How much time is required for Apologia Physical Science?

[Colleen]

My rising 8th grader will soon start Apologia Physical Science. It looks fairly time-intensive and I'm dreading how much may have to focus on just this one subject. He did do General Science, but it felt manageable because we spread it out over a year and a half. The Physical Science text looks more intense, yet I'd like to complete it in a year so he can move on to Biology, which is his real area of interest, in 9th grade.

 

For those with experience, how much time do you think this will require? In the past, I've preferred to cover science two or three days each week, but I'm afraid he may need to keep up with this daily. What do you think?

[FloridaLisa]

They usually worked 3-4 days per week for 45 minutes - 1 hour. I didn't find it tremendously more intensive than General Science, but that's from my POV, not theirs. ;) No, actually, they enjoyed the text and did very well on the tests.

 

ETA: I'd be happy to send my plans for Physical Science to show you how I broke down the reading, study guide, lab, etc.

 

HTH,

Lisa

[Mandy in TN]

They usually worked 3-4 days per week for 45 minutes - 1 hour.

:iagree:

Last year that is about how much time my ds spent. He went to an hour and half tutorial on Mondays. One week they would do a lab and lecture and the next week a test. He would read and do the work on the 30 min drive home from tutorial and then look through it again on the to class. That was about it. He very rarely worked on it during the week except when they did do a month long project on weather.

 

ETA- If reading is the issue, you know that you can get the text on audio and he can just listen to it.

 

HTH-

Mandy

[Colleen]

They usually worked 3-4 days per week for 45 minutes - 1 hour. I didn't find it tremendously more intensive than General Science, but that's from my POV, not theirs. ;) No, actually, they enjoyed the text and did very well on the tests.

 

ETA: I'd be happy to send my plans for Physical Science to show you how I broke down the reading, study guide, lab, etc.

 

I was thinking roughly 45 minutes daily, so it sounds like I'm in the ballpark. Thanks for offering to share your plans; I use Sonlight's schedule, so I'm good to go on that score.:)

[Colleen]

He went to an hour and half tutorial on Mondays. One week they would do a lab and lecture and the next week a test. He would read and do the work on the 30 min drive home from tutorial and then look through it again on the to class. That was about it. He very rarely worked on it during the week

 

So he read the entire module each week in just that 30 minute drive?

 

ETA- If reading is the issue, you know that you can get the text on audio and he can just listen to it.

 

Oh, I didn't mean to imply the reading was an issue. Just wanted to have a rough idea how much time I should expect this to take each week. Thanks for helping!

[gardenschooler]

We've never found Apologia to take a full hour a day, not even biology. I think you could probably plan on 30-45 minutes a day.

 

Edited to add: Biology did take a bit longer than Physical science, but I'm pretty sure Physical took less than 30 minutes a day.

[gardenschooler]

It sounds like Mandy is saying he read it on the way to and from the class, and the class spent two weeks on each module. So if he had two hours of reading time in the car, then I would guess that would be enough to get through a whole module.

[Colleen]

We've never found Apologia to take a full hour a day, not even biology. I think you could probably plan on 30-45 minutes a day.

 

This is revealing what a dolt I am when it comes to the physical sciences. I've been reading the first module, and those 20 pages, along with three experiments and ten "On Your Own" questions would take me a good, long while to comprehend.:tongue_smilie: Thank goodness my son is better at this than I am.:D

[Laurie in CA]

My daughter did physical science last year in 8th grade and got through 13 modules. We will finish up the last 3 this year before we do our astronomy. I thought it was a good course and she learned a lot and I felt we should finish the book. You can do it.:thumbup: