lovetobehome Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 Does anyone use these for children older than elementary ages? My oldest will be starting 5th grade this year. I wondered about doing 2 books this year, and 2 next. Is that too much? What do you think about using it into older grades, or would you then just go into General Science? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdolphingirl Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 While I have not personally used them up into middle school there are many people who have. The yahoo group for them is pretty active, and very helpful. ( http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/Elem_Apologia_Science/?v=1&t=directory&ch=web&pub=groups&sec=dir&slk=2 ) The author herself is an active member as well. It would be quite doable to work through 2 books a yr. at that age. I am planning to use them at a deeper level in a couple years myself, right now we are just using them as read-a-louds around my house. Have you seen the new journals that the author made to go with them? .. There are even Jr. versions of them in the works for younger/writing challenged students! HTH, ~Rachel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kari C in SC Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 We have been using them for middle school. In 5th grade - we did Flying Creatures with Knowledge Box lapbook. That was good, but it was a bit light for the whole year. In 6th grade - we Astronomy with KB lapbook and Land Creatures with Live n Learn Lapbooks. There were some weeks the kids complained about "so many booklets to fill in", but overall it was fine. We did science 2 mornings a week for 2-3 hours. This year for 7th grade we will be doing Anatomy and Swimming creatures with the new notebooks that are available. They love lapbooking and I loved it, but I needed to lighten my work - so I opted for the notebooks. I think I already have 8th grade planned too. I think we will go back and do Botany (we missed this one) and hopefully the new Chemistry book will be available by then. After that we will most likely move onto Physical science in 9th. I know that some do it earlier, but I am holding off. I want to enjoy all of these books with my kids while I can. I tried doing Astronomy when my dd was in 1st grade. She got some of the basic info, but most of it went over her head. That is when I decided to wait until she was older. The books can be used younger, but honestly I think they older kids learn a lot more from them. I am 38 and I learned more than I ever imagined for these books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FloridaLisa Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 (edited) Does anyone use these for children older than elementary ages? My oldest will be starting 5th grade this year. I wondered about doing 2 books this year, and 2 next. Is that too much? What do you think about using it into older grades, or would you then just go into General Science? Thanks! I think they are great for 5th grade and can be used for 6th grade. The later books are a bit meatier than the earliest, Astronomy. The beauty of Apologia Elementary series is that they are meaty enough for a 5th/6th grader while holding the interest of a Ker. You can expect more in your older's notebooking and projects, and possible allow him/her to do some additional research. Also, I think 2 per year is ideal. When we did this at home, we did one chapter per week. Enjoy! Lisa ETA: Meant to add (before distracted by my 3yo) that the Apologia General is a bit dry. It's a text, while Fulbright's books read more like a living book. You don't even need to do General Science. I've had several dc that went right to biology in 8th having done delight directed projects in 6th/7th. Edited June 28, 2010 by FloridaLisa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovetobehome Posted June 28, 2010 Author Share Posted June 28, 2010 Thanks so much, I appreciate all these responses! I will look into the yahoo group, only so many hours in the day! But the possibility of using these for the next couple years is really nice. I think they look so fun. I had tried Flying Creatures a year or so ago, and never got really into it, not sure why. But I am excited and hopeful. So, maybe if we did 2 per year, we could still get quite a few topics covered well. I didn't know they were doing a chem one, too. I wish my education had been this fun. In fact, if I think back, I realize that I had a smattering of science, nothing fabulous even though I was in a private prep school. I majored in sciences in college, and it didn't hamper my studies there. So, maybe I can relax in doing something enjoyable and not worry so much about it being 'enough.' Just maybe.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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