Anybody use college texts for *every* class?

[Guest FiveLittleMonkeys10]

Okay, so I suppose not *every*, but math, history and science.

 

I was thinking of doing this for my 12 and 15 yo. We have many history books here, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

 

But what about math and science? A lot of people on here talk about Lial Math books, so I suppose teaching math out of a college text isn't rare, but I don't think I have ever seen anyone talking about using a college text for a science course. I was looking into this book for my daughter: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471328189/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=AMOIS1V81RG5

 

It has a solutions manual and a lab workbook that go along with it. It also has a study guide and a math help book. Would this be considered a full Chemistry w/lab course if we use the lab's in the workbook and do all (well, most) chapters?

 

If anyone uses only a textbook for science, how do you do it?

[Jane in NC]

Well the Lial books that are used by many homeschoolers are not "college texts" per se; they are remedial texts used by community colleges.

 

Many participants on this board have used Hewitt's Conceptual Physics (either the high school or college editions, not much difference between them) with great success. Those who want a meatier course math-wise will use Giancoli, again a popular choice for either high school or college.

 

I have not heard of the chemistry text you mentioned. My son used Burdge as a dual enrollment student at the local CC, although it seems that Zumdahl is a popular choice among those going the AP route. If you are looking for something that is a step down, consider Conceptual Chemistry. You can do a search on these boards to find out more.

 

Good luck.

[Orthodox6]

Hewitt's Conceptual Physical Science is a college textbook which we have used, as is his Conceptual Physics, used by a number of us here. I have read mention around here also of Conceptual Chemistry (by Suchocki, I think -- ?), also a college textbook.

 

Five of my second son's seven high school history courses used college level (or professional academic) books exclusively (not all of them "textbooks", in other words).

[In The Great White North]

I have not heard of the chem text you linked, but we used a combo of Brown's Chemistry: the Central Science and Zumdahl with dd(16) this year, and I would not inflict that on a 12 year old unless he is years ahead of his peers (having completed algebra II would have helped.)

 

Most of the math and science texts mentioned on these boards are not common college texts.

 

Conceptual Physics is a college text, but it is meant for humanities majors. Physics for physics majors would be the Halliday text, which is usually a second year of physics, after calculus.

 

Campbell's Biology ("big Campbells") really requires chemistry first because it starts with a few chapters of biochemistry that assume a prior chem course. It's also usually done after a year of an easier biology.

 

History is easier, IMHO, because the college texts don't really build on the high school texts - they just include more. If your dc's reading level is up for the challenge, it's doable. DS used a college western civilization text in 9th and never even realized it was a college text.

[AnitaMcC]

Okay, so I suppose not *every*, but math, history and science.

 

I was thinking of doing this for my 12 and 15 yo. We have many history books here, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

 

But what about math and science? A lot of people on here talk about Lial Math books, so I suppose teaching math out of a college text isn't rare, but I don't think I have ever seen anyone talking about using a college text for a science course. I was looking into this book for my daughter: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471328189/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=AMOIS1V81RG5

 

If anyone uses only a textbook for science, how do you do it?

 

We use a lot of college level texts for Ds and Dd (9th grade). We have: Chemistry, World History, Human Geography, Spanish 1, Calculus that are college texts. In general, I try to use college level text books for my high schoolers. Next year we will be doing U.S. History, U.S. Government and I plan to get college level texts to go with Teaching Company DVD's. Or we will use MIT Open Courseware.

[Guest FiveLittleMonkeys10]

I have not heard of the chem text you linked, but we used a combo of Brown's Chemistry: the Central Science and Zumdahl with dd(16) this year, and I would not inflict that on a 12 year old unless he is years ahead of his peers (having completed algebra II would have helped.)

 

Most of the math and science texts mentioned on these boards are not common college texts.

 

Conceptual Physics is a college text, but it is meant for humanities majors. Physics for physics majors would be the Halliday text, which is usually a second year of physics, after calculus.

 

Campbell's Biology ("big Campbells") really requires chemistry first because it starts with a few chapters of biochemistry that assume a prior chem course. It's also usually done after a year of an easier biology.

 

History is easier, IMHO, because the college texts don't really build on the high school texts - they just include more. If your dc's reading level is up for the challenge, it's doable. DS used a college western civilization text in 9th and never even realized it was a college text.

 

I meant that only the 15 yo would be using the Chemistry Science text. I want to use at least a History college text for my 12 yo. Sorry I didn't word that correctly.

 

Thank you for the suggestions :)

[EKS]

I *much* prefer college texts for many reasons. The only problem can be that there is generally far less in the way of teacher support for college texts.

 

We used Conceptual Chemistry this year, which is marketed as a college text though the level of the material is more appropriate for middle school. We used the textbook, the accompanying study guide, and a lab kit from LabPaq. This particular text has video lectures that go with it, so we used those too.

 

Next year we will be using a college level astronomy book in conjunction with Teaching Company lectures. And the year after we will be using a college level biology book.

 

I prefer college texts because they are cleaner in that they don't constantly point out what skills each question is for. They also don't expend so much effort trying to get teenagers to like them.

[kiana]

Wow! That's the chem book I used when I took intro chem at the community college.

 

What they used it for was their 'chem for people who didn't have high school chem' class, so in essence, HS chem.

 

imo it was a fairly decent book.

[EKS]

Wow! That's the chem book I used when I took intro chem at the community college.

 

What they used it for was their 'chem for people who didn't have high school chem' class, so in essence, HS chem.

 

imo it was a fairly decent book.

 

It is fairly decent as far as it goes. The quantitative aspect of chemistry is completely overlooked, and because of this, I think that on its own it doesn't qualify as a high school level book. We supplemented with the Teaching Company's chemistry lectures and accompanying exercises, which focus almost exclusively on the quantitative piece, in an attempt to overcome this problem.

[emubird]

When we use texts for high school, we've mostly used college texts. The few times we've tried high school texts they really didn't work for us (except geometry, which I couldn't find as a high school text). The high school books tend to be so dumbed down that it's impossible to figure out what they're talking about. College texts for non majors courses usually work well, although we've done a couple that were for majors courses.

 

Generally, we don't cover the whole text for science, though. We do most of the text for math or history. Science texts tend to be kind of all encompassing and even college classes will cover very little of them. The professor just chooses what they think is most important. (Despite how people will tell you that you just aren't doing a "full" course without doing every single detail in the book.)

 

For chemistry, for example, I think we only did 5-6 chapters of Zumdahl. This pretty much covered everything that would be in a first year high school course, though. There were tons of problems to work through and I thought it was better to spend a lot of time really getting the calculation aspect of things down. As it turns out, this really helped my daughter when she took college physics (without any high school physics at all). So it was really better that we worked on mastery of a few important things rather than skimming over the surface.

 

For math, there are always a couple chapters that we don't do. There isn't time, and the chapters in the backs of math books tend to be a little fluffy. However, I think I have a pretty good sense as to what's needed in the next level, so I don't worry about skipping what seems superfluous to me. If it turns out they need something in the next level that we didn't cover, we just do it then.

[Guest FiveLittleMonkeys10]

We found a textbook that the local high school uses for Chemistry. It is called Modern Chemistry and while it is not college text, we will use it. I am going to buy the Annotated teacher's guide.

 

I was just thinking and realized, no matter what book we use, it depends on the way its taught how much she'll retain. The book is used in the high school's honor classes and looking through it, it seems extensive enough. We will be doing more hands-on things too, so I like this book.

 

I suppose I like the teacher's edition thing too. I need a lot of support with Chemistry, so this seems like it.

 

Thanks for all the ideas though.