Lab Costs: Classiquest Astronomy & Geoscience

[Apple Bean Tripod School]

If you buy the books and the lab kits, how many more materials are required to do the labs? Is there a master list in the curriculum? I'd hate to buy it and find out that we can't afford it.

 

If there are extra supplies other than what's included in the kits, if you bought the supplies monthly, what do you guess the ballpark cost is per month?

 

 

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[Reefgazer]

I used this program with DD and am using part of it with DS next year.  The GeoSciences segment is super-excellent; I can't say enough good things about it.  The kits you have to buy are perfect for the experiments and the only other stuff you'll need is random, cheap stuff that is laying about the house (like a Styrofoam cup, black sharpie, whatever).  So, nothing of any significant expense, and yes, somewhere in the book is a master list of all the trivial crap you'll need.

 

The astronomy section is God-awful, honestly.  The readings are fine, but the lab exercises are lame, frustrating, and useless.  I went off-script with DD once I realized it was not really an effective astronomy program and basically pulled together my own labs as best I could.  Instead of the lame exercises in the book, I bought Chris Oxlade books on various planets on Amazon for a cheap used price, made a few trips to the planetarium, hung out with an astronomy club for a few sessions, and did the Solar Walk (check online for procedure  - it's free) for lab exercises.  But I always felt my daughter was ripped off in the astronomy department because I was putting things together on the fly.  This year with DS, I bought Real Science 4 Kids astronomy for middle school.  I received it last week and it looks much better and I plan to use that for the astronomy section.  But that is an extra expense that you might not want to take on.

 

So, given that half of the book is wonderful and the other half is a pile of steaming dung, this is what I would do:  Don't buy the kit; just go to Home Science Training Tools and buy the individual materials you will need only for the GeoSciences half of the book.  When I ordered materials, the kit was not put together and I had to order things separately anyway.  Home Science Training Tools always has online ship codes or free shipping; sign up on their website to get on their email list and you'll get them in your mailbox.  Or search the web for online coupon codes.  For astronomy, don't buy the Van Cleeve books (they are awful) or anything for the kit.  Just buy the Oxlade books if you can swing them.  But if you can't swing them, the encyclopedia is fine.  But the Oxlade books are not as dry and are excellent for middle school.  Here is an example of one and there are others for other planets, the sun and moon, etc...:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Jupiter-Neptune-Other-Outer-Planets/dp/0750249226/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437106324&sr=8-1&keywords=oxlade+Jupiter

 

Make your astronomy labs about planetarium visits, hanging out with your local astronomy club, going constellation and stargazing in a dark area (for this, the planisphere they recommend as part of the kit is worth the buy), using your binoculars to observe stages of the moon, make a model of the solar system, and pull labs such as these off the web:

Solar Walk:  http://dustbunny.com/afk/planets/howbig.html

 

General astronomy lab links:  http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/educ/docs/3-stardst-ch03.pdf

 

                                                http://www.eclipse.aaq.org.au/index.php/classroom-activities

 

Moon stages:  http://www.csuchico.edu/~abykerk-kauffman/courses/geos142/packet/pdf/51LabOnPhases&Eclipses.pdf

 

      

 

[Apple Bean Tripod School]

Thanks so much!  This is super helpful.  Honestly, my ex-husband is an astronomy freak and has a top-of-the-line telescope.  We can stargaze all we want, but I think DD likely has a good enough grasp on astronomy to simply do the geoscience half instead.  What she doesn't have, so fresh out of public school, is any scientific experience at all.  I'm leaning towards doing a experiment-heavy general science overview for the first semester to get her all excited for science, then use the Classsiquest Geoscience for the second semester of 6th grade.

 

I appreciate the heads up on the astronomy portion, as I'd be rather upset if the curriculum wasn't better than what I can make myself with the books and equipment we already have :)