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Apologia General Science with two?
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I know the Apologia General Science is recommended for grade 7, but I’ve also read that others have used it successfully earlier. I bought it a couple years ago for my then 7th grader and he has struggled with it, so we shelved it until this year (8th) and still didn’t manage to get past the 1st chapter. He has some learning issues that makes it difficult to work independently, and there was just too much to do this year to spend the necessary time on it, so he ended up working with his younger brother and I through the first part of the Young Explorers Chem/Physics book. My first thought was finish that book with my youngest this coming year and find something else for my soon to be 9th grader — maybe video based if there is such a thing? Then it occurred to me that I might take the two of them through Gen Sci together this year, though my younger is only heading into 6th. I am not sure where I would go from there, however. Would I just continue taking them through the series? My oldest could still get 2 high school level sciences in before grad, and that’s all that is required (he is currently quite behind in his math and won’t hit algebra for a couple years). And my younger, who is much more math/science oriented (will be doing MUS pre algebra this coming year), would have time to get in more advanced sciences in high school. Thoughts, anyone?
First off I would tell you that the first chapters of General Science are the hardest to get through. We got bogged down in those as well. If you do those first chapters with your children, you may find that they are able to do the rest of the book independently.
I really like being able to keep my kids together with subjects as much as possible, but there comes a point where you have to consider if it’s in their best interests to continue that. There have been times that I’ve kept them together and realized that I was holding one back or pushing one into something they weren’t ready for.
Good reminder, thanks. I am struggling with finding time to do it all. I work weekday mornings until noon, and it’s hard to get the boys to work past two pm when the ps kids start getting home and their other homeschooled friends have wrapped lessons up for the day. Scheduling is always challenging. Especially those two or three days a week it is hard to get out of the office by noon.
I thought with CM you use living books not textbooks. I’m so discouraged going through the message boards. This is exactly what I wanted to get away from, textbooks and other’s schedules but most of the posts are on what curriculums to use.
Personally, having taken one child through General Science already, I wouldn’t have a younger child go through it. I totally understand the time thing, but I still wouldn’t. If your oldest is not ready/able to handle Apologia I would look for a different approach all together, something that fits where he is now. Because honestly, nobody gets much out of being dragged through a book that doesn’t work for them.
Examples of things that come to mind:
A truly literature based course – study science topics and the lives of scientists through reading. Save any hands on work for once a week with you.
A totally different (and not CM approach but one that may help with needing them to work independently) option is a computer based science course from somewhere like Switched on Schoolhouse.
mrenee-There are many moms here who use textbooks with a CM flavor. There are also many moms here who rarely use textbooks except for math. Most of us use textbooks for science as the children hit late middle school and high school.
Doing upper level science with living books is totally possible however. There are many CM moms who have done so successfully. I, personally think it’s harder to do upper level science with living books than with Apologia. I can’t speak for other textbooks. Apologia is written in a conversational tone by a man who loves God and loves science. My daughter and I really enjoy our Apologia science lessons. I was sold on living science and we were working our way through living science courses. However my daughter was really struggling with some of the books so we decided to try a chapter from Apologia General Science. To our surprise, we both enjoyed it and found it very understandable. We made the switch to mostly Apologia with a few living books thrown in for good measure. We do living science books once week.
We used living books almost exclusively from k-7th grade.
4myboys-When my son was in middle school, I handed General Science to him and expected him to get it done. He struggled greatly. Now, I sit down with my daughter and we do it together every day. We take it slowly and only spend about 20 minutes a day on it (we school year round). She is doing very well with it. We take turns reading paragraphs and then she narrated when we are done and we do the Own Your Own problems together. She does the study guides on her own. I’m not forcing her to memorize the answers and definitions and take the tests at this point. I will have her take 1 or two tests like that before we are done with the course just so she is familiar with formal textbook methods.
I know that seems like an awful lot to a mom who is working outside the home as well as homeschooling. I just thought I’d share with you what has worked for us in case you could glean anything for your own home.
Oh, and after years of living science, I felt completely justified in skipping the first module so we started on module 2. 🙂
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