill in all the lines and boxes. We ended up pulling the textbook out and reading a chapter here and there instead of using it straight through or we used it for a reference book. We much prefer producing our own notebooks to consuming a ready made one.
We ended up mostly enjoying living books for our science studies.
106 Days is a great overview of science. The 106 Days book serves as your lesson plans for the course, telling you what to do each day (3 days per week). I read a bit from the CGC teacher’s guide as they completed the notebook pages (which are available as a purchased PDF file). I found all three books (106 Days, CGC teacher guide, and CGC e-book/student guide) work together very well. The remaining books can be purchased used or found at your library. I found it helpful to buy the two experiment books (How Science Works and 101 Great Science Experiments), since they are used throughout the year. Many of the others were found at our library. I also purchased the DVDs since our library doesn’t carry very many Christian resources, but these are optional if your budget won’t cover them. My DC did enjoy the videos. The notebook pages will be a bit too much for your younger ones…I had a 6yo when we went through it and she even needed a bit of help from me. I would only attempt these with ages 6 and up…although they’d probably all enjoy the science detective pages!
We’ve never used the Apologia Notebooks, mostly due to the expense. We stuck with the notebook suggestions out of the textbook, which we found more than enough to keep us busy! Apologia has some great (although time consuming) experiments. The readings are a bit longer, so we found this best scheduled each day (many schedule it 2x per week). My DC paid better attention with shorter readings. We’ve only done two of these books, astronomy and zoology 2, but they did enjoy them.
We have really been enjoying 106 Days! I split it over 2 years. If you are interested in CGC, I have a gently used copy of the teacher’s book, and an unused student book that I’m looking to sell!
For your age group I would do 106 Days and let the 9 y/o add CGC. Like Amanda, we do it over 2 years, but my kids were 6 when we started it. Once they each hit 3rd grade we switched to Apologia.
I really like Apologia for the older grades b/c it goes deeper, but 106 Days is a great overview and touches on lots of different topics.
While I love 106 Days, with my 3rd child we are going to do another SCM science (I need a change), and I will likely do 106 Days in 2nd grade and try to complete it in 1 year so he can begin Apologia in 3rd.
I have 6 kiddos, from 1 yr old up to 8 years old. As far as school aged kiddos, my oldest will be in 3rd grade next year and I also have 2 1st graders. We are doing 106 Days of Creation and Considering God’s Creation! I got the E-book of CGC & printed off a teachers guide & student book and put them in a 3 ring binder! They look awesome and totally doable! All the resources recommended to use along with them look great as well! I’m sure you can find a good bit at the library but we bought almost every single thing! I am excited about this upcoming year of Science! I’ve looked at Apologia stuff and for elementary, I just don’t think my kids would enjoy them as much at this age. I have debated doing 106 DOC & CGC over 2 years as well because there is just so much you could linger on. I guess we will proceed and see what happens 🙂 SCM really has some great Science materials!!! 🙂
I just posted on another science thread before I found this one…
I have a 10yo (who reads nonstop and has devoured every eyewitness books available), almost 8yo, 4.5yo, and 20mo old. We struggled to get through the Apologia books and have not completed one yet. In fact, science has fallen through the cracks other than a variety of books on the shelf the kids have read out of their own interest.
Am I too late for 106 Days of Creation for my oldest? Should I just get over my dislike of Apologia and stick with it since I have most of the books/journals?
Really need some advice…Thanks!
Laura
I’d find something the oldest two would enjoy for this year but hang on to those Apologia books. They may be great for your children a little later. That happened with us. I tried Zoology 1 (flying creatures) with my dd a couple years back and it just wasn’t a hit. So we put it aside and just read some living science picture books that we had on hand and some from the library. I tried to keep nature study going also.
This past year I decided to try Zoology 1 again. Dd10, ds8, and ds6 loved it! We spread the readings out over 2-3days and they would usually color while I read. I had the junior Notebooking journal that just a few pages had been completed, so I tore it apart (gasp!) and divided the pages between them. Some pages they would work on together. It was great!
This year we are doing Zoology 2 (swimming creatures), but using printable & blank notebook pages instead of the notebooking journals. I also plan to use Seabird and/or Pagoo by Hollings as read-alouds, and that may last the whole year b/c it usually takes us a while to get through his books.
Teach the child, not the book. 🙂
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