After Singapore Interactive Science?

[Trez]

Thinking of next year already....does anyone have suggestions as to which Science program to use for a grade 8 student who has completed the Singapore Interactive Science curriculum? (Secular suggestions would be appreciated).

 

Has anyone went on to use the secondary level Singapore Science books? If so, how did you/your children find them?

[KAR120C]

Has anyone went on to use the secondary level Singapore Science books? If so, how did you/your children find them?

I have really liked all of the Singapore science books we've used, including the high school books. We've only done Biology Matters so far (and we're taking a year to expand on it with Marine Biology before moving on). In Singapore they would apparently run them concurrently, and over two years together, but we're doing the more American approach of one science per year. I can see pros and cons to each... mostly if we did three sciences at once we'd never get anything else done! (We're always up for science... but languages? we can put those off indefinitely... LOL)

 

I have all three of the high school textbooks and their associated practicals and workbooks. Biology is no problem to do at home with labs. It's a little expensive and complicated, and you'll be sacrificing a lot of plants (we used six packs of whatever annual was in season), but other than a couple we ended up skipping and a couple more we adapted (and a Froguts subscription instead of organ dissection), the labs are quite doable. I would NOT say the same about the Chemistry labs. Some of those really aren't safe at home, and some I'm not qualified to judge... and there are significant chemical-disposal issues too. Physics I've looked at, and IIRC it was going to be a bit more expensive and complicated than the Biology labs, but not impossible.

 

If you do Chemistry at home, I like the look of a book someone else posted here... The Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments. It's still expensive and complicated, but they address the safety and disposal issues extremely well.