3 hours ago
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
We have been using the same science curriculum in our homeschool from the start, so today I wanted to write about two things related to science - how I go about teaching it with all my kids together, and if we will continue using it into middle and high school!
(A Note On Nature Journals)
Even though this post is mostly about Apologia as our main science text, I wanted to mention that we also love using various nature study resources! You might have noticed the winter nature journal in the background of the picture above, and that is from Raising Up Wild Things - I LOVE her seasonal nature journals! They are beautifully done and give us great ideas for how to get out and observe nature. I usually print up a set of the journaling pages for each of my kids and send them outside about once a week to record their observations over the course of the school year. This year I would like to work on getting out there with my kids and developing my own habit of nature journaling!
Now on to my thoughts about our main science curriculum.
What We Use
We have used Apologia’s Young Explorers series from the beginning of our homeschool. There are a series of textbooks covering different topics from a Christian/Young Earth creationist perspective, geared toward kids in grades 1-6.
Personally, I think many of the textbooks would be a little much for a 1st grader. I let my little girls (preschool and kindergarten) tag along with us on science, but I didn’t expect them to retain much at those ages. These textbooks can be adapted for younger ages, but you would have to do alot of teacher editing to give them the pertinent information without overwhelming them.
Each textbook also has accompanying student notebooking journals that you can purchase, with extra activities, notes pages, etc. Last year was the first year that I tried using the notebooking journals, and I have mixed feelings about them.
First, there are so many pages in the notebooks. Unless you are doing a couple pages every day, you probably wouldn’t be able to use all the pages in the books. In that respect, you do get alot of pages for your money, but the value of the pages is a little up in the air for me. Many of the pages are copywork, coloring pages for younger kids, decorative pages for note-taking, and crossword puzzles/wordsearches with vocabulary words. Were my kids exciting about the notebooks? Yes, but we could have just as easily took notes in a plain ruled notebook and pasted in our drawings or coloring pages. I think this year we are going to continue without the notebooks and see how it goes.
Last year we went through Swimming Creatures Of The Fifth Day, and Human Anatomy and Physiology, so we did two science courses. That may have been a bit much, but I think my kids handled it just fine! They picked out the topics themselves and were excited to learn, so that helped alot.
How I Teach It
For my bigger kids (3-5th grade last year), we did science one or two days a week. We all sit at the table, the kids with their notebooking journals, and I would read the chapters, which are written in an engaging way for kids (which I love!).
There are narration breaks built into each chapter, so we stop and discuss/narrate at those breaks. I also pause throughout to write important information on the board, or to draw illustrations to make it easier to understand. We take breaks frequently for my kids to copy out the notes or drawing that I put on our little whiteboard, then we move on.
There are experiments included with each chapter, and though we read through the experiments, we have only done a few from the book. They are generally pretty doable experiments, but sometimes we need special materials that I just don’t have on hand. This is one aspect of how we are doing science that I would like to change over this next year! More experiments!
Will We Stick With Apologia?
There are alot of things I love about Apologia science. I love that it is written in an engaging way, and I love that it presents the information from a Christian worldview. I think it’s a rigorous curriculum, and I think it’s especially well-suited for "science-y" kids. There have been times when I have found one of our Apologia textbooks missing because my oldest has taken it to his room to read on his own (just for fun)! For these younger grades, we are really enjoying it!
One thing I don’t love is that some of the textbooks can become a little overwhelming, especially for younger kids or kids who are not naturally inclined to enjoy and understand science. A friend of mine gave me a tip to look in the back of the textbooks at the chapter summary questions and base the information you cover with younger grades on those questions. I think that is a great idea, because for younger grades alot of the chapters are just too much information! With these textbooks for younger grades, the parent definitely needs to be involved to help wade through the information to get to the pertinent “good stuff”.
I am not completely convinced we will continue using Apologia through all the grades. The reason I knew I wanted to try Apologia with my own kids was because I used Apologia science courses for high school when I was a homeschool student. Those books made me love science! The original science textbooks were written by a man named Dr. Jay Wile, and he has a real knack for explaining science concepts in an understandable way. The science notebooking system presented in the original textbooks also prepared me really well for taking good scientific notes in college (I was complemented by my microbiology professor on my thorough note-taking in my experiment books).
In the time since I graduated, the company has been sold, and the most recent, new editions of the Apologia high school science textbooks were completely re-written by a new author. In addition, all the middle and high school textbooks seem to require the pre-made science notebooks to get the full program. It could be that good note-taking is still taught through those accompanying student notebooks, but I know from experience that all you really need is ruled notebook.
I read a review from Dr. Jay Wile on the new edition of the high school biology text, and one of the concerns he had with the new edition is an overwhelming amount of information. He was concerned that the new text included so much extra information that a student may need the help of a parent or teacher who already knows something about science to help the student know which information is really crucial. I thought that was interesting since I already thought certain of the elementary school texts included a bit too much information for the grade range (especially the Human Anatomy and Chemistry courses). So reading that review gave me pause. The last thing I want to do is to stifle a love of science in high school because of information overload.
My plan over the next couple years is to obtain a copy of Jay Wile’s new biology text with his new company Berean Builders, and compare it to the science course I took in high school, which I loved. I want to preview the course a bit because I have slight reservations about certain ways Wile may approach old earth vs. young earth creationism (he is a young earth creationist himself), and I’d like to read through his new science book myself and see what I think of it. I may do the same with Apologia’s high school text, and then make a decision. Keep an eye out for an eventual post about my decision!
Before I close this, I wanted to point you to the post I wrote a couple years back about other science resources we've used (especially note the additional nature study resources I link in that post, which I love!).
Have you used Apologia? What science curriculum do you use, and what do you think about it?
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