Name: ICHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-06-05T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-06-07T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Bourbonnais, IL

Tagged: Apologia, apologia science kits, high school, labs, science

This topic has 13 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 9 months ago by momto2blessings.

Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)

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July 23, 2012 at 8:01 pm
momto2blessings
Participant
Just wondering if anybody thought the supply kits for Apologia General were worth it. I’d love for everything to come to me all prepared, but it looks like you have to gather things anyway. I’ve seen kits for $57 and some for $30. Not sure what the difference is or if worth it. This course looks intimidating to me (and I think will be to dd at first) so trying to make it as easy as possible…but don’t want to waste $$. Thanks for any input:) Gina
July 23, 2012 at 8:28 pm
LDIMom
Participant
We didn’t buy it last year and we didn’t get the labs done. This year, we bought it and we will begin labs this week.
I think it is worth it if you don’t want to drive around looking for things you need. Some of the things you have to still gather like purple cabbage, but the course suggesting freezing some for the other 2 labs that require it (which we are doing). The other things not included truly are things you have like a rubberband.
I think I paid $75 for both this kit and the astronomy one. I bought ours at Homesciencetools.com
I don’t know if they are cheapest, but our butterfly larvae (for littles) died twice in transit b/c of the heat and both times homesciencetools customer service was fabulous and sent free replacements. Still no butterfly larvae b/c we are going to wait until it cools off, but they are going to yet again send them to us (3rd time’s the charm we hope).
All of that to say I recommend the above site b/c of their customer service and they sent a very detailed list and it all came nicely packaged and labeled. I don’t know of others, but I’m sure you can find them other places too. HTH
July 23, 2012 at 9:03 pm
Bookworm
Participant
Not. You don’t need it. There really isn’t anything in General that is that hard to get.
July 23, 2012 at 9:37 pm
amcampbell4
Participant
We did Apologia General Science last year. I bought the kit, and was VERY glad that I did! I agree with Bookworm in that the supplies aren’t necessarily “exotic” or hard to find. However, having everything (except for perishables, like LDIMOM mentioned) collected in one place, in baggies labeled for each module, made it so easy to actually get the labs done. In fact, I could be working with my other 2 children and my ds 14 could just do the labs on his own sometimes.
If you have the time to prepare all your necessary materials ahead of time each week, or have budget concerns, you can manage without the kit. But if you need the time for other things and can swing the $60 or $70 dollars for the kit I think it is worth it. (I ordered mine from CBD, and they have a coupon for free shipping on homeschool stuff right now).
July 23, 2012 at 9:54 pm
Misty
Participant
WE didn’t buy them and I will say 2 things. One the items were very easy to find and mostly we had them on hand. two is that the concepts for the most part were so simple that my kids knew what was going to happen before we even did the experiements.
Now I would wonder about the Physical Science though? Thoughts on that one?
July 23, 2012 at 11:32 pm
amcampbell4
Participant
Misty, I agree with you that, in most cases, my kids sort of “knew” what the results of each experiment would be. In fact, that was an argument my son used several times to get out of doing the lab!
But, as a college science major myself, I thought that the discipline of performing the experiment AND writing up the lab was important to learn and follow through on. I admit that writing up labs was one of my least favorite things to do in college, but after I graduated and working in a research laboratory, I was glad I had that background because I needed to write up my experiments, and those write ups were an important part of published papers for my boss–since I did the work, she allowed me to write up the Materials and Methods sections of the papers. This gave me authorship credit, which was great! Just a small point that might matter to someone with a child interested in pursuing a science degree and career.
July 24, 2012 at 12:05 am
momto2blessings
Participant
Thanks ladies, good food for thought. I was thinking about making/labeling bags myself now before we officially start….maybe that would help them get done w/o me spending extra $$. We’ll see if I get to it…if not I may succomb:) Thanks! Gina
July 24, 2012 at 12:51 am
Misty
Participant
What does a lab report look like? We did many of the labs but didn’t do any report. Could you maybe.. amcampbell4.. give me an example of what it would look like. I think my going into 8th grader, physical science could do those this year!
July 24, 2012 at 1:15 am
fivestones
Member
I purchased the kit after a few chapters and I will say, all though not necessary, was the best money spent. We got more labs done because the kit had everything easily accessable instead of me haveing to hunt everything down. Like people said though, if you can prepare ahead of time, all of it is very easy to find.

July 24, 2012 at 1:51 am
LDIMom
Participant
Misty, we purchased the Knowledge Box Central lapbook for General Science. $5 e-download and well worth it so far. It has notebooking pages, which my sons needs to study by, and lab reports (two styles: totally blank excepting the major outline of hypothesis, etc., etc. conclusion) or a lab report partially filled out with supply list already done (this is blank on the blank one). Wow, this isn’t coming out right but the download is more than 600 pages, and I printed about half of it! So much that I had to make DS’s book into two spiral bound books.
I am trying to spend a bit of my budget on these things that will hopefully supplement and ecnourage (DC) and provide a study tool as well. And the lab kit for me has so far been well worth the money. Just in module 1 though.
July 24, 2012 at 11:56 am
jeaninpa
Participant
I also purchased the lapbook from Knowledge Box Central, and I’m wondering how much of it to print off — it is huge!! Anyone have any thoughts about what is the most useful part of it?
I think I will have my 13 and 14 yo gather supplies for the experiments now and put them into ziplocs to be ready to go.
July 24, 2012 at 11:56 am
jeaninpa
Participant
I also purchased the lapbook from Knowledge Box Central, and I’m wondering how much of it to print off — it is huge!! Anyone have any thoughts about what is the most useful part of it?
I think I will have my 13 and 14 yo gather supplies for the experiments now and put them into ziplocs to be ready to go.
July 24, 2012 at 11:53 pm
tandc93
Participant
For us, the kits were a godsend. I did General science 2 years ago with my first son and we didn’t purchase the kit and we didn’t do them… it was too easy to skip b/c we hadn’t gathered and prepped. Keepin’ it real…. He’s also the kid who would say I already know what’s going to happen. So he never got in the habit of doing experiments. Now he’s in biology and it’s a struggle to get use to doing them.
For our second son, we purchased the kit and he has thoroughly enjoyed it. He’s able to do them on his own b/c everything is together and labeled. WELL worth the price for the peace of mind!
BTW, I got ours here: http://www.workshopplus.com/index.html For biology, the books, microscope, microscope kit, disecting kit, and specimens came to about $380. It would have been about $500 at Apologia.
July 25, 2012 at 1:11 am
momto2blessings
Participant
Thanks….I’m terrible w/experiments and am so tempted. I actually just put a kit in my cart and had my credit card ready….but when I re-examined what it included for the $$ I couldn’t bring myself to go through with it!!! If I just took the time to shop right now and bag everything by module I could make 2 kits…one for both of my kids. But if I don’t get it done by the time school starts, a kit it may need to be….or we probably won’t do them:) Thanks all for the input!!! Blessings, Gina