Farrar Posted March 27, 2023 Share Posted March 27, 2023 (edited) Okay hive, help me (or, really, this kid who is not mine who I'm helping) out here. Chemistry must happen. Ideally it needs to be a decent chemistry course with some sort of lab component. But it also needs to be cheap. As cheap as possible. And it needs to be as parent hands off as possible. Involved parent, but low bandwidth for something like chemistry. Kid is motivated and capable, but doesn't have a track record for self-driven courses (newer at homeschooling). What would be your suggestion? If you've had a kid do the GPB program, do you think it's something the student in the situation I'm describing above could realistically do without a lot of parental guidance? Can you think of something even more straightforward? Edited March 28, 2023 by Farrar 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freesia Posted March 27, 2023 Share Posted March 27, 2023 Has the parent done Chemistry? I hadn’t and it was impossible for me to jump in and help when my oldest was taking it online. It worked best for me to read the book to my other ds. It only took 20 minutes a day. We used Apologia, but something like Holt might work with a QSL lab kit—but maybe cut down the amount of labs in this case. (And that won’t be cheap. The Apologia labs were generally inexpensive, but may not match the worldview your people need.) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverMoon Posted March 28, 2023 Share Posted March 28, 2023 I used GPB with two kids at the same time. One barely cared but took pride in rocking all the math and the other was pretty interested in chemistry but not great at sticking to a schedule if left to his own devices. It would not have worked well to just hand it to them. They didn't need me daily but often enough. I remember one spot about halfway through through the stronger math student was properly stuck and took us all down with her. 🤐 We used Crash Course and/or Boseman videos to get over that hump, iirc. I don't have a suitable replacement to offer though. The last ones aren't there yet. The updated CK12 book seems to get decent reviews? I don't have any experience with it. That would be a free download. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kokotg Posted March 28, 2023 Share Posted March 28, 2023 I haven't done it, but GA virtual school course material is all available free online, and it looks like the chemistry course incorporates the GPB material but adds in more complete lessons: https://gavirtual.instructure.com/courses/2690 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notagoodfitafterall Posted March 28, 2023 Share Posted March 28, 2023 Have you looked at ck12? We're looking at it and coordinating videos of most of the labs. I would add in some living books like The Chemical History of a Candle. The chemical history of a candle, a course of lectures delivered before a juvenile audience at the Royal Institution; : Faraday, Michael, 1791-1867 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive Honestly, if you can spend anything, I would get That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles or The Disappearing Spoon. There's a free audiobook for each with an Audible trial. Used they go for as little as $5 each with shipping. I know that's a lot sometimes, though, so don't feel they're necessary. For labs, what is the budget you're looking at? On an absolutely nothing budget, I would stick with videos. I would hesitate to recommend anything else without a price range. This guide from Apologia might be helpful for writing a lab report, whether doing or watching them. How to Write a Lab Report - Apologia You might also find the introduction to keeping a lab notebook in the free preview here helpful. Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture (DIY Science): Robert Bruce Thompson: 0636920514923: Amazon.com: Books 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arctic Bunny Posted March 28, 2023 Share Posted March 28, 2023 1 hour ago, kokotg said: I haven't done it, but GA virtual school course material is all available free online, and it looks like the chemistry course incorporates the GPB material but adds in more complete lessons: https://gavirtual.instructure.com/courses/2690 Thank you for this! Possibly exactly what I needed at this very moment! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roadrunner Posted March 28, 2023 Share Posted March 28, 2023 https://www.chemistryprep.com I haven’t used but ran into it when a friend was looking for Chem help. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notagoodfitafterall Posted March 28, 2023 Share Posted March 28, 2023 Also, if you really want a hands-on lab component, you might want to look at kids resources. A lot of times, they require mostly household supplies. A Drop of Water by Walter Wick comes to mind, and I've recently found it for $2 used plus shipping. You'll likely still want to include videos of high school level experiments, but at least it's something? As an aside, the local school district here has banned labs due to "safety" (read: cost), so if all your budget allows is a free text and videos of labs, there's no reason to feel guilty. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HomeAgain Posted March 28, 2023 Share Posted March 28, 2023 We did Classical Science (Mr. Q) Advanced Chem one year. The labs are household items, it's a rigorous text, and it's pretty cheap. You're just better off having as much as possible on an E-reader and only printing the lab sheets due to the sheer amount of color needed for the rest. DS did it at age.....13 or 14, and then took a standard public school class 2 years later. Everything was review and didn't go nearly as in depth. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notagoodfitafterall Posted March 28, 2023 Share Posted March 28, 2023 https://periodictable.com/theelements/pages.html This is a reproduction of the author's physical book. It's in Sabbath Mood Homeschooling's schedule for chemistry. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KimberlyW Posted March 28, 2023 Share Posted March 28, 2023 Elemental Science is offering their Chemistry for the Rhetoric Stage manual for free. It uses the CK12 textbook, which is also free. If you were to buy their suggested lab kit, you would only be out $160 (free shipping through the end of this month) and have an easy to follow weekly schedule at survey, regular, or honors level depending on their needs. https://elementalscience.com/collections/rhetoric-stage-science/products/chemistry-for-high-school-ebook-guide 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted March 28, 2023 Author Share Posted March 28, 2023 I didn't think about Mr. Q or Elemental. Those are good suggestions. Hmm... I wonder if those are better or worse than using the GPB program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoo Keeper Posted March 28, 2023 Share Posted March 28, 2023 We enjoyed using The Engineer Guy's free videos and workbook as part of the chemistry lab credit. He uses Farday's book and adds videos and commentary. https://engineerguy.com/faraday/ We also used TOPS units as part of the lab credit-- easy to do independently at home. https://topscience.org/collections/chemistry We used Conceptual Chemistry as the textbook, and some of videos that go with it... https://conceptualacademy.com/textbook/conceptual-chemistry Older editions of Conceptual Chem were very cheap on the used market. And we read The Disappearing Spoon, (here it is on archive.org), Napoleon's Buttons, (also on archive.org), books by Theodore Gray (Elements, Molecules, Reactions-- archive.org to the rescue), and watched Hunting the Elements and the Making Stuff series from NOVA (youtube or PBS site/app). No, it was not AP or Honors level, but it was fun and didn't kill my not science motivated student and didn't kill me, the I-never-took-chemistry-because-I-was-artsy parent/teacher/facilitator. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ishtare Posted March 31, 2023 Share Posted March 31, 2023 I haven't used any of these yet, but I know they're all free and maybe something will be useful for you: MIT OpenCourseware Highlights for High School Alison High School Chemistry: Matter and Intermolecular Forces Alison High School Chemistry: General, Organic, and Nuclear Chemistry Georgia Virtual Learning Chemistry I Annenberg Learner Chemistry: Challenges and Solutions Xaktly The World of Chemistry Video Series Glencoe Chemistry Lab Manuals Flinn Scientific Lab Activities and Experiments ACS Virtual Chemistry and Simulations 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BusyMom5 Posted April 1, 2023 Share Posted April 1, 2023 I did get a Chem set, but if you are on a tight budget maybe look at using stuff around your house. Ice cream, hard candy, caramel- lots of candy, pretzels, scents in balloons, roasting marshmallows, splitting water molecules with a wire and battery. Mix salt and pepper together, the dissolve in water and strain to separate. Pintrest should have lots of ideas using things you already have in your house- we did a LOT of stuff in our kitchen. If you have Legos, those are also very handy to 'build' molecules and illustrate chemical formulas. We used Bozeman Science and Tyler DeWitt on YT. Some kids like Crash Course, but my kids didn't really like it. We watched the Nova and PBS shows mentioned above. Modern Marvels sometimes has some chemistry in it as well. Our textbook is Zumdahl World of Chemistry and I find it a relatively easy read as far as Chemistry goes- older versions are cheap used! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.