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Any good Earth Science textbooks for middle schoolers?


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We just completed Holt Earth Science. I purchased the book through Kolbe Academy and used their course plans. I believe CBD and Rainbow Resource may now carry the text. You should also be able to find it on Amazon. :)

 

Which lesson plans did you use from Kolbe?  Also, did you need the Teacher's Edition?  Were there a lot of labs?  If so, did you have to gather a lot of hard to find items?

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Which lesson plans did you use from Kolbe?  Also, did you need the Teacher's Edition?  Were there a lot of labs?  If so, did you have to gather a lot of hard to find items?

 

 

Not her, but I've used Holt so I can answer :)

 

The Teacher's Edition is very helpful for review question and test answers, suggested activities to help if the child is struggling with the materials, lesson plan scheduling for the whole chapter with notes on which worksheets to use and when to fold in labs. It basically does the planning for you so it's very helpful. The labs were fairly simple and about one or two per chapter...the ones that had complicated materials were pretty easy to replicate at home. The most complicated things were probably a hot plate and some graduated cylinders. There is a scale on the left hand side of the lab page to let teachers gauge how difficult it is to complete and how hard it is to compile materials. There were enough labs listed that it'd be OK to skip one here and there. Usually I could find something on pinterest to illustrate the concept if I didn't want to buy lab materials. I also have bought some experiment kits to go along with the topics of the year. Many of Holt's labs and review questions include problems that require math skills to solve so just something to keep in mind. 

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I have the Holt textbooks for sale if you're interested in those.  I've got the student text, teacher's manual, and the chapter tests book.  I'll see if I can upload a picture.

 

Okay, well I can't get a small enough picture, but I'm only asking $20 for the set.  Let me know if you're interested.

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One thing to consider about buying the Holt text used on Amazon that I didn't think through  :blush: :

 

If you get an older text, it may still say that Pluto is one of the main planets in our solar system, not mention the BP oil spill, focus heavily on El Nino/La Nina, speak about the danger of the ozone holes (even though they're improved now, not perfect but we've worked to fix the issue since the book came out), etc. Now, if you're aware of the recent findings in science or just scientific current events you should be able to fix the errors while teaching the text and be fine. For some people, this would be a deal-breaker though so please consider the year your edition was published so you can determine whether you'll have to edit a bit or not, specifically for Earth science in which a lot has changed in the past 5-10 years.

 

 

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I have the Holt textbooks for sale if you're interested in those. I've got the student text, teacher's manual, and the chapter tests book. I'll see if I can upload a picture.

 

Okay, well I can't get a small enough picture, but I'm only asking $20 for the set. Let me know if you're interested.

Wow, that is a good deal! Ds used Holt, except for Earth Scoence. Great textbooks. I actually bought all the MS Holt Science snd Technology used just to have an extra copy.

 

Ds used Glencoe Earth Science, which is very similar to Holt.

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Slightly OT, but we are using the Glencoe Integrated Science Texts for 6th and now 7th grade science.  I picked up used student and teacher editions cheap on ebay (like $10 for the set including SE, TE, Workbooks and CD edition).  The series has a great online component to use for quizzes, tests and even virtual labs (great for when supplies or time is short). They do have a dedicated Earth Science text.  

Here is a link to online resources: http://glencoe.mheducation.com/sites/0078778026/index.html   

Here is a link I googled to the student online textbook:

Earth Science Online textbook

UserName: GES2008

Password: KastuH9X

Open in Explorer/Firefox (doesn't work in Chrome) and you can download the pdf chapters.

 

 

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Slightly OT, but we are using the Glencoe Integrated Science Texts for 6th and now 7th grade science. I picked up used student and teacher editions cheap on ebay (like $10 for the set including SE, TE, Workbooks and CD edition). The series has a great online component to use for quizzes, tests and even virtual labs (great for when supplies or time is short). They do have a dedicated Earth Science text.

Here is a link to online resources: http://glencoe.mheducation.com/sites/0078778026/index.html

Here is a link I googled to the student online textbook:

Earth Science Online textbook

UserName: GES2008

Password: KastuH9X

Open in Explorer/Firefox (doesn't work in Chrome) and you can download the pdf chapters.

Ds used this at school, and I liked it too. In fact, I just bought a used copy for my reference bookshelf.

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Thanks for posting this.  But when I try this link and access code, I only seem to be able to download the front cover (1 page) of the textbook from the site. I'm opening it in Firefox and I have Acrobat, but nothing clicks on the page. There's no access to the inside of the book (that I can find)... Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?  

 

Thanks!    Brett

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Thanks for posting this.  But when I try this link and access code, I only seem to be able to download the front cover (1 page) of the textbook from the site. I'm opening it in Firefox and I have Acrobat, but nothing clicks on the page. There's no access to the inside of the book (that I can find)... Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?  

 

Thanks!    Brett

 

We had that same issue.  We tried it on 4 different computers, and it finally worked on the last one.  I have no idea what was different or why it worked, but it did.

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Thanks for posting this.  But when I try this link and access code, I only seem to be able to download the front cover (1 page) of the textbook from the site. I'm opening it in Firefox and I have Acrobat, but nothing clicks on the page. There's no access to the inside of the book (that I can find)... Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?  

 

Thanks!    Brett

I got it to open in internet explorer. Check your browser settings to open as an Adobe file. That's about as technical as I get :)

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We just completed Holt Earth Science. I purchased the book through Kolbe Academy and used their course plans. I believe CBD and Rainbow Resource may now carry the text. You should also be able to find it on Amazon. :)

I didn't use the Kolbe plans, but we enjoyed that text very much the year we did it. Not YEC... Colorful but included the right depth of info, imo.

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