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a good spine for science
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I am totally overwhelmed and need some direction. My children are almost 10 and 11.5 (plus a 4 year old). I have been wanting to get Apologia Botany just so we have a good solid spine book to give up a jumping off point for living books and note booking on our own. (We are currently reading simple books about flowers, and notebooking our learning.) However, as much as I like the Apologia “textbook”, it’s totally exhaustive and I don’t know how I will begin to pick and choose what we will use out of it.
I dream of a “textbook” that is slimmer and less exhaustive. More of a textbook “Pamphlet” if you will! Does such a thing exist? I am not sure my children are not quite ready for a textbook-ey science course just yet, however they are old enough to add a little more “meat” or structure. But I still want their science studies to be living book and note booking based overall, which is why I desire a textbook as a spine….but not a textbook that is going to overwhelm me and have me pouring over it for hours, trying to decide which sections we should read. Maybe I should just drop my notion, buy Apologia Botany, do it to it’s full, and maybe add in some living books where we can. But THAT doesn’t seem right yet. My kids are still children, after all!
I just looked this up, and this is part of the description: “45-60 minutes per lesson, 4xper week; Worksheets included; Quizzes and Final Exams in cluded…………I’m sorry but that is ALL against a Charlotte Mason education, isn’t it? I am so confused how I could even use a textbook like. Thanks!
God’s Design CAN be used like you’ve described above (45-60 min. per lesson, quizzes, etc.), however you can also use it as a tool and make it serve you. The beauty of the books is that they are organized in sets, but you can use them in any order and any pace you wish, and buy them individually. The World of Plants has about 30 lessons, and you can definitely pick and choose which ones you do. Each one is pretty short, and there are a few discussion questions and an activity with each lesson, but the quizzes and tests are all separate so you can totally ignore them. I think it would make a good spine.
My daughter is actually doing this book right now, and she just reads the lesson, we do the questions orally and then she notebooks the lesson. If there’s an activity she wants to do, then we do that, too. It can be used in a very CM way, even though the description doesn’t sound like it!
Just wanted to clarify that, as we’ve used God’s Design lots in our homeschool and almost never as written!
You might look at Sabbath Mood’s botany course. The spine is short and its creator created it to be in line with CM principles.
So did you also work in living books along with the Master Books Spine? I like that it seems to be shorter and would be easier to serve as a spine.
Thank you. You have been most helpful. I would love to know anything more that you do to make this work for a CM, living book way to do science. Thanks so much again.
I read the text aloud and my kids do a journal/notebook where they can include a written narration, a drawing, or copy work from the text once I’m done reading aloud. I give them lots of notebooking ideas but they mostly do the above three ideas. On days where I read a living book aloud they sometimes do a science coloring page of their choice that doesn’t have to match the topic. The coloring page isn’t CM, but the kids requested it. We do oral narrations too.
We did God Design for Plants a couple of years ago and it was the best Science text we’ve ever used. We didn’t use any tests or questions and answers or anything, but we had a wonderful learning.
The Wonders of Creation Series is really good, too. It has titles like “The Weather Book” and “The Fossil Book.”
Another option for a more living Science textbook is Jay Wile’s series that explores science during different time periods of history. “Science in the Beginning,” “Science in the Ancient World,” etc.
We have always used Apologia elementary series and find it blends well with CM school days. We do it 3 times a week and it usually takes no more than 15 minutes per day. We read a couple pages for each lesson and do oral narration or they write or draw a picture in their notebook (depends on their age/ability what they do)
We enjoy the hands on activities and experiments. I thought I would not like it, maybe too in depth or focused on one topic for a year, but we actually really enjoy it. I have heard good things about the other programs mentioned here as well.
Hi @MissusLeata,
I know this is off-topic, but I noticed that you were possibly in East Texas a while back from a post here about Texas. Are you still in the area? (I don’t know how to send this directly to you, or I would have.)
I hated Apologia ;-p but if you wanted a spine that is not as meaty as that or Novare, then I would say Sabbath Mood guides as well. They are well done and don’t overwhelm.
@fivefoll…..Yes, I’m in East Texas. My e-mail is LeataCharity@yahoo.com if you want to email me directly.
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