Penny_P Posted June 14, 2013 Share Posted June 14, 2013 I know this was newly released last spring with discounted ebooks... Has anyone used it or thoroughly looked through it yet? Is it worth the price? We used RSO chemistry 2 years ago and loved it, but, wow, what sticker shock! Other recommendations? I'm not sure we can justify the price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tammyw Posted June 15, 2013 Share Posted June 15, 2013 No, but I am planning on ordering it soon. It is pricey. I plan to order everything from Home Science Tools - the regular guide, the teacher guide, and the experiment kit also. Over $200 for everything. I'd be happier if I could get updated student pages for when we do it with my son. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walking-Iris Posted June 16, 2013 Share Posted June 16, 2013 Ebooks are on sale at pandia press until the end of June with the coupon code BEST A pretty good value! I just purchased it and only had a chance to skim it. I'm waiting to take it to a printer to have printed to go over it in more detail. It looks great! It seems to be very thorough. I'm beyond over the moon excited to get started on it. I'll be doing RSO Life with my 1st grader along with Biology with my 5th AND taking my own online classes in Bio and Anatomy to finish a degree. We'll either be experts or sick of it all by summer!!! But I m excited for our intensive year of science. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dsmith Posted June 16, 2013 Share Posted June 16, 2013 I did a quick run-through when I ordered it a while ago. I purchased the eBooks on sale and have them loaded on our iPads. I will print any worksheets and lab reports as we need them. I recently received my order from HST for the lab kit, and Amazon for the microscope. I just started reading through the teacher guide tonight, and then decided I should read through the student book at the same time. The teacher's guide isn't just a duplicate of the student book with answers, which I really like. It has a summary of each chapter with learning goals, notes on lesson prep, suggested schedules, sample lab reports, lists of resources like books and videos for further study, etc. It contains a good amount of info, which makes me feel much more confident. I have no experience in Biology beyond high school many (many!) years ago. From the little I have looked at it, the student text has a nice clean layout, the pages aren't too busy or overly colorful, which can be a problem for ds. The text seems engaging, the illustrations are attractive... I don't think ds will find it boring at all. I like that it is an all in one text instead of having a separate lab notebook or workbook. That makes things a lot easier for me! (I'm really not very organized!!) So far I really like it, but I'm no biology expert. I'm planning on spending the next few weeks reading it over and would like to start the program in late August. Perhaps in a few weeks I will be able to give a better review. :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tammyw Posted June 16, 2013 Share Posted June 16, 2013 Ebooks are on sale at pandia press until the end of June with the coupon code BEST A pretty good value! I just purchased it and only had a chance to skim it. I'm waiting to take it to a printer to have printed to go over it in more detail. It looks great! It seems to be very thorough. I'm beyond over the moon excited to get started on it. I'll be doing RSO Life with my 1st grader along with Biology with my 5th AND taking my own online classes in Bio and Anatomy to finish a degree. We'll either be experts or sick of it all by summer!!! But I m excited for our intensive year of science. Where do you like to get your materials like this printed? I had planned on just buying the printed version from Home Science Tools (just over $100 on sale) but my biggest worry is that I wouldn't then be able to use it with my son in a couple of years. Now you have me thinking I should consider buying the e-version and having it printed and put into a binder myself so that when the time comes, I can just print the necessary pages for him to do the course as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walking-Iris Posted June 16, 2013 Share Posted June 16, 2013 Where do you like to get your materials like this printed? I had planned on just buying the printed version from Home Science Tools (just over $100 on sale) but my biggest worry is that I wouldn't then be able to use it with my son in a couple of years. Now you have me thinking I should consider buying the e-version and having it printed and put into a binder myself so that when the time comes, I can just print the necessary pages for him to do the course as well. I save big files like this on an external drive and take them to a local printing shop. I live in a small town and we don't have Kinkos or Officemax etc. But our local print shop is very affordable. I'm sure you could find a printing shop near you. TWJ from Bravewriter for example cost 8 dollars to print. I like to save my paper and ink for much smaller jobs, so it's worth it to save the time and ink to let someone else print these large files. I need to have them printed to get the best use of them. Ebooks are cheaper, but I need to have something in my hands to implement them. I imagine if I print both RSO books in black and white the cost will still be under 20. I'll keep a copy of the TG on the external drive as well to access any hyperlinks. Also I had just planned to make a copy of any consumable pages for my ds to write on so I can use this again when my younger kids are ready. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tammyw Posted June 16, 2013 Share Posted June 16, 2013 I save big files like this on an external drive and take them to a local printing shop. I live in a small town and we don't have Kinkos or Officemax etc. But our local print shop is very affordable. I'm sure you could find a printing shop near you. TWJ from Bravewriter for example cost 8 dollars to print. I like to save my paper and ink for much smaller jobs, so it's worth it to save the time and ink to let someone else print these large files. I need to have them printed to get the best use of them. Ebooks are cheaper, but I need to have something in my hands to implement them. I imagine if I print both RSO books in black and white the cost will still be under 20. I'll keep a copy of the TG on the external drive as well to access any hyperlinks. Also I had just planned to make a copy of any consumable pages for my ds to write on so I can use this again when my younger kids are ready. Thank you! I wonder how easy it will be to print the separate pages for a new student. I'm guessing it would have to be printed page by page, which is a little annoying! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walking-Iris Posted June 16, 2013 Share Posted June 16, 2013 Thank you! I wonder how easy it will be to print the separate pages for a new student. I'm guessing it would have to be printed page by page, which is a little annoying! Well not really. If you take the file to a print shop then you can just either spiral bound or put it into a 3 ring binder, then take out the page you want a copy of for the student and if you have a home printer that is a copier/scanner, then just copy it. OR when you have the file open online then just put into the page number field the page number you want printed. So for example you click print and you only want pages 4-6 (I just made that up!) then you type 4-6 into the print options, or if you scroll down until you get to the page you want to print, choose print current page. I would just copy the page you need as you come to it. Which is easy to do if you have the whole thing printed and in a binder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tammyw Posted June 16, 2013 Share Posted June 16, 2013 Well not really. If you take the file to a print shop then you can just either spiral bound or put it into a 3 ring binder, then take out the page you want a copy of for the student and if you have a home printer that is a copier/scanner, then just copy it. OR when you have the file open online then just put into the page number field the page number you want printed. So for example you click print and you only want pages 4-6 (I just made that up!) then you type 4-6 into the print options, or if you scroll down until you get to the page you want to print, choose print current page. I would just copy the page you need as you come to it. Which is easy to do if you have the whole thing printed and in a binder. Good advice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wheres Toto Posted June 16, 2013 Share Posted June 16, 2013 Thank you! I wonder how easy it will be to print the separate pages for a new student. I'm guessing it would have to be printed page by page, which is a little annoying! I've always been able to print multiple pages by writing down the page numbers I want, then listing them under Print range:, Pages: with a comma between each. You can also mix individual pages and a range, for example "3-5,7,9,13-20,34,56" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom-ninja. Posted June 17, 2013 Share Posted June 17, 2013 Printing is NOT cheap where I live. I've ended up spending more money taking things to a printer (Staples or Kinkos) than I would've spent if I'd just purchased the hard copy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tammyw Posted June 17, 2013 Share Posted June 17, 2013 Printing is NOT cheap where I live. I've ended up spending more money taking things to a printer (Staples or Kinkos) than I would've spent if I'd just purchased the hard copy. Same here, locally. The one time I printed something, I ordered it from online - I think it was BestValueCopy or something? I'd actually love to know if there is a favorite online printer for stuff like this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tammyw Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 So I decided to buy the ebook versions and just got a quote from bestvaluecopy - It's going to cost $32 (that is b&W - color price would be $90) to print and $25+ to ship (it is 1000 pages for student and teacher guide). I'm still trying to figure out if there is a cheaper place to print. Any suggestions? The total cost will be more than $50 with the $5 off coupon I found). And it seems like it would be okay to print this in B&W vs color, right? The color aspects of the book doesn't seem super important. Sure, it'd be prettier, but I don't think necessary? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justme824 Posted June 24, 2013 Share Posted June 24, 2013 I have to say this looks pretty good. If I had an eta on Earth & Space for Level 2 I just might switch around my plans and tackle this one next year. Hmmm... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ondreeuh Posted June 24, 2013 Share Posted June 24, 2013 I have a question about printing the student book and TG. How much of the material can easily be read on a tablet, and how much really needs to be printed? And usability matters; some files are just better in hard copy because in order to really read them on a tablet you have to zoom in and pan around ... and that gets old. Mr. Q's science is an example of something that is well-formatted for a tablet. On the other hand, sometimes large-format files can be viewed in landscape and then just scrolled through (no panning needed) which is OK. Rather than print EVERYTHING, is it feasible to print only the student book and use the TG on a tablet? If a family has 2 tablets, could both the student book and TG be viewed on tablets and just the lab pages get printed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plain jane Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 Can anybody weigh in if this program would be meaty enough for an advanced 7th grader who is very interested in Life science for next year? I had high hopes of putting together my own thing but am realizing that I need to be more realistic and that I'm better off sticking with a text that is done for me. I'm also looking at CPO and BJU and perhaps Harcourt. I found the elementary versions of RSO to be a bit on the young side- is this the case for RSO level 2 or did they really beef it up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BinahYeteirah Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 I don't have it, but I checked out the sample. It looked pretty meaty to me. The sample is available on the Pandia Press website. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom-ninja. Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 You can try before you buy as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TraceyS/FL Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 BTW, they announced there WILL be student pages to buy. It is on the FB page I believe in the last week or so! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foxbridgeacademy Posted June 27, 2013 Share Posted June 27, 2013 Thinking of this for hard to please 12 year old.... Anyone try it out on their kids yet? Does it seem to have a lot of busy work? I have seen the samples and I am impressed. I would love to have a child's opinion though. To print at any of the local copy places I’m looking at .10 cents per b/w page (so $70+ for student book). If I use my printer, it should be about $8 in paper and $40 in ink. Plus I can print and hole punch as needed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinaJ Posted August 29, 2014 Share Posted August 29, 2014 How is everyone liking biology 2? I am considering it, plus the science kit from Home Science Tools, but it comes to rather pricey total. Does pandia press ever have a sale? Amazon has a good price, but they are temporarily out of stock (who knows what is temporarily in their world.....) ETA: Kate from Pandia Press said they will have 25% discount on everything starting Monday for the entire month of September. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JubilantNest Posted August 30, 2014 Share Posted August 30, 2014 We are using it and liking it. We bought the printed student book (from Rainbow Resource) and teacher's manual (from Pandia Press) and then the kit from Home Science Tools. I also purchased the PDF student pages so we could reuse the book with our younger daughters. If you are not in a hurry, I believe I got 40% off from Pandia Press on Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NittanyJen Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 On Printing . . . if you are spending $8 here and $20 there to print each thing . . . You can buy an extremely reliable Brother duplex laserjet wireless printer for $80-$160 on Amazon (or $280 and up for the lowest full color scanner/copier/printer/fax). Mine is a full-color all-in-one Brother, and when I buy the high throughput cartridges, printing comes to around 2-3 cents per page. If you live a long way from a copy center, your copy center charges a lot, or you just print a lot, over the course of a long homeschooling career, it is pretty worthwhile. I know our Brother broke down exactly once, and that afternoon they sent a tech to our house to fix it, at no cost (it was within the warranty period)-- never had a problem with it since. LOL the tech said our house was more entertaining and friendlier than the offices he usually had to service :D :D :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinaJ Posted September 22, 2014 Share Posted September 22, 2014 Home Science Tools kit content.... :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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