The Little Man is also doing an Apologia Science this year. He is doing Astronomy which is what the Little Lady studied last year. When we do Astronomy, I read a section our of the book. We have a little discussion and then the Little Man does some sort of small activity to demonstrate his understanding. Nothing elaborate but all his own! Here are a few sample pages.
Coloring the Hubble Space Telescope
I print out the blog pictures of the experiments and he puts them in the notebook.
His picture of a Solar Eclipse
Earth's gravity
Earth's Core : The Earth Core Play-dough Activity
The Oreo Phase Activity and his picture of the Lunar Eclipse
The Little Man's drawing of what he thinks an ecosystem on Mars should look like...
Mars Rovers
More pictures are sprinkled through the label "Unit: Astronomy"
Nice work. I think learning should always be fun. Enjoy your day and God bless.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Carmen! It's so good to see how you use the Apologia books. So, do you guys do science everyday? Also, do you ask for narration or do you just discuss and do notebooking and experiments when necessary?
ReplyDeleteNo. We don't do it every day. I would say on average 3 times a week. You could do a chapter a week really and be done in approx 13 or so weeks. I spread it out. On the things that I don't have anything to do in their subtopic they do narration. They don't really see the Science book unless they are sitting beside me or I am showing them related pictures. I do this because they would read the text book themselves if I would let them.
ReplyDeleteoh ok! thanks Carmen! that sounds doable if I spread it out. really appreciate all the info you've given me:)
ReplyDeleteRosemary, We take the whole school year to do one book!
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't take much time out of my day to do or prepare for at all. The experiments or activities are all easy and requires those basic items in your house. They have about two a chapter depending on the subject you are studying. I just chose one and some times I skip them.
To prepare for the book pages in their note book. I just google the subtopic (which is typically just a half a page to a full page of reading-- there are probably about 6 to 10 subtopics a chapter) and find either an image, coloring page or have them draw what they are talking about... extremely simple. I am amazed how much they like it. I don't always do something for the subtopic.
The Little Lady thought the Astronomy book was just okay. Not really her thing although she enjoyed the experiments. I didn't have any problems with her just hating it. She did it happily. She really likes the Botany book, but she likes collecting flowers, leaves and such!
The Little Man likes the Astronomy book. He has 3 more chapter to go until he is finished. He will be doing Botany next. The Little man is also excited about doing the experiments that his sister has been doing in Botany. (I make them do the Apologia books in order of the creation) I have a friend whose son did not like the Botany book at all though. So, she dropped it. She just gave him the book to read what he wanted and that was it. The books are nice to really just have on your book shelf since they are so conversational.
We have just three more chapters or so in Botany for the Little Lady as well. Then, the Little Lady will begin Flying Animals. I allowed her to take a quick look through it and I did also and it looks like it will be fun. I didn't see as many experiment in it but with "bird watching" and searching out to be involved with some sort of book count I don't think that will be a disappointment to her.
I don't know about any of the other book to give you any of my opinion on.
Oh, If you ask the Little Lady about Botany. She will talk about the Bees. She found the info on the section of the Botany most interesting. Here is what she would say, " Flowers can not cross pollinate - only the same kind can pollinate each other. So, one of the things God did was to create the bees to pollinate only a certain flower for that day. The queen tells the worker bees what flower to bring pollen back from, what ever they need that day, and since flowers can't cross pollinate the bees help that one type of flower pollinate that day. If you see two bees going to different flowers, they are of from different hives.
I hope this gives you a little more insight as to what we do so you can see if it fits. I am going to try the notebook style for History as well. They seem to like to look back on what they have learned, it jogs their memory, and I have something for them to keep on a subject that they have enjoyed for the entire year. It still uses all the charlotte mason approach but allows me to see their creativity which I don't want to get lost!
lol! I'm starting to get seriously interested in Apologia now:) Thank you SO much Carmen, your thoughts have been really helpful! Science is a weak point for me which is why I was considering Aplogia but then have heard so many varying reports on it so it was great to hear your perspective and see what you do:)
ReplyDeleteThanks Carmen for all this info. It's been very very helpful for me to see how you do apologia in your home. :)
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