Planning Science for high school

I have Apologia biology on tap for this fall. I have my kids skip the study guides and tests. We only do the non-dissection and non-microscope labs. The book is broken up into sections, each one ending with the on your own questions. We do one section 3-4 days per week. That should get us through the course in 34 weeks or so. I require the on your own questions, but they check their own answers, and they also do about one written narration per week from Science.

I feel like that answer was scattered but hopefully something there was helpful.

I plan to have my 9th grader keep his own notebook for Apologia Physical Science.  I have been reading some old posts on here about this topic.  You might find these threads helpful, as I did:

https://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/for-those-using-apologia-with-highschoolers/

https://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/nearly-at-the-end-of-my-rope-with-apologia-biology/

So I will sit by and help the first week or two with using good study habits and writing good notes.  He will write vocabulary words and definitions in one section, as he reads along.  This is to be reviewed daily, to memorize.  After reading every paragraph, he will write a one or two sentence summary.  He will draw and label any diagrams.  And he will write the answers down for On Your Own Questions.  We will check these daily to correct and discuss them.  I plan to give tests and use them to figure 50% of his grade.  The notebook and labs are the other 50%.

For the labs, he will be responsible for looking ahead at supplies needed and let me know at least a week ahead of time, with a written list.  If the supply is expensive or hard to find, we might skip that lab.  In the lab portion of his notebook, he is to write his hypothesis before the experiment.  Then, write a conclusion with explanation afterwards.

As supplements, he will read two living books, watch some related videos, and participate in occasional nature study with the family.

So I am scheduling four 50 minute class/lab days for Apologia science and one day for the supplements.  If we start to get behind on Apologia, we will cut back or drop the supplements to spend more time with Apologia science.

The way the original books suggested figuring out amount of reading and such was to have them work for about 45 minutes each day.  At the end of 2 weeks, look at how far you’ve gotten and how many school weeks you have left, and see if it’s a good pace for you.  If you aren’t getting enough done, increase to an hour.  If you are getting more done than you need to, then you can decrease the time a little.   You can check this progress every so often, or you can just more casually watch  it.  You should finish one module every 2-3 weeks.   (In the biology textbook, module 6 is really long and should take 3 weeks. I don’t remember other modules for sure. 🙂

Re. which assignments to do–they need to do ALL of the On Your Own questions as they go through the module–the answers to these are right after the questions, so stop and take the time to think them through.   They also need to do all of the study guide questions, as the test is taken directly from these concepts.  My kids preferred to do that as a review at the end of the chapter, but I think some kids do them as they go along, and then study them at the end.   They should also do the tests.

Dr. Wile says that in order to get a lab credit, they need to do 2/3 of the experiments.  There are 3 types of experiments:  microscope, dissections, and general ones with household items.   This means that you can skip all of microscope experiments, or all of the dissections, but not both.   Also, if you do that, you need to complete all of the experiments of the other types.   Or you can do most of each type of experiment, but have a little flexibility to drop one here or there.

I have read that some colleges will ask to see the lab notebook, so as to be sure there were enough experiments.   My kids’ colleges (7 of them between 3 kids, so far) have not asked for this, but I do think it’s important to keep this notebook.