Apologia Science Question - wwyd?

[frugalmamatx]

DD is a science loving kiddo, always has been. On average I would say she is 1-2 grades ahead in science. But her math skills are behind fwiw, although we are working on bringing those up to speed. Going into 5th/6th this year, and I'm planning out future year tentative plans {with a strong understanding that they may need to be changed} as the long range plan helps me a lot. 

 

I have the following Apologia Science books on my shelf {and I need to use what is on my shelf and not buy unless absolutely needed}:

 

Young Explorers Human Anatomy

Young Explorers Zoology 2 {we would also cover the 1st chapter of 1 that is available online first}

Exploring Creation with General Science {1st ed}

Exploring Creation with Physical Science {1st ed}

Exploring Creation with Chemistry {1st ed}

Exploring Creation with Biology {1st ed}

Exploring Creation with Physics {1st ed}

 

What order would you complete these in? I am thinking of this:

 

5th Human Anatomy or Zoology 2 {which would you choose, given this plan?}

6th General science 

7th Physical science

8th Biology {and give high school credit}

9th Chemistry 

10th Physics

And leave 11th and 12th open for either advanced science courses or duel enrolled college level science classes

 

 

 

Really just wanting a second opinion here mostly :) x-posted to the high school board as well. 

[MerryAtHope]

It's really hard at this point to plan how the high school sciences are going to go. Your plan is fine as far as order, but I think you'll have to play it year by year with regard to math skills. It's going to be VERY important, especially in chemistry and physics (and even physical science--a student should have completed 7th grade math before starting it). Here's a PDF file that shows the math pre-requisites for each. With that in mind--you would be pushing it to do Physical in 7th for a student who is behind in math right now--she'd need to be ahead in math for this to work. 

 

For a child who loves science, I'd go broader rather than pushing ahead. Go through both Anatomy and Zoology if she's interested in both. Let your student explore all kinds of science books at the library if buying something else isn't in the budget. Let your student pursue interest-led studies, various projects and experiments, participate in science fairs and so on (a good science-fair project can easily take up 3-4 months of your science year and the student can learn so much). I used to give my science lover these parameters in upper elementary:

 

Spend 30 minutes per day (as a minimum--she could do more on her time if she wanted) on science. She could read, do an experiment, go outside to nature journal, copy a diagram or illustration into her notebook, journal about her reading or experiments, etc... For experiments, I asked her to find her own materials, or to write down items needed on a list we kept on the fridge (with the understanding that we'd get the items within reason, likely sometime in the next week). In junior high we upped that to 45 minutes to an hour to get ready for high school. She really enjoyed the freedom to explore various topics and it prepared her well for text-book studies in high school. 

 

Doing biology-chemistry-physics in high school still gives you time to do at least one advanced science in a favorite area (and only about 20% of high schoolers take physics, so that's already something more advanced). My dd did chem. last year & physics this year, and some of the math was pretty challenging--and she likes math. (She'll be doing Advanced bio next year as biology is her favorite--she did 3 of her 6 science fair projects on biology related topics--one she did was a take-off from an analogy in the Apologia Anatomy book about cells being like a city--she made a whole cell city out of clay! I put a picture of one of the pieces on my blog here). 

 

Have fun with it! Science is such a great area for a student who loves it to explore.

[Holly]

I totally agree with Merry!  I'd complete both anatomy & zoology before diving into Apologia's upper level science books.  My DD will be using Physical Science for 9th grade, because she's a bit behind in math.  When I took college level science, math was my biggest struggle, not the science.  It's really important to have that solid math foundation before getting to chemistry & physics.