Middle School Astronomy

Hi Keri! My daughter and I started using Signs and Seasons recently. We are using Apologia for our main science course but we take breaks here and there and do a chapter or two from Signs and Seasons. We have both really enjoyed it. It’s rather wordy but interestingly written. I did buy the student journal but if I did it again, I would just purchase the text. Instead of using the journal, my daughter is making regular entries into her science notebook by drawing constellations and copying charts and diagrams from the textbook. We are also trying to get outside at night as much as possible so we can observe all of the things we are reading about. We are waiting for a nice, clear night so we can take our boat out on a nearby lake and observe the stars away from the city lights. We are going to take our small grill, make s’mores and study the night sky. 🙂

I do recommend Signs and Seasons. There isn’t anything else out there quite like it. I am planning on adding the Tiner book in and a couple of astronomer biographies to round it out for a full highschool elective credit. My daughter is in 9th grade.

It all depends on how you want to schedule it. If you follow Jay Ryan’s schedule for highschool, which includes the student journal, it will take a whole year and you can count it as highschool credit. If you simply want to read through the book and discuss/narrate, you could move through it pretty quickly. It is not a super thick book. In fact, it is probably about the size of the Apologia elementary books if you are familiar with those.