jwoodbri Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 Just finished up RSO Life with my 2nd grader and tag along Ker. I was just going to order RSO's curriculum but missed a sale and then started looking around. I had been contemplating RSO + Apologia at least just reading the text to bulk up RSO. But then I saw that ES is much cheaper but I don't know anything about it and I also found Mr. Q which is also new to me... Would love to hear people's thoughts! Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 We are enjoying Mr. Q this year for Earth & space. ES doesn't appeal to me at all because I'm not interested in something that's basically just a schedule. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ByGrace3 Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 We really like ES. My kids love it. I do think it is more than a schedule though. It does schedule readings and experiments, but it also adds vocabulary, notebooking, experiment pages, and quizzes. All for a very affordable price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Down_the_Rabbit_Hole Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 We are using Apologia right now. For a while we did not enjoy it. I was having dd read and then discuss and write in the journal. I now read and we are making the lapbook from Rainbow Resources. It is now more enjoyable.. I also have the ES Space and Earth Science and RSO. The ES looks good (as they always do) and I would not hesitate to use them. In fact we will be using the Earth Science portion next year along with RSO's Earth portion. I would not use RSO as a stand alone though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esse Quam Videri Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 ES is incredibly light IMO. If you could sample the books at your library before buying that would give you a better idea. You will basically read 2-6 pages of an early reader type science book every week. In some ways this is great- just enough information to remember and no problems with the "weekly quiz." But some children are probably ready for more information. Also, ES schedules a weekly experiment using JVC books. Many of these were total flops for us. We had a brick and a large chunk of ice taking up the the majority of our freezer space for a week and a half, with absolutely no results. I ended up just having to explain what was supposed to happen, my guesses as to why it didn't, and how it would have related to glaciers. For our family, ES Earth and Space worked fine, but it wasn't what I was hoping for. We finished out Earth and are now doing our own thing for Astronomy using some higher level books. We are trying to cut some of the fluff (quizzes, a lot of the written work, some experiments) and read/narrate/discuss more, along with more meaningful "experiments" (star gazing and mapping, telescopes, planetarium). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie Smith Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 We are enjoying Mr. Q this year for Earth & space. Same here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christielee7278 Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 We love ES!! We've used Apologia for space and enjoyed it as well. Between the two, we prefer ES though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommymilkies Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 ES is incredibly light, IMHO. We like the Practical Geologist book on Amazon for geology studies, and what I've seen of Apologia space does not make me ever want to consider it. DK has a series of science hands on books that are very good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tess in the Burbs Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 We used Easy Classical http://easyclassical...oduct_Page.html for our "Earth Science" year. It was a good balance of work for those ages. I think the weather experiments were some of the best we ever did and we still know how to do several weather readings from the materials we put together. It's 2 days a week and the readings are short. It was easy to add on if we wanted more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 What I mean by ES just being a schedule is that unlike something like Mr. Q or RS4K, there is no "spine". If I wanted to do science like ES, I'd just put together my own schedule and save the money (I did that for my oldest's first two years in the cycle before I discovered Mr. Q). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 I sort of put together my own, and we haven't done the earth science part yet (that will come after the science fair) but for space, I used Intellego Astronomy as the base for my K'er and GEMS Earth, Moon, and Stars as the base for my 2nd grader. I added a lot of documentaries and field trips, like a trip to the Planetarium and out to watch the Transit of Venus with some high powered scopes, and it kind of took on a life of its own, especially when we got into building Lego Mars Rovers and designing rovers for other planets, but we had a great time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MinivanMom Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 Instead of buying a curriculum, we invested in a telescope. It may be the best educational purchase we've made so far. My kids will brave crazy cold nights to get peeks at Saturn or Jupiter from our own yard. I pulled together a bunch of books on my own and the kids had a great time just delving in. We read the DK First Encyclopedia of Space, Along Came Galileo, Child's Introduction to the Night Sky, and Night Sky Atlas (mainly for reference). We also visited the Planetarium, went to our local Natural History Museum for their annual Astronomy Days exhibit, and went to the symphony for their annual Space Concert (a slideshow of NASA images set to music from 2001, Star Wars, Holst's Planets). We had so much fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dahliarw Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 I plan to use ES next year. But, I plan to just use the schedule part and sub in some of my own, less watered down books. For me it's easier to have a schedule to go off of. And usually the experiments recommended are good. The lap books she puts out too are inexpensive and can be used alongside the classic curriclum to aid learning too - or they can be used on their own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwoodbri Posted February 6, 2013 Author Share Posted February 6, 2013 Thank you all for your input!! Still not 100% sure what I'll end up doing but I think I will try something new and see what we like. Off to investigate some more into Mr. Q, ES and Apologia. I have a hunch I might just try out two of them. :) And MinivanMom, I love your ideas! Thanks so much for posting! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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