Hi Everyone:
We are considering moving out of our co-op for several reasons.
Therefore, I am looking for some assistance in teaching Chemistry (10th) and Physical Science (8th). With all the other grades I am teaching, I am not wanting to take this on myself. have any of you found any online classes, teacher, support for teaching Apologia at the upper grades?
Or, another HS since suggestion all together. (But I hate trying to re-figure everything out for all the subjects every year). Kinda want to stick w Apologia.
Depending on your kids they can be really independent with Apologia. Get the student journal and it gives them the schedule to do. Buy an experiment kit so you have most supplies on hand already. Then you only are really needed to oversee experiments or answer questions when they aren’t understanding something.
If you can afford it and if space is still available, another option would be to sign up for Dr. Wile’s online classes. He will be teaching Apologia’s Exploring Creation with Biology andExploring Creation with Physics courses and his Discovering Design with Chemistry course beginning in September.
This is how we did General, Physical, and Biology. It worked well once she got into a groove.
Next year we’re doing Chemistry but won’t be using Apologia. We’re going with Jay Wile’s newer chemistry : Discovering Design with Chemistry published through Berean. We were able to get an experiment kit for it and he includes a daily schedule broken down for 36 weeks in the appendix of the book.
I guess I’ve never even considered that one class for one kid could be $450. That isn’t even in the realm of possible. However, now I feel discontent that we can’t do it. It looks great. :/
Kelly – I understand the discontent…lol. There are so many wonderful options that just don’t fit the budget. I always remind myself that our financial limitations are not a surprise to God and he’ll provide the education our children need, even if all he has to work with is my own imperfect efforts.
Both Apologia and Dr. Wile’s classes have payment plans. I don’t know if that would work for you?
This year my oldest took biology with Apologia. It was great! Mrs. Fowler was a great teacher. It was good for us to have the accountability. My dd really enjoys the class time discussion.
For 10th grade we are going to be doing chemistry with Dr. J. Wiles (We prefer to stick with his texts). My dd is excited to be doing a class with him because she likes the way he writes/explains.
You might want to check out Virtual Homeschool Group. From their website: “Virtual Homeschool Group is 100% volunteer-run. We have been serving free ‘at your own pace’ (ayop) and live online courses for home school families for 11 years.”
We have used their classes for General Science, Physical Science, and Biology — all using the Apologia textbooks. You can take a live class at scheduled times each week, or you can sign up for an “at your own pace” class which has recorded lectures. We used the AYOP voicethreads for each module where the teacher gives a lecture to accompany slides pertaining to the information. There are quizzes and exams for each module, and the grades are tracked for you.
Did I mention that the classes are free? You just need your own textbook, and you can either do labwork on your own and turn in a lab sheet to be grades, or you can find a separate lab class offered through a co-op or some other way. Fortunately, the co-op we’ve attended for years usually offers biology lab session one year and chemistry the next, with physical science lab sessions offered whenever there are enough students to take them.
Here is the link to Virtual Homeschool Group: http://www.virtualhomeschoolgroup.org/. They offer other courses, too, in math, language arts, social studies, and foreign languages. Not all courses are high school; some are middle school.
Virtual Homeschool Group offers free Apologia classes-both live and at your own pace. We used the at your own pace biology this year and it was a big help. Free is good!
I hear you about the cost of online classes!
Another option for Apologia online classes is Catie Frates. I’ve attended her workshops at convention and she is amazing! You can check her out at her website. I think her classes are around $300 which is still a lot of money.
One thing you could do is buy the videos for Chemistry from apologia. Sheri Seligson does them. She is a marine biologist and a former homeschooling mom. My husband and I saw her last year at teach them diligently and we both really liked her. You would still have to monitor the work load and give the tests, but the notebooks are so helpful. They break the reading down day by day. FYI…Sheri did not recommend the Physical science videos. I think they are planning to redo those.
Melanie, thanks so much for the info on Catie Frates. She looks great!!!
Yes, she is! I am thinking about having my daughter retake physical science with her next year. We only made it through chapter 10 and she found the physics portion very difficult. Honestly, I’m not sure she got much out of the text doing it on her own. I think she could have benefited from having some lecture.
Any thoughts about having a child retake a science?