Options for high school Chemistry??

Hi Jessica,

Kelli shares her high school living books/labs science courses at Grace for the Day. http://gracefulthought.blogspot.com/p/biology-w-living-books-guide.html?m=1

It says biology but if you scroll down you will see Chemistry.

Warmly,

Richele

Chemistry 101 has instructions for making it credit worthy. You can use it for High School credit but wouldn’t be enough for someone who’s college bound. There isn’t enough math/equations. You could check out Classic Science (eequalsmcq.com ) or Science for High school (.com). I haven’t used them but have heard good things.

A few thoughts on high school level sciences.

You do not mention if you used the notebook that Apologia sells with their courses. In my opinion, the notebooks take too much time to complete and are completely unnecessary.

You should expect high school level sciences to take more time to complete. A science course at that level should be more in-depth and require a higher level of thinking. Remember that studying science should cause your child to think more critically, a useful skill for all areas of life.

I am not familiar with Life of Fred Chemistry, but I have reviewed Chemistry 101 and it is not high school level, even with the added instructions.

You could choose one of the other chemistry courses mentioned by others or  a conversationally written course like Dr. Wile’s Discovering Design with Chemistry, which I recommend over Apologia’s chemistry.

Jessica-Is your son going into a STEM field? That would definitely affect your decision in this area.

If a student is starting in community college, I would say that having a rigorous high school Chemistry course is not nearly as much of a priority as if he is going straight to University.

You could put together a chemistry course using Chemistry 101 dvds and living books along with chapters from Apologia chemistry.

Many, many homeschoolers use Apologia texts in a much more relaxed method than outlined in premade lesson plans. For instance, here’s how we are doing Apologia Biology. We are not using anything except for the textbook-no dvds or notebooks. We read several pages a day and do the On Your Own Excercies orally each day. My daughter draws many of the diagrams and tables in her science notebook. I have her complete the Study Guide independently and then I give her the test orally. She only missed 2 on the test for module 1 so I am pleased so far.

We used Apologia General Science in a similar manner. I did have her do one module in the more traditional manner just to get a feel for how textbook learning usually works. I will have her do a couple of modules this year in that way as well.

Most homeschoolers I have talked to (online and in real life) use textbooks in a less formal manner than a traditional school would. Always feel free to make the textbook work for your student rather than conforming your student to someone else’s lesson plans.

Oh! We also do selected labs when they are doable for our family. We plan on doing several dissections for Biology and many of the other labs but I am not planning on buying a microscope at this point.

Just thought I’d share how we handle Apologia at our house!

For those of you who like to add games to your studies, here is a Chemistry Monopoly game that a chemistry class developed for a science fair. They have made the files for the board game and game pieces available for free for anyone who would like to make their own game.