Oak Meadow Chemistry?

[Kim C]

Has anyone tried OM Chemsitry? If so, what did you like and not like about it?

 

Thanks!

Kim

[StillStanding]

:glare:Well, we used it this year. You better be good at Chemistry.

The Teacher's Manual only has answers for the problems scheduled--no solutions.

I bought the Prentice Hall Chemistry Teacher's book from Amazon and it doesn't come with solutions either (it was cheaper than the Oak Meadow booklet), at least it has all the answers if you want/need more practice.

I didn't buy their lab kit (the labs are the ones in the Prentice Hall Book), we did the ones we could with easy to find materials and added the MicroChemistry Kit and Apologia Labs (I had the book).

[kangato3]

We used it this year (with the lab component) Here are my pros and cons.

 

Pros:

Clear pacing of lessons.

Specified which problems to do from book.

Labs matched up with subject well.

 

Cons:

Writing assignments given were more creative writing than scientific. We skipped those.

Labs not very in-depth. Next time I would use LabPaq.

It used the book's end-of-chapter standardized test practice as the chapter tests; I would have preferred a test format where student works problems, etc.

Only answers given, not solutions.

 

I have other cons, but they have to do with the textbook itself. As the previous poster mentioned, even the full TM does not have solutions. Also, we have found the book at times to be unclear and/or incomplete in its explanations. I purchased a cheap text by Chang, just as a reference for clearer explanations . Dd also used Khan videos quite a bit.

 

I purchased the OM syllabus because I felt the need of a little hand-holding in the planning and pacing. In the end, I could have done without it.

 

What I'd really like to find before my next child gets to chemistry is a much better textbook with content geared for a traditional high school course rather than AP. Most of the texts often recommended on this board seem to be AP content. I'm all ears if anyone has a great text to recommend! :bigear:

[Kim C]

We used it this year (with the lab component) Here are my pros and cons.

 

Pros:

Clear pacing of lessons.

Specified which problems to do from book.

Labs matched up with subject well.

 

Cons:

Writing assignments given were more creative writing than scientific. We skipped those.

Labs not very in-depth. Next time I would use LabPaq.

It used the book's end-of-chapter standardized test practice as the chapter tests; I would have preferred a test format where student works problems, etc.

Only answers given, not solutions.

 

I have other cons, but they have to do with the textbook itself. As the previous poster mentioned, even the full TM does not have solutions. Also, we have found the book at times to be unclear and/or incomplete in its explanations. I purchased a cheap text by Chang, just as a reference for clearer explanations . Dd also used Khan videos quite a bit.

 

I purchased the OM syllabus because I felt the need of a little hand-holding in the planning and pacing. In the end, I could have done without it.

 

What I'd really like to find before my next child gets to chemistry is a much better textbook with content geared for a traditional high school course rather than AP. Most of the texts often recommended on this board seem to be AP content. I'm all ears if anyone has a great text to recommend! :bigear:

Thanks for the replies. I think I will keep looking. I'm all ears for other suggestions too.

[AngieW in Texas]

I bought several different textbooks to figure out what I wanted to use for my dd this year. I'll let you know what I thought of each of them.

 

Spectrum Chemistry

This is what I used for my oldest and I was extremely disappointed with it. At least the religious content was minimal. This is a very thin book with lots of white space and pictures. There isn't much text. There aren't many practice problems. My dd got through everything she was supposed to read in the text and did the problems for the week in about 30 minutes (sometimes she took 45). The labs were really good, but the course itself was not meaty.

 

Conceptual Chemistry

This covers a much wider range of topics than Spectrum. It has less math, but there's a lot more to it overall. The labs look pretty feasible for doing at home. This is a good first chemistry course for a kid who isn't good at math.

 

Prentice Hall Chemistry

I would consider this the next step up from Conceptual. It uses a little more math. If you buy the Oak Meadow syllabus, you will see lots of silly busywork writing assignments to skip. I am actually using the small-scale chemistry lab book from this course for the lab portion of my chemistry class. If you want solutions, you have to buy the solution manual. The teacher guide has only the answers.

 

World of Chemistry

I consider this a step up from Prentice Hall Chemistry. There are no labs in the text itself, so you would need to buy a lab manual from somewhere. I don't know if there is one that is keyed to the text. This is a regular high school level chemistry book.

 

Tro's Introductory Chemistry

This is an honors level high school chemistry book or college chemistry for nonscience majors. In college, they generally cover 2/3 to 3/4 of the text, but the compress it into one semester. In high school, they usually do all but the last 3 chapters (the Essentials version doesn't have chapters 17-19). It doesn't have labs in the text or an associated lab manual either. I used the Prentice Hall Small-Scale Lab Manual with it. It has quite a bit of math. The solution manual will solve all the problems for you and doesn't have many errors that I have found. I really like the way that the example problems are laid out. I think it's pretty well-written and has the clearest explanation for how to assign oxidation states that I've seen.

 

I didn't look at any of the AP level texts because I didn't feel up to teaching that level since that was as high as I went in chemistry and that was 20 years ago.

[kangato3]

World of Chemistry

I consider this a step up from Prentice Hall Chemistry. There are no labs in the text itself, so you would need to buy a lab manual from somewhere. I don't know if there is one that is keyed to the text. This is a regular high school level chemistry book.

 

 

Is World of Chemistry by Zumdahl? From previous posts, I always thought that Zumdahl books were AP, but it sounds like this is not. I will look to see if I can find online sample pages.

[Changed]

I want to remember to come back and look at these reviews later:001_smile:.

[AngieW in Texas]

Yes, World of Chemistry is the regular high school textbook by Zumdahl.

http://holtmcdougal.hmhco.com/hm/detail.htm?ID=1007100000064371