Tell me about Apologia, please

[Krista in Colorado]

Past and present Apologia users, what do you like (particularly about zoology) and what do you not?

 

Also, is the Notebooking Journal a valuable resource? (read "worth the money") And I'm assuming I would need one for each child? Or is this something we can create at home with a 3-ring binder and some fun paper?

 

Thanks in advance for your feedback! :001_smile:

[ncmom2dawters]

My children were quite tired of discussing birds and insects after a year with zoo 1. This year we did BJU science instead. They enjoyed learning about a variety of topics. I planned a longer period of time to do the BJU unit on plants and used the Apologia Botany book as a reference. We also did some of the Apologia Botany experiments. Next year we will use BJU again. When we get to the human body unit, I plan to use the new Apologia anatomy book as one of our resources for extra learning.

[Shelly in the Country]

I tried Zoology 1 out with ds6 recently (with dd10 listening in), and they seemed to be getting bored. Way too long on the same topic imho. I'm keeping them around as a reference because I really like the books, but my kids seem to want to skip around more. Also, with respect to your notebooking question, Jeanne Fulbright has some free notebooking templates for the Zoology books here. I'm not sure how they differ from the purchased ones.

[EppieJ]

The purchased notebook journal has nicer pages (IMO) and also has a few full-color booklets (lapbook variety) to add to the journal. The free one works just as well and of course, you can always add your own stuff to it. We're using the free pages with Zoo 2 and I bought the journal for Botany so I've seen both.

 

We did (are doing) Swimming Creatures this year. We have enjoyed the study. I like the online resources from the website (for example, clips of whale songs, clips of turtle hatchlings finding their way to sea...). I also add to the study by reading related books such as MSB Whale Watch, and doing activities like sculpey clay sea creatures. We throw in an occasional video as well (Life, Blue Planet...)

 

There's no way we're getting thru this whole thing by the end of the year. We're only about halfway thru. We've avoided getting burned out on the subject by only doing this study once a week. Ds attends a weekly workshop for other science.

 

There's no need to add anything to the study. We just do for kicks! BTW, we've loved watching the frog embryos develop. We now have 3 little frogs. Way cool!

[Cynful]

We've had the same issues as some others posted. Studying one subject for the whole year got old though we really started off with a bang and loved it. If you want secular science, this is not it - though we did it anyway and with me reading aloud I could edit parts I needed. I think you could avoid the boredom issue by maybe using two or even three of the books during the year but finishing over 2 years or like the other posted said of only doing it once per week over 2 years. We really enjoyed it but needed more variety. We are doing Sonlight Science this year and enjoying it also.

 

Good luck,

[silliness7]

I recently purchased Zoology I as well as one notebooking journal to use this fall.

 

There was no way I was going to buy a journal for each of 4 children. That's crazy expensive. I wish it had been designed specifically as a reproducible. It wasn't...so I won't reproduce it. But it does give me wonderful ideas for notebooking pages that we can slip into page protectors in a 3-ring binder.

 

The vast majority of the pages are black and white with a title, some lines, and some boxes in different spots for variety and there is a little naturey border or picture.

 

I purchased an e-book with notebooking templates just like these (without the naturey pictures) that we use for history. So I will use her topics with the pages I can print off my computer and for naturey pictures we can decorate with stickers. I think the end result, will be better than if we had just used her pages, as is.

 

There is also a page (probably one per lesson, I'd have to double check) of comprehension/narration type questions. We will do this orally. So those pages are wasted on us.

 

As far as the color mini-book pages. It looks like there are 15, one for each of the 14 lessons, plus an introductory creation mini-book. They do look amazing...very well done and not something I could imitate anywhere nearly as well with white paper and stickers. But it still isn't worth the price of buying a notebook for each of my children. We will just have to put them together as a group project. And that will be O.K. (coming from a person who is not keen on group projects :001_smile:)

 

In addition, the whole design of the notebook is not user-friendly, imo, as is. It's spiral bound with printing on both the front and the back. So for your student to have a nice notebook at the end, he/she would have to do ALL of the pages (I hate undone pages) Even if you wanted to tear them out and place them in your own binder you would at least have to do both sides of every page you choose to do (if you wanted to prevent undone pages) That would just bug me...not enough flexibility, as is, imo.

 

But I'm glad to own one copy anyway. It looks like it will be a valuable resource.

[Suzannah]

We have used Botany, Astronomy and Swimming Creatures. In the case of the first two, we only did them for a semester, doing the WTM recommendations for the other part of the year as it applied. We've thoroughly enjoyed all three. Not boring at all, but I'm not sure how you can make them last a full year unless you only read a very short section at a time & have lots and lots of supplemental reading. We did science once or twice a week, watched Blue Planet at the relevant sections, did some narrations and experiments.

 

This year we did Swimming Creatures as a year-long course for DD. I've generally tried to keep on the same science and history rotation for both of my school-age kids, despite the age difference, but this year DS was taking a General Science class with some friends. So this was DD's science (although DS ALWAYS listened-in.) We actually finished the book a couple of weeks ago and I've been trying to decide whether to do gardening and nature walks for the rest of the year for science or just skip science (but do the gardening and nature walks anyway.)

 

We used the free notebook pages from Jeanne Fullbright's site for Astronomy and Swimming Creatures (didn't know they had them when we were doing Botany.) I don't know that I would have paid for one, but it was nice. I think it provided more inspiration for drawing pictures or jotting down notes than a blank piece of lined paper does.

[Krista in Colorado]

Thanks for these thoughts! (And the link to the free journal pages.)

 

Anyone else out there who could comment? :D

[susancollins]

My daughter loved Apologia I am doing a Botany co-op and the kids just love it. When I bought the Swimming Creatures edition my daughter couldn't keep her hands off of it. She was asking questions and she was so engaged. We have done BJU and it was boring for them and didn't hold their interest but they really love Apologia. I hope this helps but each child likes different things. What appeals to some children doesn't appeal to others.

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

My dc LOVE apologia. My rising 3rd grader is chomping at the bit to start zoology 1 & 2 next year. My 6th grader did those and will be doing zoology 3 soon and she can not wait! She keeps asking me if she can read it "just for fun" :001_huh: For ANY curriculum to get MY daughter to ask that is a purely AMAZING!

 

I got the notebooking journals for my 2nd grade dd, and will while she is younger, but my 6th grader enjoys creating her own with construction paper and computer paper.

 

I HIGHLY recommend Apologia! My dc LOVE science now! :D They DREADED it so bad before switching to this!

[....]

For my review, I have to start off with a disclaimer about my kids. They are VERY into science. My 2nd grader and 1st grader are on the fringe of knowing more about classical zoology than I do - and I have a Bachelor of Science. We recently went to a herpetology convention and my 1st grader corrected me in front of one of the vendors (and he was right). :001_huh: My son is actually starting to tell people that he wants to be a herpetologist when he grows up.

 

OK, having said that...my kids absolutely love Apologia. We've done Flying Creatures and Swimming Creatures. We did not try the notebooks. It took us 6 months to get through Flying Creatures, but it's only taken us 4 months to get through Swimming Creatures. My kids are obsessed with the pics and will pull the textbook out during their free time and sketch the pics onto paper. I think the textbooks are read very easily - it's almost like a science storybook (actually kinda reminds me of CHOW for some reason). It says on the back cover that Apologia's Zoology is a Charlotte Mason approach to science.

 

I do think with the amount of detailed info in these textbooks, the real audience should be middle school-aged kids.

 

I did have a friend whose kids either don't like science very much or haven't really had science...anyway, she looked through the Zoology I text and said, "No way." She said it was way too much for her kids.

 

Good luck with your decision!

[ProudGrandma]

I tried Zoology 1 out with ds6 recently (with dd10 listening in), and they seemed to be getting bored. Way too long on the same topic imho. .

 

I don't know how these books are laid out, so I am asking for myself as a future user (hopefully)...could you do 1/2 of one book in the fall and 1/2 of a different book in the spring of one year and then do the 2nd half the next year (just for some variety) or are the books not set up to do that well??

[johnandtinagilbert]

The 2 things that we don't love: 1 year on one topic (so we do the entire book in 16 weeks instead) and we like to dig deeper where we please, so I always add living books.

 

Otherwise, we love it! Botany is kinda boring, but we love all the zoology. Simple, effective, and I like the experiments :) Easy.

[johnandtinagilbert]

I don't know how these books are laid out, so I am asking for myself as a future user (hopefully)...could you do 1/2 of one book in the fall and 1/2 of a different book in the spring of one year and then do the 2nd half the next year (just for some variety) or are the books not set up to do that well??

Yes. That's what we do...actually I switch to Noeo on the 2nd semester so I can get in chemistry and physics :), but it's easy to get a book done in 16-20 weeks. Check out my blog and look for a post on elementary science. It may help.

[Orthodox6]

DD was 10 when we started with Zoology I and the accompanying notebook. She loved the combination. When I placed science back-burner for the year, she continued to read the book just for enjoyment. The notebook is not necessary, though. Any clever mom-student pair can design their own notebook to go with the texts. The notebooks are helpful for those of us who are not inclined toward "hands-on" approaches, and who want something ready-to-go.

[siloam]

Past and present Apologia users, what do you like (particularly about zoology) and what do you not?

 

Also, is the Notebooking Journal a valuable resource? (read "worth the money") And I'm assuming I would need one for each child? Or is this something we can create at home with a 3-ring binder and some fun paper?

 

Thanks in advance for your feedback! :001_smile:

 

We enjoyed all three books, but I just read them during b-fast. We didn't do the notebooking, or the experiments.

 

Heather

 

[johnandtinagilbert]

The accompanying notebooks make life simple and convenient. Beyond that, traditional notebooking or free resources (available all over the place) work just as well. If you have the $25 though...why not?

[t-hat]

We have loved apologia here but have only done astronomy and botony. But I would definitely try to complete each course in a semester - even if you cut out a chapter or two. I think a year on one topic is too much to hold interest. But 10-12 weeks is perfect and very doable. You can take 2 days to read with a notebooking exercise or two after reading and a day for projects, it can even be a 3 day a week subject - 30 minutes or so. If you have more time, you can even do more.

 

In terms of the notebooks, it depends on how much time you think you will actually have to do them. If you only for see doing 1 or 2 notebooking type activities (writing facts, sketching, puzzles, mini-books) then they aren't worth it. But if you have time to do multiple pages, thy definitely enhance the study. We have really enjoyed the notebooks, but I would only get them for 2nd/3rd grade and up. We weren't able to get to all of the pages each week. Youngers could use the simple notebook pages free on the website in a binder.