Painless Science & History

[BlsdMama]

Open and go - do the next thing, however it should be worded.  I just need a text/workbook style science and history for middle school kids.  Ideally, I'd love to combine my three 6th-9th graders this year and my 9th has learning challenges.  Suggestions?  Obviously CC is just fine, preferred.

[ghcostafamily]

Apologia it Gods design for science. With apologia you could use the audio and they could all listen and one could follow along and one could notebook?

For history what about notgrass?

[Targhee]

Notgrass histories are like this.

 

[Momto6inIN]

We love History of Us and Human Odyssey for middle school. They are not Christian and we are but that hasn't stopped us from enjoying them immensely! We just read and discuss and maybe write a summary paragraph of the chapter. Much more engaging than Notgrass, IME. Not sure what your 9th grader's learning challenges are, but the reading level is not at all difficult till you get to the last volume of Human Odyssey, then it picks up a notch.

Berean Builders science is very open and go and we enjoyed it. It might be a smidge too easy for your older ones, though. 

[8filltheheart]

For our family, painless science and history in middle school is interest driven reading, documentaries, and research. Reading through stacks of books, researching some topics more deeply, writing a paper based on their research, supplementing with documentaries......everyone is happy bc they are interested and engaged.

[BlsdMama]

14 hours ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

For our family, painless science and history in middle school is interest driven reading, documentaries, and research. Reading through stacks of books, researching some topics more deeply, writing a paper based on their research, supplementing with documentaries......everyone is happy bc they are interested and engaged.

This is precisely what we've done for 18 years. 

This year I just want "do the next thing" science and history, for the sake of my sanity.  I know it's the right thing to do.  Will I do it? Probably not.  First I'll buy actual textbooks.  Then I'll look at them and decide they need spiced up.  Then I'll probably make some awful extensive list of reading material, correlate videos, plan a few labs, followed by color-coded excel spreadsheets with cool check-off boxes.  Then, by 1/4 of the way through the school year I'll ask myself, why didn't I just go with d@mn textbooks because it would alleviate the guilt over not doing the extensive list that isn't getting done because I have (once again) overbooked myself with extracurricular involvement.

I'm attempting to circumnavigate that fiasco.  

[alisoncooks]

We really liked AGS history this year. We did the US History but there's also World Hist. and US Government texts available. https://www.wiesereducational.com/products/ags-united-states-history-mm8041.htm (they have samples here)

My oldest used Glencoe Science (level green) this past year. We liked it because it was a simple overview of general science topics (we landed there after abandoning Apologia Gen Science).  https://www.mheducation.com/prek-12/program/glencoe-science-level-green2008/MKTSP-QIF11M02.html?page=1&sortby=title&order=asc&bu=seg (link shows the table of contents)

Both books above I bought very inexpensively on Amazon. I think they'd be perfect for the ages/levels you need. 

[hollyhock2]

I think I would also suggest God's Design science, or Berean Builders, or even doing Apologia's General science text. For history, I would say Notgrass, Mystery of History or The World's Story set from Master Books. Even Story of the World could work if you do Volumes 3 or 4. All of those are open and go, do the next lesson, and I also happen to like them all. 🙂

Edited August 2, 2019 by hollyhock2

[kbutton]

On 7/30/2019 at 8:50 AM, BlsdMama said:

Open and go - do the next thing, however it should be worded.  I just need a text/workbook style science and history for middle school kids.  Ideally, I'd love to combine my three 6th-9th graders this year and my 9th has learning challenges.  Suggestions?  Obviously CC is just fine, preferred.

For science, consider Rainbow Science. It's a two-year course. The 9th grader might need an additional text or supplement of some kind (they recommend using it in one year for 9th graders and it's on the light side for that, but you can google articles about it for pros and cons). You can get lab kits with all the stuff you need, and if you can get a used kit, you can get refills for consumables (they even have an option for just the chemicals, but you have to call them). Someone on the boards is selling some Rainbow Science stuff.

It's intended to be mostly independent for the students. With 2-3 students doing it together, I bet it would be FUN. 

I have not yet used this, but the more I look at it, the happier I am. We bought the text and first year lab stuff used. I had some questions about the lab kit (trying to figure out if I could replace a couple of chemicals on my own, easily), and the response was thorough and quick.

https://www.beginningspublishing.com/

My SIL likes Berean Builders and Apologia General Science. I think BB would not be enough for your 9th grader. 

My older son liked Notgrass middle school stuff--the volume and quality of pictures was important to him. Kiddo #2 will try one of the series this year, and we'll see if he likes it. I agree that it would be good for combining that age range, though Uncle Sam would definitely be too easy for 9th. The other two are probably something you could make work for 9th. 

You might do a geography year and use Ellen McHenry's Mapping the World with Art. It's about the history of map-making and exploring. There are videos for the drawing (and also step-by-step directions in the text). They could probably do the art projects on their own with the included instructions, or you could skip those. It includes games. You probably need to add some things to make it a full year for the 9th grader, but there are TONS of podcasts on Stuff You Missed in History Class that correlate with the readings. About 90% of their podcasts are fine for kids without me previewing. Most of the rest are still okay with me giving the kids some caveats. Once in a while, they recommend that kids don't listen or that they are going to touch on sensitive information after one of the breaks, and they'll say that up front in the episode (Kristallnacht is an example). 

[BlsdMama]

Thanks guys for the suggestions.  

I ended up opting for Sonlight guides.  I haven't used Sonlight since DD was in 7th grade (and she's graduated from college!)  However, I'm fairly confident the three of them can handle the books for Core 100.  It's largely independent.

Science I still haven't decided.  I spoke with our homeschool science teacher and she said that the oldest can do labs there.  They follow (loosely) Apologia.  I think Apologia tends to be more dense, but thinking about the computer version for the one who struggles.  I have General Science and the notebooks, so that is one consideration too.