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God's Design for Science – A couple of Questions
- This topic has 8 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 8 months ago by
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I was all set to use Real Science 4 Kids and I still may, but I’m having some health issues right now and I’m working on simplifying a bit. This means I’m revisiting science for next year.
My questions re God’s Desin:
- Is it teacher intensive? Can my 11 yo do it on her own? How much help will an 8yo need?
- Are there experiments or just activities? How is the balance? Kids are wanting experiments.
- Anywhere you can buy a kit w/ needed supplies?
- Do you need to do the books in a certain order?
- If my dd11 has only 1 year before going into Apologia general science in 7th grade, which GD book would you choose? She’s covered botany and astronomy thoroughly.
Thanks,
Christie
I used God’s Design science for a couple of years with multi aged boys. At the time, my sons were 6, 9 and 11. The curriculum is designed to be used with the parent. Every lesson includes a project of some sort. It may be an experiement, nature study, notebook project, graphing a chart, etc. Every lesson also includes a section for the older student to dig deeper. That part could be assigned as independent work, as a matter of fact that is what I did with my older son and sometimes the 9 year old.
To my knowledge there are no kits. Any worksheets or activity sheets needed are included on the teacher cd rom. Most items needed for the experiments are standard houselhold items except for a few pieces of science equipment. There is a full list of supplies needed in the guide. Answers in Genesis does sell several items that can be used with their curriculum but are not necessary. These are individual items that only contain one project. You can find them on the AIG website.
Since your daughter already has finished botany and astronomy… then I would not choose God’s Design for Life or God’s Design for Heaven and Earth. AIG recommends God’s Design for Chemistry after those two studies but you could also use God’s Design for the Physical world with no problem. Their recommended order is to make sure that younger children are not starting out with chemistry or the physical world. Since your daughter is older, either of Chemistry or Physical world would be just fine.
Hope this helps a little!
Tammy
See if you can get Bookworm over here. She’s used this for years and might be able to comment further on it.
From what I can see of the samples, if your 11-yr-old is a strong reader she should be able to read this on her own and do the experiments and such either on her own or with minimal help from you. There are questions either at the end or throughout the chapter that she could answer orally (when she gets to them) or written or you could just ask for narrations along the way. It looks a bit tough for an 8-yr-old to do on their own….you’d want to read it with them and discuss/narrate. Experiments/labs/whatever should be able to be run by the 11-yr-old for both of them.
There is a huge “teacher supply list” which you can gather together at the beginning of the course and have in a box for them to grab when they need it.
Christie,
I think an 11 yo could read it on her own. You’d want to either then get a narration or do the discussion questions. Some of the activities wouldn’t need much help, others might (depending on your mess tolerance!) Just thinking of my own kids, my 8yo’s would have done better if I’d read the lessons (which I did) I don’t usually start these until 3rd grade.
There are both experiments and art and craft type activities. I think she did an experiment when she could think of one, and another activity when the lesson didn’t lend itself well to experiments. She has forms for the recording of the experiments that are nice.
The Lawrences, before they sold to AIG, used to have boxed materials that went along well that were harder to find. There are just a few of those, “nice to haves”. Most of the experiments use very easily available stuff or things that are really best just provided at home (this year we’ve used red cabbage, baking soda, etc.) I don’t know if AIG has anything like that or not, and I don’t know of the Lawrences still have anything going on. They used to always be at our convention until AIG bought it, and were terrific to talk to and help us find what we needed, but don’t know about now.
You don’t really need to do them in any particular order but as has been mentioned, the chemistry and physical science series are a bit tougher, more for the older age range.
You could just pick and do whatever ones you wanted. If you are going to also do the Apologia Physical Science, maybe focusing on the chemistry series (just two books) might be good this next year. We are just finishing those up with my 6th grader now and he had a good time.
Thanks everyone.
Michele – would you recommend I pick one book set and let both dd11 and ds8 work through it with my help for ds or start them in different levels. They will be in 3rd and 6th this next year. Would you reccomend continuing God’s Design for dd11 into 7th and 8th or going on to Apologia for those years?
It does look like my dd11 will be able to be independent except for experiments which is a plus right now.
Unless you want to make life harder, I’d do them together, myself, anyway. As for Apologia—I really don’t know. I’ve done both things–my oldest was in 8th grade when we finished God’s Design, and we just went straight to Biology–younger brother finished in 6th grade and we did Apologia General Science spread over 2 years with extra experiments. Next son will finish God’s Design in 7th grade and have one year left, and I am undecided whether to do General Science for him, or something else, or what. I don’t know what I preferred. Don’t I sound decisive? LOL My oldest son did fine going straight to biology, but then he is a serious science geek. My second son liked parts of General Science and didn’t love other parts. He did fine, but I’m not sure it’s right for my third one (plus I had it on the computer CD and we hated that and sold it). So I think you’d want to think and pray about how to manage it.
missceegee, i have the set of God’s design for chemistry that i would sell you for a very steep discount. i bought it and my kids just weren’t that into it, and it got to be a bit too much for my younger ones. my then 2-yo DS colored on two or 3 pages with an expo marker, but you can still read them. the two other books are literally unread. i believe i still have the cd-rom too.
pm me if you want it.
amy
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