How do I incorporate Apologia Sciences?

We used Apologia’s Swimming Creatures last year.  I started the year with 2 lesons per week and they were way too long.  I found another schedule (on the Yahoo group) with daily readings.  It was much more do-able!  We also skipped some of the experiments and didn’t use the extra notebook journals (we did the notebook assignments in the actual textbook).  The schedule also had review and test days and we skipped those as well…I used them as catch-up days for when we didn’t get to our science lesson.

Another thing to consider, from my understanding, Apologia throws a lot of detailed information at them so that they’ll be more likely to remember the basic information.  This is a contrast to typical textbooks that lightly cover a broad range of topicsl, and the kids generally remember very little.  They probably will forget much of what they read in the Apologia text, but the idea is for them to have a basic understanding of the topics.  

Wow, Holly, I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am to read your “another thing to consider”. I am terribly guilty of following to a “T” … what you might call perfectionism when it comes “courses” like this. Try as I might, I can never get out of my head that we must learn it all. (leftover mental state from all my own years and hours with public school textbooks). I am JUST thrilled to hear the explanation that sometimes textbooks actually over-detail the material, expecting that doing so will mean the basics are embraced. Who knew?! Just thought I would comment on this, perhaps this will help all of us, including the OP, to take the pace and expectations of these Young Explorer courses down a notch.

4myboys (or anyone else) just out of curiosity, is Zoology 3 the only one that deals with dinosaurs? Or did zoo 1 and 2 deal with dinosaurs at all?

Maybe this is a question for a new thread, but when I hear everyone mentioning how long they spend on their Apologia readings, I truly wonder whether I might be better off having my boys (9 and 10) just do this series completely as a silent, assigned read. I know this wouldn’t work for everyone, but my boys are both pretty bookwormy. Sometimes (much as I try to read aloud with great enthusiasm) I can see that with longer or “slightly drier” reading selections, they embrace it more when they read on their own. I realize the whole series was designed as a multi-age/family curriculum, but based on what I’m hearing sometimes about the reading material, I think my kinder and 1st grader would be drifting off anyway, which is exactly what the OP said was happening to her son.

Does anyone assign this series independently?

Hmmm. I thought this may have been off topic to the OP question, but then again, perhaps this independent idea could be a solution for the OP, if reading level of the series was on target.

What DOES the series say the “reading level” is? (if it says one…)

Hi Angelina. I’ve done zoology 1 & 2. Number 1 I read out loud, but for 2, my son, who was 9 at the time, asked to read it on his own. He gave me oral narrations and did some of the notebooking. He is about to start Astronomy (he wanted a break from animals) and will continue reading it himself. He prefers it that way. For my 4 and 6 year old boys, I am going to use Outdoor Secrets and save apologia for when they are older. So yes, it can be done independently if the child is ready.

Wait…you aren’t doing an entire chapter a day, right? We have always done really short daily readings for science because it really needs to be read slowly and carefully, with narration following. Otherwise the material doesn’t absorb ;0). We used Apologia Anatomy last year, and would do maybe 2 pages per day. Older kids can read ahead a bit and narrate afterwards.

We tried using Apologia a few years ago, following a pretty rigid schedule which allowed us to finish each lesson in the allotted time….long story short, we didn’t even finish the book; I ended up pretty discouraged and felt like it was doing no good.  We dropped Apologia for a couple years.  Last year, we picked it up again and did Astronomy.   This time we did what some people above wrote about — I limited the readings to shorter sessions, using the notebook schedule as a loose guide but cutting readings in half if they seemed too long.  We only did it twice a week.  This time, we loved it!  It was so much more do-able and less stressful.  We even finished Astronomy before the end of the year.

Last January my youngest son begged me to buy him Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day, and start that with him (we ended up doing it on alternating days with Astronomy); it’s carried over into this school year and he’s still enjoying it.  My 7th grader is doing Anatomy as a mostly-independent study, because she was very interested in the topic.  Again, manageable readings (she does it 4 times a week), narrations, some gentle notebooking…and my girl who hated science in the past is loving it, and doing it with no complaints.  That is a huge thing for us. 

We use the Apologia books. I think they are wonderful!

My son is 9 yrs old and reading through Flying Creatures of the Fith Day and my 12 year old daughter is reading through Hunam Anatomy and Physilogy. I found that the Anatomy book has really long readings. She was becoming overwhelmed, so I get her to read 3 pages a day and answer the notebooking questions as she goes along. This has helped get through the book and she feels more in control. We are on to lesson seven now.
I also read to my son frm his book each day. I just find it easier this way.