We just did Experiment 1.4. I know what you mean, it is not a typical lab. I have no great words of wisdom here since it is the first time I have done it.
I have a question – we don’t have the Student Notebook – can someone tell me about it?
I have realized a couple things as we have been doing this first module:
1. This is really our first textbook course (apart from a couple very momentary lapses of sanity that I quickly got over!), and to all those naysayers (who I listened to hense my momentary lapses of sanity) – HA! My son really has been learning more than I ever imagined. I am absolutely astounded by my sons knowledge which leads me to my second point…
2. Today I gave us the freedom to take more than the prescribed year to do this course. After ex. 1.4 we got to Galileo and “on your Own 1.9) and got not much further. My sons says, “you know, the author is covering alot of scientist very quickly and he is doing a pretty good job summarizing then, but …” and he launches into first Galileo and then other scientists and how there was so much more to them and we spent at least the next hour (probably more we lost track of time) digging out books he’s read, and following rabbit trails and discussing scientists and it was beautiful. I thanked God for the real learning that has happened far away from boring textbooks and that what I knew, in my heart, about how real knowledge is aquired, actually has a name: Charlotte Mason.
I treasure the learning that happens in these rabbit trails and I don’t want to miss out on that. Ds is in 7th grade, and we can start counting High School Science credits in 8th grade, and we only need 3 years of HS science to graduate, so if it takes us longer than a year to do General Science, or the next three science courses, intead of stressing ds and myself out about getting it all in in a year, I will just treasure the process of learning that happens even if it takes us longer to get through everything.
Okay, that seemed like a huge rabbit trail, but my point is, don’t get bogged down in the details of how to do the lab reports or if you will get it all done the “right” way (b/c there is ALOT in the course!) instead, enjoy the process and dd will too.