second thoughts on curriculum choices

bethana, we used flying creatures first, and I have to say it was boring at first. I guess for me it was “are we really going to study birds for a whole year???” But then it did pick up, though it would still be my least favorite of the 3 Apologia Elementary animal books.

Having said that, I would suggest a bird ID if you have any birds that visit your yard. You could start a journal with your kids of the ones you see, and that is fun to look back over.

We have this book, which we found extremely helpful, and it is nice hardbound book.

http://www.amazon.com/National-Audubon-American-Birdfeeder-Handbook/dp/0789403374/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344475324&sr=8-1&keywords=national+audubon+north+american+birdfeeder+handbook

Ours is the 1992 edition, but it looks like you can find newer used editions too.

I would say try to stick with it b/c it is a great book that we all enjoyed once we got going, but yes, it is slow at first.

Hi Bethanna,

We did a bird nature study a few years back, when my girls were in K and 2nd grade. I shared our favorite books and resources from that study in a blog post that may be helpful to you. 

http://wheremytreasureis.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/learning-together-tuesday-birds/

We’ve used sections of Apologia’s Young Explorers Series books mostly as spines to make sure we weren’t “missing” anything, but most of our study was from other sources, because we found them to be a bit dry at times, too. 

~Anna

I found Apologia to be dry and a tab boring as well.  But it DID get better…or maybe our brains became numb???  We did add some living books and they loved doing a bird ID/count – we posted a list by the window and added to it whenever we saw a new bird (and counted how many times we saw X bird).  We kept a field guide right by it so we could identify them.  

Both of my boys LOVED reading the Apologia books. I had started them at one point, reading aloud to them, but for some reason that didn’t go all that well. Perhaps they were just too young. ::shrug:: I dropped them at that time and when they were old enough they devoured them on their own.

ACK! I have planned to do Zoology I, Flying Creatures of the 5th Day with my 3rd grader this year. I looked at one of the books last year and absoulutley thought it was dry and BORING! But, it always gets such high ratings. I have to say, I absolutley do not like teaching science. Last year we used Properties of Ecosystems  and I would have rather had a hot poker put in my eye However, we LOVED Outdoor Secrets. Hmmmmmmm…………………rethinking now.

We have been using Flying Creatures and find it ok.  My oldest enjoys it better than my younger, but then he enjoys reading non-fiction nature/camping/fishing/out-door survival type books and magazines.  I find that it’s easy to lose the momentum of it (Flying Creatures).  I am considering switching to Jack’s insects for my younger or some of the other living science selections.  He’s only in 3rd grade.  My 6th grader I was planing to finish Flying creatures then move on to swimming and land for the 2nd have of 6th and 7th, then move to apologia General in 8th.  BUt I am looking at having him do all of those on his own.  If all we do in elementary is nature study, a few living books and the occassional video and experiement, I think we’ll be fine.  We can learn so much science from just every day activities and observances.  It’s jr. high and high school that I am concerned about more formal science.

We began Flying Creatures about 3 weeks ago with a 9 and 5 year old and they are loving it. Of course the classification section can be hard to get through. Also, because of the season we started in, we skipped to the insects section and are working on it first. (If you do this you must do lesson 1 first though) We are enjoying it. My kids have always been creeped out by bugs but they are slowing learning that they are pretty cool. We have learned some interesting things and some really gross things. Over all, they like it so far.