Apologia Science Users

We’re doing the swimming creatures one this year without having done the previous zoology books, and my girls LOVE it.  ages 7 & 5.  We also got the notebook and the jr. notebook that have lots of different activities for reinforcing the information and they really like that too, plus it’s a fun keepsake.

We have all 3 zoology books, and have found Zoo 2, Swimming Creatures to be the most interesting and fun. I would go with interest on the first one and then with whatever area your child may be lacking in. So if you haven’t covered astronomy much, do that in year 2 and then save anatomy for grade 6 (or even grade 7).

By the way, we got half way through the book and found that we needed to set it aside for awhile for a break and read living books and then went back to finish it up. We also used a lapbook with it, but had oral narrations first. Enjoyed the experiments and Try This.

There is a Yahoo group which the author is on that you may find helpful.

There’s a junior notebook?  I assume that’s different than the notebooking one?

We attempted to start with Biology this year with my 8 & 7yos.  Flopped big time…  It was over their heads, and even on the different schedule to account for winter, we couldn’t go fast enough before there was no way to do some of the stuff.  We are just reading living books for now, hoping to try again in the summer.  But I am leery….  <sigh>  Are the other books easier to do with snow on the ground?  Maybe I could just do a different science book this year?

Haha, yes, Botany.  I had a toddler on my lap when I typed that.    And they both start with B…. 

So can you do Astronomy in the winter snow and cold, as well?  I think the girls would love to do that one, or one of the animal ones.  Otherwise I was thinking of only doing science in the spring/summer/fall.

Sara B.: I guess you could really do it during any season you wanted. After looking through a few of the experiments, there are a couple that would require you to go outside like using a magnifying glass to melt chocolate and making one of those alka seltzer rockets from a film canister. But none of those really require you to be outside for huge lengths of time. The main thing is maybe missing out on some of the meteor showers that happen during the other seasons or not getting to use the telescope that you make in one lesson very long because of the temp outside. I know there is another meteor shower (cannot remember the name) in August as well as the Perseids in October. That was our favorite part.