Literary Mom Posted July 2, 2015 Share Posted July 2, 2015 We've done all the Apologia Young Explorer books in our 6.5 years homeschooling, but my youngest child didn't get in on the first two animal books, and my middle child was pretty young when we did them, so now with my oldest is moving on to higher level curriculum, it seems like it could be a good idea to revisit those books for my younger two children's 3rd/5th grade year coming up...or at least that's what they're telling me (they love the series, especially the animal books). Here's what I'm thinking... Pick out about 18 chapters from each of the three books - the animals/topics that interest them most, as well as the ones that I deem the most informative, and cover one chapter every two weeks for the next school year. This would be with the long range view that the following year we will revisit Botany and Anatomy. After that, my middle child will be in seventh grade and ready for higher level curriculum...it's possible my youngest will be also, since he excels with science. If anyone has done this (or something like it), I'd love to hear about it. I'm open to other options as well. We haven't really done any microscope work and we'd like to, so it would be helpful to hear of how to work that in or of other curriculum that does more with microscopes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Literary Mom Posted July 5, 2015 Author Share Posted July 5, 2015 Perhaps the 100th viewer will have thoughts on this? ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junie Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 Sorry that no one has given you a response yet. Yes, I was one of the 100 viewers ;) , but I was looking for answers, too. We have not used any of the Apologia elementary books yet, but I do have the anatomy book and the chemistry/physics books that I was hoping to get to with dd7, dd8, and maybe dd10 in the coming year. Anyway, just posting so that you know that someone else is in the room with you! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flowergirl159 Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 I think that is a good plan! I started Flying Creatures and it took us 18mths before we moved on. We didn't even finish the whole book! Then we went to Astronomy as that interested my youngest. 12mths into that, we were getting a little bored. So we have paused Apologia for a few months and they are now doing other readings for science. My oldest has just decided today that she would like to do Apologia's land animals, on her own. So I will order this book and see. I think I may be interested in it myself and end up doing it as a family reading again, rather than her on her own :) Just wondering, how much time do you and your children put into Apologia daily/weekly to get it covered so well? I just never seem to be able to be consistent with getting it done :/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverMoon Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 Yes, mixing and matching chapters should work fine. One of my older kids bounced around them chasing interests and it worked well. You might make two different plans for your two. My 5th graders could easily do a chapter a week or more, but 3rd graders weren't ready for that pace. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Literary Mom Posted July 6, 2015 Author Share Posted July 6, 2015 Thanks for the encouraging responses! My younger two are closer in age (20 months apart) and abilities (when it comes to content areas like science and history), so I will continue to keep us together, with me reading it aloud as we cozy up on the couch :) My 10 yr-old daughter will write more than her younger brother, though, who will only just be writing his own narrations for the first time (I didn't push him the way I did my daughters, nor was he as inclined, though he definitely has the ability to articulate well). In the past we have completed a book a semester, but this last year we spent the entire time with the chemistry/physics book, so we didn't feel as rushed. We can do a chapter in two weeks (per the suggested schedule in the notebook, but adapted to how we want to do it) if we do it for an hour to an hour and a half two days a week. When we were doing a book a semester, we did it every day for an hour, but with history becoming harder, it just felt like too much to fit both subjects into the same day. We don't do all the "try this" sections, end of chapter projects (hardly ever do those actually), or all the notebooking sections. This time - since we're combining three books - we aren't even going to buy the notebooks, though I may recycle from our old ones since I did buy them the first time around. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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