My son hates Apologia Elem. Chem./Physics

I am sorry that Apologia is not working out for your son.  I have planned for my son to use only living books the next 2 years for 5th and 6th grades with books on SCM and AO.  So what you wrote confirms that the living books I have planned is the way for us to go.  We have done Apologia some in the past, and he told me it was a little boring and too long.  I wonder now if we should have spent only one term per topic and move on, coming back to each book in other years.

So for 6th, I plan to use The Sciences by Holden along with Find the Constellations by HA Rey and for the chemistry/physics part of the book, he can read Mystery of the Periodic Table, except the last few chapters which are harder, and Eyewitness Chemistry.  And he can read The Weather Book along with that section of The Sciences.  I am excited about this book.  It reads well and has illustrations and was recommended by CM, according to AO.  It is printed by Yesterday’s Classics, available at Amazon.  You can see it online too.

https://home.comcast.net/~rlaurio/TheSciences00.html

https://simplycharlottemason.com/planning/curriculum-guide/math-science-language-arts/living-science-books/

http://amblesideonline.org/06bks.shtml#sci

You could certainly use any of your books on chemistry/physics and I think it would be a very interesting, rich science education for a 6th grader.

I am finally coming to realize this too, Gina, at 5th grade.  We live and learn.

I have seen your books on many booklists, so they must be good selections.

Make sure you look online at the ‘Periodic Table of Videos’.  They are great!  (they do vary a bit on how interesting they are…)

I highly recommend The Elements by Theodore Gray. Beautiful book. Also, we checked out from the library a series of books about each element or group of elements on the Periodic Table.

(And I know you don’t want to buy anything, but I recommend Ellen McHenry’s The Elements and Carbon Chemistry for older students.)

We are using this with my almost 7 year old and she loves the experiments! Since she is so young, I’m tweaking it to make it work for us. (We can revisit it again later & add the bigger Notebooking journal if we want). I was struggling with feeling the need to follow their suggested schedule and feeling the need to do EVERYTHING in the NJ but, the more I delve into the CM methods, the more I realize that I can be as flexible with a curriculum as I want. What I’m finding to work better for is is that I read ahead & pick an experiment. We will do the experiment and I will give my own narration about what we are doing, what’s happening etc. Then she will narrate to me some facts she learned & I’ll write her wording out on the board & have her copy it in the Jr. Notebooking Journal and draw her pictures. Pretty much like our nature journal. I allow myself to skip over some things in the journal that just seem like busy work. Like the lap book type things. She can color the coloring pages if she wants but, I don’t require that. And the verse copywork is always great too. So maybe if you just take a different approach to how you present the material he will enjoy it more. Apologia is not looking over your shoulders to make sure you follow their suggested plan. That’s the beauty of homeschool right? Make the focus more on the experiments (and there are tons!). And if his interest is really peaked by a certain experiment then, add some corresponding living books to go along with it.

My 12 yr. old daughter is doing HOD MTMM this year. She is really loving the science portion. The books used for the chemistry are:

Exploring the World of Chemistry

Marie Curie and the Discovery of Radium

The Elements:Ingredients of the Universe (this is a curriculum put out by Ellen McHenry. It has lots of fun activities)

Atoms in the Family: My Life with Enrico Fermi

Albert Einstein and the Theory of Relativity

Then they use the Chemistry C500 Experiment Kit

Hope you find something he enjoys more.

Here’s another option if you want to incorporate some non-living book stuff.

We are using Real Science 4 Kids- chemistry this term and physics another, and my daughter is 12, too. Each subject has 10 chapters/experiments. One day she reads then the next day we do the experiment. We haven’t been in it long enough to really evaluate but the short chapters are non-threatening to her. There is a student book, lab book, and teacher’s manual. The way we’ll put it all together is to do chem. first term, read living books second term, and physics third term.