Pros and Cons of a chemistry lab intensive or doing throughout year

[elegantlion]

What are the pros and cons of doing labs all at once or doing them as you study. 

 

Obviously, if you do them as you study you can apply directly what you've learned. Does lumping the labs together, say done in two sections, one in the fall, one in the spring have additional drawbacks? 

 

I plan on buying a kit and the reality is we're horrid about getting to labs. Also, I'm feeling a bit frantic about melding my school schedule and his next year. Timing wise it would be better to do a couple of intensives. 

 

What has your experience been either way? 

[SoCalLynn]

My daughter went to the Landry Academy Biology 2-day lab intensive earlier this year. While it was a big help to me in that I didn't have to purchase or plan and follow through with the labs at home, I don't think it was the best way to learn. Trying to cram a year's worth of labs into two days, on material she hadn't studied in depth yet doesn't really yield knoweldge and understanding, it just gets them done. JMO. In your case, if you've already studied the material and then want to do some intensive labs on that, you'd probably have different (and better) results.

[Excelsior! Academy]

There are plusses and minuses to both.  We've done both regular labs and the Landry Chemistry lab.  I liked knowing it was done, but still prefer the at home method.  I don't have the pressure to complete extra if we don't get to our planned labs since we've already done Landry.

 

Landry

Pros:

Gets it done

Might do experiments we won't get to due to time, resources, or let's be real, life

Group effort

Learn to put together a lab book from someone other than mom

 

Cons:

Pricey

Date or location can be inconvenient

 

Home 

Pros:

Can plan as material is presented

Working a bit at a time can let the material soak in a bit

Younger siblings (and parents) can benefit in participating

 

Cons:

Have to have supplies on hand

Need to be consistent

May have to do some extra planning due to younger siblings (safety, schedule, what have you)

 

[elegantlion]

Well either way we'll have to do them at home, so the cost will be the same. 

[Jilly]

We are going to do them all in a week this summer as this is the only way we will get the labs done. The reality is the twins and I are not motivated during the school year, so this is the only alternative.

[G5052]

We did the Landry intensive in the fall, and I was very happy with it.  We are a science-oriented family, and had done integrated physics and chemistry for 9th grade.  I sent both of mine, and they understood and enjoyed the experiments.  We use DIVE science with the BJUP book.  Then my student watched the DIVE experiments as they came up, and we have done some of the more reasonable ones together at home twice a month.

 

No regrets here.  I appreciated having someone who loves chemistry handle the majority of the experiments.  

[Lolly]

The biggest pro for doing them as you come to the lesson in the year is that it gives you something to look forward to each week. Lab day is the favorite day of the week! But, like you, we often end up skipping. I have found that trying to do a lab a week and then having a lab intensive week scheduled works best. The labs we end up skipping, usually because it turns out we were missing somethign we needed...my fault, get done during the lab intensive week. (If I remembered to go get the missing item!!!). But, we will have the lab day to look forward to each week. 

[elegantlion]

We are going to do them all in a week this summer as this is the only way we will get the labs done. The reality is the twins and I are not motivated during the school year, so this is the only alternative.

 

Personally, I think it sounds more fun to do more at once. We'll be working in our garage and no one wants to go in there in the winter (cold midwest). 

 

We did the Landry intensive in the fall, and I was very happy with it.  We are a science-oriented family, and had done integrated physics and chemistry for 9th grade.  I sent both of mine, and they understood and enjoyed the experiments.  We use DIVE science with the BJUP book.  Then my student watched the DIVE experiments as they came up, and we have done some of the more reasonable ones together at home twice a month.

 

No regrets here.  I appreciated having someone who loves chemistry handle the majority of the experiments.  

 

We wouldn't be doing outside intensives, it would be done at home. Landry is not near us, nor are they in the budget. So I'll be dealing with all the supplies either way. I do like the idea of finding a virtual lab to watch as you study, that could be doable. 

 

The biggest pro for doing them as you come to the lesson in the year is that it gives you something to look forward to each week. Lab day is the favorite day of the week! But, like you, we often end up skipping. I have found that trying to do a lab a week and then having a lab intensive week scheduled works best. The labs we end up skipping, usually because it turns out we were missing somethign we needed...my fault, get done during the lab intensive week. (If I remembered to go get the missing item!!!). But, we will have the lab day to look forward to each week. 

 

:lol: Well ds just wants to combine weird things to make rocket fuels, that's what he would look forward to, me I'm not so much a lab person unless it's my dog we're talking about. 

[Rhonda in TX]

I plan to do a lab intensive with my kids this summer for Chemistry. The reality is, we won't get them done if we have to fit them in during the year. It will also free up some time to get the course work complete during the year. Another consideration is that when DS started Chemistry in January, we did not have any extra money for lab supplies. We'll have that money this summer. (DS will have had basically one semester of Chemistry by the time we do the labs. DD will be starting the class in the fall.)

[swimmermom3]

Well either way we'll have to do them at home, so the cost will be the same. 

 

Ideally, we do better at understanding the labs when we coordinate them with our text. However, I have to work around the public school class and sailing days, which means sometimes we have to do intensives. Running several labs back-to-back tends to blow our little brains apart, but at times, it's a necessity. Try both and see how it goes. Be sure your son has done the necessary reading in advance and has read through the lab thoroughly before you start. It will save a lot of time and frustration. The teacher whose schedule we follow has his students do half of the lab write-up before they get to the lab. This ensures that the student is ready. I have to admit that we don't do lab write-ups for everything.

 

Good luck with chemistry and have some fun!

[Nan in Mass]

Does it have to be all or nothing?  What if you scheduled a few days every few months?  Or took the last Friday of every month and did only labs that day, and then spent the weekend writing them up instead of doing any other schoolwork?  Or took the half-week at Thanksgiving to do the fall ones, a few days before winter break to do the next batch, a few before spring break to do the spring ones, and a few right at the end of the school year for the rest?  You would just have to make sure you didn't wind up having to finish other work then, too.  I was pretty successful doing things that way.  There was enough of a sense of panic to make us do them but we didn't accumulate so many that it was impractical to do them all at once or that I was able to drastically underestimate the time involved due to wishful thinking.

 

Nan

[StillStanding]

Does it have to be all or nothing?  What if you scheduled a few days every few months?  Or took the last Friday of every month and did only labs that day, and then spent the weekend writing them up instead of doing any other schoolwork?  Or took the half-week at Thanksgiving to do the fall ones, a few days before winter break to do the next batch, a few before spring break to do the spring ones, and a few right at the end of the school year for the rest?  You would just have to make sure you didn't wind up having to finish other work then, too.  I was pretty successful doing things that way.  There was enough of a sense of panic to make us do them but we didn't accumulate so many that it was impractical to do them all at once or that I was able to drastically underestimate the time involved due to wishful thinking.

 

Nan

 

This is what I have done in my co-op/tutorial classes (Biology, Chemistry 1, and Advanced Chemistry). We meet once a month and do all the labs required up to material covered. It works well.

 

Last summer I offered a Biology two day Lab Intensive at my house, because a friend asked me to, and I felt it was not as good as doing it through out the year. The students had forgotten material, or were fuzzy about the material (some had skipped the material and never learned in the first place but that is another story).