Noeo Science? Comments? Critiques?

[Sarahkay]

I'm looking for some science for my DS age 9-4th grader. I like the idea of real books, yet a prepared plan to use them. Noeo seems to fit my wants. This looks interesting -- especially the physics for my upper grammar DS. My DD age 7-2nd grader will probably sit in on the teaching. Thanks for any input.

[dcjlkplus3]

We have really liked noeo for science... if I could afford it, I'd be using it this year as well. We have used chemistry 1 and physics 2 - they were both good.

 

My children prefered the chemistry experiments to the physics one (no idea why, physics was more hands on).

 

We did physics 2 last year with a 4th grader and a second grader. It did not hold my younger dd's interest as well as I would have liked, but it was perfect for my older one.

[Lily_Grace]

We have enjoyed all three II level courses, and are doing physics right now.

 

Pros:

-I love the books. The variety and great illustrations really help to cement the topic in his head.

-The open-and-go guide is very easy to use.

 

 

Cons:

-I am very unimpressed with the quality of experiments from the Young Scientist Club. It's not the experiments themselves, but the way the directions are written. If I wanted to hand my child a sheet that asked him the question, told him the answer, and expected no thinking whatsoever I would not be schooling him at home. I spent the first two years rewriting the directions on the computer or trying to hide the sheet during our lessons.

 

 

That said, substitution is easy. My son had read two of the resources in Physics this year (Archimedes and Galileo books) so we substituted with a Jim Weiss recording and the more detailed Galileo For Kids. Instead of the science kits in the package I bought Milestones In Science and a Force and Motion kit from Lakeshore Learning. It gave us about 3 times as many experiments (4x when combined with Galileo For Kids), so we have the option of doing one about every other day if we want, more if we do the "try-its" in the Usborne books. I honestly wish they would just package Milestones in Science with the program. So many of the experiments and activities match up almost perfectly, but it required me to go through it all at the beginning, reading the lessons and making a table in excel of which page would go with which.

[threeofakind]

We are using Physics 1 with a 6 and 8 year old. I bought it more for my 8 year old and it suits him great- 3rd week done- but we enjoy the books and the experiments and I think it suits his age better than my younger. The notebooking pages are good- I am not using them as much as they want you too right now, but maybe as the year goes on we will get in the swing of things- otherwise right now it's too much writing. But I do like the idea of the notebook pages- writing down notes, observations and thoughts instead of your typical worksheets.

[ErinD]

Love, love, love Noeo here. So far we have done Biology I, and Chem I and II.

 

Pros:

-The material they cover in level II is what's offered in high school here. They do it in a kid-friendly manner and the notebooking that the kids do really reinforces it.

-The books are appealing and the internet links are very interesting.

-The experiments are sometimes basic, but illustrate the points well anyway.

-You can easily teach multiple children at the same time (I taught mine plus my two nephews last year with it).

 

Cons:

-The notebooking pages are a little blah....we have used Notebooking Pages' science forms instead pretty often because they are just nicer to look at.

-Sometimes the amount of information they want your child to absorb in one sitting is a bit much, especially in Chem II. We have sometimes spread it over an extra day or two (fine with my daughter, she'd do it all day every day given the opportunity).

[Lady Marmalade]

We're NOEO fans as well! We've got Biology I going with DS and Biology II with DD. DD does Science completely on her own until the experiments come up- then she needs some assistance getting them assembled.

 

The only thing I'm not a fan of is that for Biology I, it seems really light to me. Right now we're doing a bird unit, and each day we read two pages out of an Usborne Pocket Journal, and that's it. There are internet links, and I just assume they expect everyone will want to do them. We don't- DS doesn't care for them, so we skip them, and that makes Science a little light unless I supplement with books from the library.

 

But overall, it's totally open-and-go, and I'm all about that.

[boscopup]

So how does NOEO compare to Elemental Science? I plan to do chemistry next year, and I was looking at NOEO and ES, and they appear to use pretty much the same books. ES doesn't have science kits, but it does list experiments to do each week (more often than NOEO). It also seems to have a little more meat in the guide. Has anyone used both and can compare? Particularly the chem programs. I was looking at NOEO Chem II vs. ES Chem for Grammar stage. I was also thinking I might get a science kit (not YSC).

[LittleIzumi]

We're NOEO fans as well! We've got Biology I going with DS and Biology II with DD. DD does Science completely on her own until the experiments come up- then she needs some assistance getting them assembled.

 

The only thing I'm not a fan of is that for Biology I, it seems really light to me. Right now we're doing a bird unit, and each day we read two pages out of an Usborne Pocket Journal, and that's it. There are internet links, and I just assume they expect everyone will want to do them. We don't- DS doesn't care for them, so we skip them, and that makes Science a little light unless I supplement with books from the library.

 

But overall, it's totally open-and-go, and I'm all about that.

 

:iagree::iagree::iagree::iagree:

[MissKNG]

We completely love NOEO Chemistry 1! I do supplement it with extras for my science nut but overall, I am extremely pleased and would recommend it!

[NittanyJen]

So how does NOEO compare to Elemental Science? I plan to do chemistry next year, and I was looking at NOEO and ES, and they appear to use pretty much the same books. ES doesn't have science kits, but it does list experiments to do each week (more often than NOEO). It also seems to have a little more meat in the guide. Has anyone used both and can compare? Particularly the chem programs. I was looking at NOEO Chem II vs. ES Chem for Grammar stage. I was also thinking I might get a science kit (not YSC).

 

We're only doing chem (1 & 2) so far, but note that NOEO books have a lot of experiments embedded in them, so there are a lot more experiments (at least in chem) than just the YSC kits. We're science nuts here though, so we also add the Science Wiz kits (chem+, DNA, and the other chem one) and the Thames and Kosmos C3000 kit, which is a little overkill, but fun, plus other experiments I just remember doing or look up. But the basic NOEO program has more hands-on than it looks at first-- that Adventures With Atoms and Molecules book is basically a lab book.

[DragonflyAcademy]

We have done Chemistry 2, and are now on Physics 1 and 2..

 

I like it.. my kids like it..

 

I'm not in love with the Young Scientists kits at all.. bah..

 

 

Cons:

-The notebooking pages are a little blah....we have used Notebooking Pages' science forms instead pretty often because they are just nicer to look at.

.

 

 

Can you share where you got the notebooking pages you use?

[robsiew]

So how does NOEO compare to Elemental Science? I plan to do chemistry next year, and I was looking at NOEO and ES, and they appear to use pretty much the same books. ES doesn't have science kits, but it does list experiments to do each week (more often than NOEO). It also seems to have a little more meat in the guide. Has anyone used both and can compare? Particularly the chem programs. I was looking at NOEO Chem II vs. ES Chem for Grammar stage. I was also thinking I might get a science kit (not YSC).

 

I've used both and highly prefer ES. ES has more/better experiments and the notebooking pages are much better. There's also a lapbooking option with some of the grammar programs for ES which my dd loves!

 

We did Biology I of Noeo and didn't end up finishing it. The guide is just a reading schedule. There were a lot of weeks that didn't have experiments. I found ES while looking for something else and we haven't turned back. We've done all the grammar stage programs of ES and now my oldest is doing her new Logic Bio. We love it!:001_smile:

[ErinD]

 

 

 

 

Can you share where you got the notebooking pages you use?

 

http://www.notebookingpages.com ......They have some really nice in both the free and subscription sections.