For those of you who have done BJU Life Science, can you tell me about it?

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

I am really stuck between this and another curriculum. What do you like about this and what do you not like about this? What do you wish was different. Would you recommend it? I want ALL the good, the bad and the ugly before I decide! TIA

[HiddenJewel]

Good content but heavy-duty for junior high. Pretty typical textbook style - read the material and answer the questions. Tests are tough. I really liked the activity book assignments for reinforcing the concepts learned. The most recent edition has a CD-Rom with the Teacher Manual. I did not use it with the Life Science but I have used the Literature CD-Rom activities and they are very good.

[Lizzie in Ma]

Of the ones we've used, (Life Science, Physical Science and Biology) this one was by far one of the best of their video classes.

Mrs. Vick is leaps and bounds better than most of the teachers and it was an updated for the format class, not an old homesat.

It is 5 days a week and a fair amount of work. I thought it excellent and our dd enjoyed it. I thought it was fine for 7th or 8th.

[Sweet Home Alabama]

Dd used BJU Life Science in 7th grade. It was her first text book class. Mrs. Vick is wonderful.... truly! This class was very well done: interesting, challenging, and well-organized.

 

Dd practiced taking notes and learned how to outline the text. In the beginning, she had trouble scoring well on the tests. She began to take them open-book, and that worked better. This turned out to be a good thing because Life Science gave us practice in learning HOW to study. In this regard, it was more than just a science class. It provided transition from grammar to logic stage learning and thinking. I hope this makes sense.

 

I particularly enjoyed how well this curriculum was organized. Not only did I not have to teach, but finding tests and print-outs requested by Mrs. Vick was very easy. The schedule was easy to follow.

 

I can't think of even one thing that I didn't like about this class. I highly recommend it.

[chirowife]

We used it last year for 7th grade. My daughter really enjoyed it. (We did not do the video class.) It was a lot of read and answer questions but that works well for my daughter. We did a lot of the experiments - they were easy to follow and you did not need any off the wall stuff. I really liked the student activity pages. I will use it next year for my other daughter but we will use it a little differently as she is not the typical textbook student. I think it is a good solid Life Science class. Would recommend it highly! Loaned to my friend for her son this year and they are enjoying it too!

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

We used it last year for 7th grade. My daughter really enjoyed it. (We did not do the video class.) It was a lot of read and answer questions but that works well for my daughter. We did a lot of the experiments - they were easy to follow and you did not need any off the wall stuff. I really liked the student activity pages. I will use it next year for my other daughter but we will use it a little differently as she is not the typical textbook student. I think it is a good solid Life Science class. Would recommend it highly! Loaned to my friend for her son this year and they are enjoying it too!

 

How do you plan to use this differently, if you don't mind my asking. I think if we go with this we will add in some living books/videos to go along with it.

[Mom22ns]

I am using it for the second time this year. I would consider it an honors level Life Science class. When I started looking at Biology books for ds for high school this year, I found there were some that covered the same or less as BJU Life did (Campbell's Exploring Life and Holt Biology). It does make finding high school Biology more interesting!

 

I agree, it is a basic textbook class. There are a lot of labs and hand on demonstrations as in other BJU sciences we have used. The TM changes dramatically from the elementary TM. It no longer offers the course overview and the questions in the sidebars. It takes a little getting used to if you have done their elementary science, but it is still very doable without DVDs (which is what I've done both times).

 

The only negative on this course for me, may be a positive for others. This course is hit you over the head, beat it into the ground YE. All other points are wrong and evolution is made to look as stupid as possible. We are old earth Christians, and after this one I sold Earth and Space and went to secular Physical Science instead. We also added the evolution materials off of Hippocampus so the kids wouldn't be so woefully uninformed and even misinformed. However, if you are YE, this won't bother you and like I said, some would consider it a strength.

[mom31257]

Dd used BJU Life Science in 7th grade. It was her first text book class. Mrs. Vick is wonderful.... truly! This class was very well done: interesting, challenging, and well-organized.

 

Dd practiced taking notes and learned how to outline the text. In the beginning, she had trouble scoring well on the tests. She began to take them open-book, and that worked better. This turned out to be a good thing because Life Science gave us practice in learning HOW to study. In this regard, it was more than just a science class. It provided transition from grammar to logic stage learning and thinking. I hope this makes sense.

 

I particularly enjoyed how well this curriculum was organized. Not only did I not have to teach, but finding tests and print-outs requested by Mrs. Vick was very easy. The schedule was easy to follow.

 

I can't think of even one thing that I didn't like about this class. I highly recommend it.

:iagree:

[Jen the RD]

Dd used BJU Life Science in 7th grade. It was her first text book class. Mrs. Vick is wonderful.... truly! This class was very well done: interesting, challenging, and well-organized.

 

Dd practiced taking notes and learned how to outline the text. In the beginning, she had trouble scoring well on the tests. She began to take them open-book, and that worked better. This turned out to be a good thing because Life Science gave us practice in learning HOW to study. In this regard, it was more than just a science class. It provided transition from grammar to logic stage learning and thinking. I hope this makes sense.

 

I particularly enjoyed how well this curriculum was organized. Not only did I not have to teach, but finding tests and print-outs requested by Mrs. Vick was very easy. The schedule was easy to follow.

 

I can't think of even one thing that I didn't like about this class. I highly recommend it.

 

:iagree:

[PeterPan]

Since you're already doing the BJU Earth/Space, how is that going for you? The Life Science is same flavor, just a fuzz easier. If your current set-up is working with the E/S, then it will continue to work for the Life. If it's not working, well then you'll just be shoveling that hole a little deeper.

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

Since you're already doing the BJU Earth/Space, how is that going for you? The Life Science is same flavor, just a fuzz easier. If your current set-up is working with the E/S, then it will continue to work for the Life. If it's not working, well then you'll just be shoveling that hole a little deeper.

 

 

 

Earth and Space is going great! I am considering for my soon to be 5th grader for next year. She will be doing the Biology 101 series over the summer so that is why I keep contemplating this for her because we love BJU Science. I think after going through Biology 101 she will be fine because she LOVES anything biology. I heard/read somewhere that the Life Science was different though. I just don't remember where I saw this. I can't find it anywhere. It said something about it being set up differently than the other BJU texts. I don't know if that was referring to the elementary texts or the upper level texts though.

[PeterPan]

Have you looked at the BJU science 5 or science 6? Yes, there's a big step up from the BJU 6 to 7 in most of the subjects. Remember BJU is weaving a lot of *skills* into their science text. If you plunk a 5th grader into their gr 7 text, that dc, unless she's extremely and unusually capable, is not likely going to be ready to outline or take notes on the text, do the tests, etc. So while she could watch the videos, she's not really going to take away the full benefit of the course. I'd be more inclined to put her in the BJU5 or 6 and keep bolstering with fun supplements like the Chem101 and http://www.middleschoolchemistry.com Then going into the Life Science in 6th. I just don't see the need to rush, not when BJU has woven so much good into the course. The elementary courses are also quite good. In the 5/6 levels you have integrated writing assignments, etc. That's a huge jump from watching the Bio101 videos to doing the BJU Life Science, kwim?

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

Have you looked at the BJU science 5 or science 6? Yes, there's a big step up from the BJU 6 to 7 in most of the subjects. Remember BJU is weaving a lot of *skills* into their science text. If you plunk a 5th grader into their gr 7 text, that dc, unless she's extremely and unusually capable, is not likely going to be ready to outline or take notes on the text, do the tests, etc. So while she could watch the videos, she's not really going to take away the full benefit of the course. I'd be more inclined to put her in the BJU5 or 6 and keep bolstering with fun supplements like the Chem101 and www.middleschoolchemistry.com Then going into the Life Science in 6th. I just don't see the need to rush, not when BJU has woven so much good into the course. The elementary courses are also quite good. In the 5/6 levels you have integrated writing assignments, etc. That's a huge jump from watching the Bio101 videos to doing the BJU Life Science, kwim?

 

 

 

Yeah I looked at BJU 5 and 6. I wanted to keep her with WTM style science because she does so well that way. She has this love and craving for science she didn't have when we were doing the BJU Elementary science (every chapter or 2 a different jumping around) She has been doing alot of writing assignments this year in 4th because she was just ready. Nothing huge but she outlines her chapters and will do a little write up- more than a narration but not an essay, kwim?

 

I am thinking that open book tests wouldn't be bad because she would still be learning and she would be young. I just don't know though. I just really wish I could look through the whole book. From the samples I see it looks fine for her but samples only show so much. I don't want to over do her and kill her love for science but I don't want to do something with her that's under challenging either. She is my natural sciencey kid (yes, sciencey is a word because I used it :lol:) She is strong in math. I think I could work with her on taking notes after she gets better at outlining. That may be the end of this year, that may be middle of next year- right now I am not sure because she just started outlining a couple weeks ago.

 

I may just buy the books used and look through them and decide if I want to use them this year or wait a year or two. So far, I plan on using BJU Space and Earth science with her in 6th, but I am only about 1/3 of the way through the book though so its early. I am just to :willy_nilly: right now. Why can't these decisions be easier??? Ugh

Edited November 22, 2011 by wy_kid_wrangler04

[HiddenJewel]

The 3rd edition has clustered the chapters. It is still hopping compared to WTM science but now it has more sense to us (first all chapters about animals, then all about physical science etc.).

 

 

 

Are you referring to the BJU elementary science?

[HiddenJewel]

Yes the upper levels don't have mixed topics.

 

Was just making sure because I sure haven't seen mixed topics in their Life Science through Biology.

[amtmcm]

Yeah I looked at BJU 5 and 6. I wanted to keep her with WTM style science because she does so well that way. She has this love and craving for science she didn't have when we were doing the BJU Elementary science (every chapter or 2 a different jumping around) She has been doing alot of writing assignments this year in 4th because she was just ready. Nothing huge but she outlines her chapters and will do a little write up- more than a narration but not an essay, kwim?

 

.....So far, I plan on using BJU Space and Earth science with her in 6th, but I am only about 1/3 of the way through the book though so its early. I am just to :willy_nilly: right now. Why can't these decisions be easier??? Ugh

 

How about this:

5th: Rainbow Science + Tiner's World of Physics and World of Chemistry

6th: BJU Life Science

7th: BJU Earth & Space

 

This way she can stay on one topic and she'll get in a year of Physics & Chemistry. Rainbow is recommended for middle school, but IMO it's way easier than BJU Life Science. The reading in the text is pretty light, so I'm going to supplement with Tiner's books the 2nd time around. I might add in Chemistry 101 as well. I really like Biology 101 for fun.

 

As for BJU Life Science, we really enjoyed it and I'm excited to do it again with my younger DD. We didn't use the DVD class, we used the text + Lab Investigations DVD.

Edited November 25, 2011 by amtmcm

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

How about this:

5th: Rainbow Science + Tiner's World of Physics and World of Chemistry

6th: BJU Life Science

7th: BJU Earth & Space

 

This way she can stay on one topic and she'll get in a year of Physics & Chemistry. Rainbow is recommended for middle school, but it's waaay easier than BJU Life Science. The reading in the text is pretty light, so I'm going to supplement with Tiner's books the 2nd time around. I might add in Chemistry 101 as well. I really like Biology 101 for fun.

 

As for BJU Life Science, we really enjoyed it and I'm excited to do it again with my younger DD. We didn't use the DVD class, we used the text + Lab Investigations DVD.

 

 

 

I will check out Rainbow! I have never looked into that.