Holt or Rainbow science?

[sixpence1978]

Our science selection for the year isn't going so well and I've narrowed down switching to either Holt science and technology physical or starting on Rainbow science.

 

If you've used either of these, what things did you like or not like about it?

 

Is there any way to do Rainbow science cheaper?

 

Thanks for any insight.

[klmama]

I bought rainbow science used. Bought the lab kit new. Only managed the physics portion before the lack of detailed explanation drove my older dc and me to pull out our hair. Switched to a standard textbook and liked it much better. Current middle schooler is doing the standard text with rainbow labs. It's working for us. All that to say, my vote would likely be the Holt book.

 

Sent from my SM-S320VL using Tapatalk

[Garga]

We used BJU last year.  We had the student textbook, the teacher's textbook, the videos, and the workbook.  

 

The videos were 20-30 minutes long, then we'd read the text and that took another 20-30 minutes, and then there were the worksheets.  Oh, and quizzes and tests.

 

I feel like my son didn't retain much of anything.  There were just so many words!  Science took forever.  He loved it, but I hated it.  I felt like he loved it because he didn't know any better.  And when it was time to do the tests, I got the impression that he was remembering enough for the test, but a lot of the information was sliding out of his brain from overload.

 

We got Rainbow science this year and we love it.  It is concise and the author has explained things about physics in ways that make the light bulbs go off over my son's head (and mine, too, a couple of times.)

 

We're on week 9 and we haven't had any problems yet. It's expensive for the lab equipment, but it's been wondrous that ALL of the supplies are at our fingertips for each lab.  And they work!  The only one that didn't work was when we were trying to generate static electricity on a rainy day.  We'll do that one again later, when it's dryer.  But we couldn't fault the curriculum for our weather conditions.

 

I don't know if we'll hit a point and feel like the PP--that there's not enough explanation, but right now, I think it's just the right amount.  My son has learned and retained more in these past 9 weeks than with all the looooong explanations and videos of last year.

 

The author said somewhere (on the website or in the books) that he purposely uses short explanations and doesn't belabor any points.  It works for us.  

 

This is one of those things where Holt will match one student best, but Rainbow will match a different student best.  If you need more info on my type of student, to see if your student is like mine or not, go ahead and ask (but quote me or PM me so I get a notification.)

Edited October 24, 2017 by Garga