Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

Tagged: Apologia, science, short lessons

This topic has 30 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 8 months ago by my3boys.

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 31 total)

1 2 3 →

Author
Posts
August 16, 2013 at 6:17 pm
n.robinson4
Member
Hi everyone, I’m just looking for some help from anyone who uses Apologia. I used Aplogia Anatomy the previous year upon my son’s request. Let me just say that I really do love it and my son enjoyed it some. We just found the lessons so lengthy and it was difficult to fit anything else in the day after that and math. Also I can’t say my son retained that much information because after awhile he just tuned out my voice and became bored. So I guesse what I’m asking is, how do you use Apologia when in a Charlotte Mason education the lessons are supposed to be short. I really don’t want to abandon Apologia because I think it is a great curriculum, maybe there is another way to go about it than following the lesson plan given in the notebook that goes with it?
August 16, 2013 at 8:09 pm
Tristan
Participant
I’ve never seen the schedule in the notebook but I would do science more often in shorter readings. Even if that means you read twice a day for 5-10 minutes or do science daily for 10-15 minutes. Also don’t feel like you MUST finish every unit in exactly two weeks. Go slower. It’s okay! Apologia can throw a lot of information at you in a chapter. Take time to understand and enjoy it.
August 16, 2013 at 8:32 pm
HollyS
Participant
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.
August 16, 2013 at 8:34 pm
JennyMN
Participant
Tristan, I like your idea of two short readings a day. I think I might use that. 🙂
August 16, 2013 at 8:48 pm
Angelina
Participant
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.
August 16, 2013 at 8:59 pm
4myboys
Participant
We’ve done both Zoology 1 and 2, actually doing one and a half last year. We skipped most of the experiments/projects and some of the notebooking. We read for a maximum of 15-20 most days (3-4 pages max). Sometimes we didn’t read that long because they’d lost interest. Sometimes we’d just pick it up again later in the day. I did not purchase the student notebook, but just used the free download pages. This year I plan to go a little slower with zoology 3 to get (most of) the experiments in, as well as the notebooking. I will probably still plan to do each lesson over two weeks, three to four days a week. I am hopeing this will give us time for digging into some topics a little further. If it takes 32 weeks (or more) to finish instead of the suggested 28, no problem. We want to enjoy this one more. (Oh, and I suppose we’ve already started zoology 3 because we’ve started reading the first chapter this week. We just got the book last week and my son insisted on starting to read the dinosaur chapter right away, then the other night he asked me to start at the beginning. We still have a month until we officially start school for the year, so I am not pushing it. We’ll pick it up when he asks, but I won’t inisist on notebooking until the school year officially starts. We’ll just enjoy.
August 16, 2013 at 10:04 pm
Angelina
Participant
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…)
August 16, 2013 at 11:11 pm
HollyS
Participant
Angelina, Zoo 2 has a chapter on dinosaurs that lived in the water. I’ve heard of children reading it independently…my DC love things read aloud, so that’s what we did. I think they would be fine reading it aloud. I had a K’er last year and she didn’t listen in very much.
August 16, 2013 at 11:24 pm
saramarie5
Participant
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.
August 16, 2013 at 11:26 pm
Tristan
Participant
My 12yo has read all the elementary books independently for fun for several years, she used to (and still does sometimes) take them to bed with her during quiet time. My 8yo is starting to do that now. So neat to see!
August 17, 2013 at 12:53 am
ServingwithJoy
Participant
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.
August 17, 2013 at 1:26 am
Angelina
Participant
Thank you so much, ladies who commented on the independent reading idea! Tristan, your 12 year old taking the books up to quiet time sounds exactly like my 10 year old; he would love this idea.
Does it really matter whether we’re “following the curriculum” if our kids end up embracing the books in their own ways — and soak up the information on their own? I’m all for that, and I think CM would approve 🙂
August 17, 2013 at 1:58 am
jotawatt
Participant
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.
August 17, 2013 at 9:08 am
m4given
Participant
May I share our experience with Apologia?
We have 2 girls – 8 & 12 yr old. I found also that short readings work for us as well. That is, I read aloud about 2 pages – give or take a litte. We start with a brief review of previous material, reading, and then oral narration of current material.Then the girls do 1 page of notebooking.We buy the corresponding notebooking series put out by Apologia – the junior for the youngest and the “regular” for the older. At times when we have our “light” weeks, the girls will complete notebooking pages without our reading.
We incorporate the apologia copywork/dictation work (with the Scripture provided) into our Language Arts times. My youngest will color the pictures with her colored pencils on her own or when I’m working with the oldest.
Not all projects were completed last year (Astronomy). In fact, I should say most projects were not completed and not all notebooking pages. And yet, the girls were able to do fairly well with narrating Astronomy to our homeschool evaluator this past year as they showed him the Astronomy notebook. He was totally fine & understanding of an “incomplete” notebook. Their oral narration & what they did in their notebooks demonstrated growth in their scientific knowledge.
This year our 7th grader will be completing Apologia’s General Science, while our youngest will be doing Apologia’s Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day. We’ll see how this all works out! But one thing I know is that we still take bits to chew on as we progress through our studies.
Just wanted to add: My youngest also loves to take the Apologia books off the shelf & read them in her “down” times.
August 18, 2013 at 11:11 am
Melissa
Participant
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.