Friday, April 11, 2008

Homeschool Curriculum Show & Tell-Science



I wanted to start sharing about homeschool curriculum or aids that we have used and enjoyed. It is kind of a blog show and tell.

Today, I want to share about Apologia Science. We have used it for several years for my oldest and 1 year for my youngest.

To find out more go the Apologia web site.

We are using the one on Astronomy this year. That is the photo above. It is really good. It has had some interesting and easy experiments. It says this is for up to 6th grade but I think it can be used for 7th grade also. You can also get Botany, Flying Creatures Of The Fifth Day, Swimming Creatures Of The Fifth Day, & Land Animals Of The Sixth Day.




My oldest has done General Science, Physical Science, and we are currently using Biology this year. So far my oldest has done a dissection on a worm and on a crayfish. Next up is a fish and a big juicy frog. Not looking forward to that last one, as you can imagine. You can order the specimens and the dissection kit from their website. That makes it easy & convenient. However, I found a better deal over here at Homeschool Science Tools . The main reason I went here was because the shipping was less and faster. My daughter was doing the dissections with a friend so we split the cost too.

Now I want to tell you the reasons why I like Apologia so much.

  1. Most importantly it it written by a Christian that believes God created the world and that it wasn't just some big random bang. He does not teach evolution and explains the scientific errors in this way of thinking. He doesn't just believe it but has facts to back up the things he says. (Yes, he is a great teacher and a great scientist.)

  2. I love that you can order the text book, or the CD or both. We have always ordered the CD. That means that all the work is done at the computer unless you want to print it out. That is not a problem at our house. If that won't work for you then the text book is the way to go or get both.

  3. If you have the CD you can watch educational videos when the teacher wants to demonstrate or give you an example.

  4. If you have the CD, technical words are pronounced for the student.

Click here to read the frequently asked questions.

If you are interested in this let me explain something to you. They have a CD with the full course on it. They also have a companion CD. That is NOT the full course. The full course is around $65. The companion CD is around $15. Don't want you to think you have gotten some kind of fabulous deal for the full course at $15. The website explains the companion CD this way....."It contains pronunciations for the technical words in the course, animations used to explain some of the more difficult concepts in the course, and videos of experiments that the student would not be able to do on his or her own." The full course has all of these things in addition to the text and more.
If you think you may want to try it or you know you want to try it leave me a comment. Also, be sure to let us know what you think after you have tried it.

1 comment:

Karen said...

Jeremy used the Astronomy book last year and loved it! This year he's using the Zoology- flying creatures one and likes it even more, but he loves birds so that is probably why. I just bought him some binoculars and a field guide and it's very interesting to hear what he learns each day. ~Karen