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Middle school science - need help


marynamo
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Need help please.

 

Kids are currently doing Science in the Beginning by Dr Jay Wile and loving it. (Also doing some other hands on stuff here and there)

 

We have to move over to a next science book and not sure what to use. I have looked at doing Exploring Creation with General Science (Apologia) but it looks a little bit boring for me. I have read hundreds of reviews, so many love it, so many hate it. What to do what to do?

 

We are in South Africa (English is our second language) so not everything is accesible to us due to crazy shipping fees. Also lab kits can't be send to us so items I have to obtain on my own (not a big deal)

 

Anyway... we love science, the kids love science. They like hands-on they also want to know why and how. I don't want to bore them with too much reading but I also want them to understand what they learn. I don't want to kill their love for science.

 

Is there a way we can put something together without using a formal curriculum for 7 and 8th grade? I mean like using Usborne books, expriments from the net etc? I want to ensure that they will learn what they should and what they need to at the level they need to, thus to ensure they are ready later for high school level work. Or would I be crazy to do it this way??

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Have you seen this: http://www.click2learn.co.za/shop/curious-natural-sciences-grade-8-etextbook/ ? I believe that it's available in Afrikaans as well. It's free to download if you're in Africa. You'll notice that there is a grade 7 and grade 9 book available on that site as well. I can't comment on it's quality but it's free to look at. :)

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We are using middle-school science textbooks for middle school, and I am so grateful my son is getting a good intro to these topics before high school. Sure, he could learn all the details of mitosis in 10th grade bio, but learning the basics in 7th grade life science gives him a good head start. We are also working on labs and reports, and using math in science. So I recommend looking at something that will smooth the way to success in high school level courses. Usborne books wouldn't be enough, and anything informal doesn't get done here, though your kids may be different.

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I'm with you. Absolutely. 

 

Here's what we've opted to do & we'll see how it works:

 

We've obtained Christian Kids Explore Chemistry. I think it's weak as is & needs more, BUT there's an extensive book list in the book AND if you use the suggestion for the Kingfisher Science encyclopedia I think that would beef it a lot & round it out well. Having said that we don't own that book at this time.

 

We did own Horrible Science's Chemical Chaos & Usborne What's Science All About. So I've matched those two up to the lessons as well as a Chem kit which is pretty full on. I also have a plethora of other books we'll be adding in over the course of our time with this study. I'm pretty pleased with how it all looks on paper, but we'll see how it looks in actual happenings. :)

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