happygrrl
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Posts posted by happygrrl
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Our family, also, are Eastern Orthodox. My daughter will use Science Shepherd biology this upcoming year. We are OEC, and after twenty years of homeschooling, we are accustomed to tuning out much, and to tossing out much from curricula (both religious and secular). During one of her high school years, we are going to craft our own one-semester course for macro-evolution. (DD hopes to enter nursing school, so needs to be conversant with assorted opinions, not just what we believe.) We'll use an Orthodox author's book as our spine, and upon it hang viewpoints from Protestant, Catholic, secular, and atheist sources. Meanwhile, if Science Shepherd includes incompatible perspectives, I think we can roll with it. After all, frog guts are frog guts, no matter how old or young someone believes them to be.
Totally agree with this approach, Orthodox 6. I would love to know what book you are going to use! You can PM me if you prefer, thank you!
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No experience to report on yet, but we just signed up for Compass Classroom's Filmmaking From the First Directors class. It's so new it isn't even done yet . . . Shannon is super excited about it, though!
My oldest is begging to do this, keep us updated! Thanks!
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Happygrrl,
Thanks for the detailed review including candid description of the handling of evolution/creation. That is very helpful. I know there are many different perspectives represented on this forum.
Would you mind if I ask which viewpoint you tend to favor? It's ok if you would rather not. I just haven't heard from anyone so far who holds more of an old earth perspective comment on the curriculum. I do appreciate hearing your daughter's feedback as well. That alone may be enough to put me over the edge in deciding, which I need to do soon. I'm debating between two different texts for ds13 for Life Science and then Biology. The other Life Science is from Christian Schools International which I've heard is fairly neutral with regards to age of the earth. We've used Apologia up until now for the earlier years and it definitely is not.
Thanks again,
I just had a detailed chat with my daughter, and also looked over the text more closely. The chapters are favorable to YEC, which is not what I had thought at first. My daughter does feel that the argument is made in a n interesting manner and she was not overly annoyed by it (which says a lot if you knew my daughter ha!). However, the implications was that the creation model is complementary with YEC. She was less irritated by the presentation than she was when doing BJU, and when she glanced at Apologia. She is older, though, which may have something to do with that.
I apologize! I was under the impression it was more even handed. To be honest, these three chapters were ones that we did not test on. My daughter had already decided not to take the Biology AP this year, so we knew we could hit evolution later, from a secular standpoint, as a balance.
The 3 chapters on creation/evolution/neo-Darwinism fall right in the middle between cellular biology/ genetics and the 'visible' biology of Kingdoms and so on, so simply reading them gave my daughter a break between semesters. Also, my daughter is very practical and logical, and dislikes philosophical discussion (takes after her father: they fall asleep while the boys and I are discussing literary analysis of current films...) I wanted her to just read, and make up her own mind about things, without the pressure of making a good grade on the test. Does that make sense? I hope that explanation helps the OP as well!
We are Eastern Orthodox christians, and our church has a different frame of reference to discuss creation and the fall than is commonly found in churches that stem from the West. That is to say, I am not avoiding your question, I just can't answer it without a long post where we discuss basic assumptions, definitions, and so on :). PM me if you want to chat further! I don't want to bore anyone or digress from the thread topic too much :)
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Thanks so much! That is exactly what I needed to know.
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My daugher is using SS Bio this year. She loves it!
She is a STEM kinda girl, so I knew we needed a fairly rigorous course. She is a bit of a perfectionist, though, so I knew we also needed a clear syllabus and do-able labs if this was going to work without it driving us both crazy. She has been doing the course totally independently (her choice) but since I love biology I am always looking over her shoulder to see what she is reading about.
The teacher book has clear, extensive answers for the study questions and tests, as well as great summaries of the chapters. If I don't have time to read her text, I can zip through the summary and get a pretty good grasp of what she is learning.
She had previously done BJU life science, and the amount of Biblical texts and creation discussion drove her absolutely crazy. She said she has been pleasantly surprised by SS. With the exception of the 3 creation/ evolution chapters, she has no recollection of any Christian-specific dialogue.
The creation and evolution chapters are full of a creation viewpoint, however, and wether you could use them secularly would depend on your tolerance and ability to extract information. She feels that though evolution was covered thoroughly, it was not presented neutrally, so she had a more difficult time extracting and retaining the information than she expected. The creation discussion was so completely woven through those chapters that she feels like it would be difficult to use those in a secular manner. It is definitely fine for an old-earth model and intelligent design folks. I know she will take science classes in college, so I am not worried about supplementing. If she were going to take the AP Biology test I might think differently.
We did not get any video component, as she learns easily via taking notes from reading. The labs have all been easy to do at home, and you can e-mail SS beforehand to get the needed materials for each lab.
I think this is a fantastic course, and would definitely recommend it for science majors. She has gone deeper than my first year of biology in college, and has retained more than our friend who is in AP bio at a nearby private school.
Feel free to ask me anything else you might need to know!
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Elegant Lion - did you do Art of Argument first? It appears from the CAP website that the three logic programs were intend to work together. They also say 7th grade and up, what age did you use these for?
My youngest has only done the 'orbiting with logic' series (which are great!) and I am thinking about using these with him. Thanks!
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We're using the text from Preparatory Chemistry. He has lectures, online text (although I purchased a hard copy too), audio version of the book (ds does better listening sometimes than reading on his own). He asks for $20 if you plan to use his website, but you can see everything and try it before you pay.
Thank you! I look forward to checking this out!
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My kids are d.o.n.e. with Tapestry. I think we have been through it too many times, or perhaps we have just lost our balance by spending so much time on History and turning the great books into one assignment after another by assigning all of them. Sigh.
After struggling with the first few weeks of Rhetoric Yr.2, we dropped it altogether, and simply read SWB Medieval, which brought the fun back into history for them (as well as gave them time to work on STEM stuff).
I am thinking to return to great books/history using Kolbe. Because their high school sequence is only three years, we could stii finish the 'history rotation' even though we skipped out last year.
Is anyone familiar with both programs? I am wondering how they compare in the areas of time spent by student, planning time for mom, the ability to use it fairly independently, and anything else you can think of. :). I am having trouble finding a sample that can give me a good grasp of what the program is about. Thank you!
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I'm curious about this too. We're doing a standard chemistry course and the kits I'm looking at 1. all lab, no lecture, and 2. Quality science labs, both of which run about $150 - which may end being out of my budget. I'm terrible about supply gathering though.
I'm also looking at doing something radically different - Caveman Chemistry. I really want in person labs.
Caveman chemistry looks great! Thanks for mentioning it. What 'standard course' are you doing? My daughter is just finishing honors biology and loves it, but for some reason is dreading chemistry. I am trying to think of an out-of-the box approach while still giving her adequate college prep. I seem to be adopting many of your book suggestions lately (admission of stalking) so I am curious as to your other recs! :)
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For some reason I am having trouble posting: this is a test!
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No schedule, and no milestones, and no "on track". We start at the beginning, and we get as far as we get.
I explained in my other post responding to Pretty in Pink that I do not schedule the lectures, and I do not bother synchronizing them with the reading. We listen to most of them in the car.
Thank you so much for this, Regentrude.
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We are following a chronological progression, and 10th grade was medieval and renaissance history.
We used the text recommended in an older edition of TWTM, A Short History of Western Civilization by Harrison, and covered the respective portion.
We also used the following Teaching Company lectures:
The Early Middle Ages (24 lectures, Prof. Philip Daileader )
The High Middle Ages (24 lectures, Prof. Philip Daileader)
The Late Middle Ages (24 lectures, Prof. Philip Daileader)
The Italian Renaissance (36 lectures a 30 minutes, Prof. Kenneth Bartlett)
Dante’s Divine Comedy (Lectures 1-15, Profs. William Cook and Ronald Herzman) - selectied
Shakespeare: The Word and the Action (24 lectures, Prof. Peter Saccio)- selected
Regentrude, I have the same resources listed for this year, but I am having a hard time figuring out how to schedule it. Do you treat it like a college class and have lecture MWF? Do you just progress through in a 'do the next thing' style with certain date milestones to keep you on track? Forgive me, I feel like you have answered this question before, but I have not had enough coffee yet to remember! :). Thanks!
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Hi there, swimmermom!
For a conversational extra, you could look up Holy Trinity Cathedral in your area. They very likely have converational classes. I recently met the 2nd priest from the Cathedral, Fr. Demosthenes. Fr. Demos is from Greece and teaches a Byzantine chant class there that is truly world class. Just attending a service where he is presiding will have you in a swoon. Their festival is usually in October, for some yummy treats. Um, I mean cultural study opportunities. :)
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Analytical Grammar just came out with a writing program called 'Beyond the Book Report'. It looks like it could be a good fit for 9th graders who need some basic writing skills. My daughter loves WWS, but I can already tell it won't be a fit for my son. I m seriously considering checking out 'Beyond the Book Report' because we absolutely loved the grammar program they put out.
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It depends on the market. No one in my area uses CD. I have a set that I have tried to give away and no one around here wants it.
I even offered it here but since I have never sold anything on TWTM I didn't get any takers.
It's a shame really. It's actually in the box to go to Goodwill. :(
You should try again, sometimes it's just timing. :)
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We preferred Oak Meadow for health. Dd loved it, and we found the syllabus and an older version of the text book used for around $25.
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DD17 - American History via two TTC courses and the high school text from K12. She doesn't typically really care for history but enjoyed it this year.
Georgia
Can you tell me the name of the K12 history text? Thanks!
My dd dislikes history, but liked K12 intermediate history book well enough. I am trying to bring her in to the history lovin' fold this year (we're doing Middle Ages) and she is the sort that really needs a spine or she gets lost!
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I have not been on the boards in ages, and arrive today to find this. THANK YOU!
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HI all! I have been waaaaay out of the loop lately (very long story, which I am sure I will tell you at some point :) ).
I did think of you and pray for you often, and hopefully can catch up on all that went down as well as new folks.
So glad to see this group up, and filled with all the usual suspects... :)
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I have heard of "prep and pantry", but have not checked it out yet. I think it is geared to preppers, but I was thinking of checking in to it for my abundant craft materials if it could be modified that way.
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Love and prayers, my friend!
Hey! Look for me when in the weeds... I am there too! :D
s/o Science Shepherd Biology?
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
I think that why my daughter found it less annoying than anticipated was because the strong perspective is found in only 3 chapters, as opposed to every chapter. I too would love to see the opposing viewpoints presented without the obvious bias, but we can deal with it. We have decided to take a course similar to the one Orthodox 6 mentioned in a previous post.