Need help with a decision on whether to do Apologia's Anatomy and Physiology

[Merry]

at home with my eleventh grader son or pay $400 for a small class taught by a nurse/homeschooling mom at her home. That would mean having to drive about half an hour each way once a week so that my son can learn from someone else who knows much more about this subject than I do and my son would also do the experiments with some other homeschoolers which might be fun for him. That sounds good but that would mean taking money that I can barely spare for him and also taking the time away from other things we need to be doing. Also my son doesn't really care much about the idea. He'd rather take a class at the public high school but that brings its own set of problems with transportation on a daily basis and also time taken away from his other studies. Not to mention the parking problem and etc. Would it be feasible to just read the textbook and do the experiments ourselves? Would my ds still get as much out of this as he would have if he went to the homeschool class? He doesn't seem to particularly want to learn this but he's completed biology and most of chemistry so this seems to be the logical next step to take this year.

[Retired]

Apologia HB is very doable at home. There are very few experiment. The main activity is viewing slides under a microscope.

 

So expense would be the slides and a microscope.

 

If you don't own a microscope, all of the slides views are available on line. There are several colleges that post these slides for their medical students.

 

Just to let you know I am a nurse and have taught the class for free. I do have a microscope and the slides but seriously when the slide was not satisfactory, I pulled pictures off the web.

 

The coloring book that goes along with the course helped my coop students the most.

 

 

I would guess if a nurse is teaching the offered class she would be adding FYI information on disease processes and cool (out of the ordinary stuff she/he has seen) This dialog kept my students interested.

 

This might be a motivating factor for your student.

[Jill- OK]

...doing the nurse-taught homeschool class was if said child was going into a science-related field. My oldest son plans on doing this, and this was one of the reasons we decided to join a co-op this year; a biologist teaching Apologia Biology.

 

Even though I think Apologia Biology is a little light (since, for one thing, it doesn't include anatomy and it has to be taken separately), I believe the value for this particular child is learning from someone who is passionate about the subject (the "extras" she's doing with them would have been worth it, alone).

 

If this isn't an area of passion for your child, and it's not likely that he'll be going into a science-related field, I'd consider doing it at home, and putting my money towards something that will have a greater impact.

 

JMO.

[dkholland]

at home with my eleventh grader son or pay $400 for a small class taught by a nurse/homeschooling mom at her home. That would mean having to drive about half an hour each way once a week so that my son can learn from someone else who knows much more about this subject than I do and my son would also do the experiments with some other homeschoolers which might be fun for him. That sounds good but that would mean taking money that I can barely spare for him and also taking the time away from other things we need to be doing. Also my son doesn't really care much about the idea. He'd rather take a class at the public high school but that brings its own set of problems with transportation on a daily basis and also time taken away from his other studies. Not to mention the parking problem and etc. Would it be feasible to just read the textbook and do the experiments ourselves? Would my ds still get as much out of this as he would have if he went to the homeschool class? He doesn't seem to particularly want to learn this but he's completed biology and most of chemistry so this seems to be the logical next step to take this year.

 

 

I agree that if this is not his area of passion, put him in with the class.

 

My ds did the Apologia Advanced Biology (A & P) for his 11th year also and it was hard for him. It is a lot of reading and memorizing tiny little muscles and other difficult body parts. I wish I had put my ds in a class with the Apologia material. I think it is well done but overall anatomy and physiology are difficult subjects. My ds wold've done much better in a classroom setting with that subject. It was quite dry just reading and memorizing.

[SusanAR]

Potter's School online classes cost about the same. Your ds could still interact with students online, and you wouldn't loose travel time. I don't have experience with them, but others on the board have.

susan

 

My ds studied Apologia A&P last year. (but I have my BSN)

Edited August 15, 2009 by SusanAR

[Merry]

I decided not to do this because of travel time and also because my son doesn't really want to do this. He wants to take Spanish instead so I'll pay for that class which will cost a bit more but is closer to home. And we'll try studying the A & P at home this year. If it doesn't work out, then I'll look into the Potter's class next year. Thanks again!