so I'm sure there's a thread on this somewhere too but I haven't found exactly what I'm looking for so. . . Has anyone used the following: Exploring Creation with. . .(biology, chemistry, physics, etc.) Christian kids explore. . .(biology, chemistry, physics, etc.) A Reason for Science (series) If you've used any of these did you like them? Not like them? Why or why not? Is there something out there (besides Considering God's Creation) that's phenomenal that I should look into?
The first ones you listed are Apologia right? I haven't used any of them so I'm no help, for those. Right now we are using "The Complete Book of Math" and will for the next 2 years, then we will be using Prentice Hall Science Explorer.
We did the Exploring Creation with Astronomy last year. DD really enjoyed it! One experiment---making the sun and planets with balloons, didn't work. The balloons wouldn't stay up and we never could get it to work right. So she painted some foam balls instead. That took rather long though. The other experiments seemed to work fine. This year we are using Christian Kids Explore Chemistry with my dd. She LOVES it! She said she wants to do more chemistry now. She enjoys the readings and the experiments and learning the vocabulary, and has a nice notebook going with what she's done! Some of the other ones looked great to me, but they were so expensive! I'm glad we got the Chem. one, it's really awakened an interest in it for her, which I find exciting!!! I recommend both of them!
heh - yeah we're using this book and for that one, we kinda gave up on using the exact measurements that they gave for the sizes (in inches) of the balloons because there was just no way that we could get them all exact with the kind of balloons we had --- so, we eyeballed it and just made sure that they were bigger and smaller than the ones they were supposed to be bigger and smaller than...if that makes sense :lol: we ended up using string to hang them from the kitchen ceiling -- dd wanted to tie them on the kitchen fan so they would revolve! cute idea, but we'd have had popped planets in no time. they're down now though.....over a few weeks, the planets all sorta shrunk and shriveled. :lol:
See, for whatever reason, ours shrunk and shriveled while we were trying to hang them. We just couldn't get all of them to stay up long enough!
Exploring Creation with Astronomy, I have this one but we haven't used it. We already did some of this and DD didn't want to do it again. I am planning on doing it for next year. I liked the book and so did my DD she just didn't want to do that one right now.
We did Apologia's General Science last year with Rachael, and she's doing Physical Science this year. She does it independently, and it works well for us. A friend of mine teaches public school honors chemistry, and also chemistry to homeschool co-op using Apologia. She says Apologia is the best. She can accomplish more with her hs'ed kids on one day than she can with her ps kids in five days.
I have discovered the Usborne books that are internet linked. I found a lady selling them on e-bay...about 20 of them and I LOOOVE them. I love that there is a website for us to visit everyday, and they are easy enough for MaryJane to read some...so I've got science and reader all in one We've only been using them for 2 weeks and I'VE learned a ton! I wasn't expecting that I'm as interested in the stuff as she is.
I do have the Usbourne science book that's linked, but I don't use it a lot. Just now and then when I think of it.
We're pretty sold on Apologia. Its working great for us. So far we've done General, Physical and Biology.
Thanks ladies. . .other opinions are of course welcome!!! I have used Sonlight which mostly uses Usborne and a few other readers. I do love it and I also love Janice Van Cleave. We're doing Considering God's Creation in co-op and we like that too.
I love Apologia also. I have done astronomy with my kids and I have done biology with 2 older kids (my friends) Jill
I ordered A reason For Science, but sent it back. It looked good, but was disappointing. I like their A Reason for Writing, and thought the science would be good, too.
Becky, I'm glad you mentioned that. I liked there writing one too, and used it for the boys. I've been wondering what their other thigns are like. Guess I won't research it too much. I think it's too young for mine now anyway.
check this out we spotted that same thing in walmart here, for around $25 (as opposed to the $40 on that site) .... dd thought it was pretty awesome, and i might try and get it for her for christmas.
Becky thanks for mentioning that. . .I was looking again last night and thought that might look good. I've never used their handwriting stuff. I think I'm going to buy the big Internet Linked Science Enclyclopedia from Usborne and some Janice Van Cleave books and then build a curriculum around that for the elementary years. The kids can be on websites. . .or working on their science notebook and I think I can use the Janice Van Cleave stuff for science experiments and teaching the scientific method. At least those would be good resources if I go with something else later on. . .or that's the theory anyways!
We've been using BJU but we are pretty much done with it- started it after pulling dd from K last Christmas. I'm ordering Noeo after Christmas www.noeoscience.com
A Reason For Science would be nice to put with something else. It's not a bad curriculum, there's just not much to it. You jump right into an experiment- no explanation, intro or anything. After the experiment you get the how and why of what you did. I nearly did keep it to use as an extension to whatever I finally chose to use- the experiments are nice ones- but I don't want to be juggling several items for one subject.
We're going to start CGC in January, and then after that I hope to get a hold of some of the Apologia ones. We shall see. Great thread!
