prentice hall science explorer questions

[bettyandbob]

I'm looking at life science for next year. This series has several books related to biology.

 

1. How many books do you cover in a year?

2. What materials do you use with the texts (workbooks, labs, etc)?

3. What about labs--are there labs in the text or just the lab manual. Are they easy to implement at home.

4. I own a good microscope. What other equipment do I need.

5. In general how have you used this program with your children.

 

Thanks

[Peggy in Va]

I'm looking at life science for next year. This series has several books related to biology.

 

Thanks

 

We will be using this series for Life science next year.

 

1. How many books do you cover in a year?

 

The separate books that make up the "life science" portion are From Bacteria to Plants, Animals, Human Biology and Health, Environmental Science, and Cells and Heredity. Our ps uses this in 7th grade, so all of these individual books would need to be covered.

 

2. What materials do you use with the texts (workbooks, labs, etc)?

 

While there are lab books, guided reading books, etc., the only other material that I have purchased so far has been a series of tapes that go with the book. I found it used, but I'm pretty sure you can get this from PH.

 

3. What about labs--are there labs in the text or just the lab manual. Are they easy to implement at home.

 

Labs are in the texts. However,I also have a teachers manual which gives the predicted outcome.

 

4. I own a good microscope. What other equipment do I need.

 

As we have not actually started the series I can't really answer this. I think the only "equipment" would be a microscope, of course you would need supplies for the experiments. I would like to find a microscope though. That would be really fun.

 

5. In general how have you used this program with your children.

 

Again, we haven't started yet. Perhaps someone who has will chime in.

 

Here is a link to a recent thread discussing Science Explorer

 

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93350

 

HTH

[kangato3]

How many books you cover depends on how you want to pace the program. We are covering about 4 this year.

 

At a minimum, I would suggest the Guided Reading and Study worksheets. They are an excellent tool for the student. The teacher's manual can be helpful because it has all the answers to the text's assessment questions as well as expected outcomes for the text labs.

 

Because I intend to use this program for 3 years with 3 kids, I invested in the Teacher's Express CD-ROM ($199). It's expensive, but includes the teacher's manual for ALL of the series, all of the Guided Reading worksheets, lab worksheets, chapter tests, etc. I won't need any other resource other than the students texts for the entire series.

 

Most of the labs are in the student text. The Teachers Express, mentioned above, does contain an additional Laboratory Investigation for each chapter. I find these laboratory investigations to be excellent, often with a little more depth than the other labs. Even without those labs, the student text has plenty of excellent labs, most of which are easy to implement. Many posters has mentioned a Lab EZ Planner CD, which they also found helpful.

 

Since you own a microscope, you'll be able to take advantage of the labs that utilize one. I would just look through the labs to see what type of slides are suggested. We don't own a microscope, and have found plenty of labs that didn't require one.

 

The way we use the program is to devote 4 days to text work and 1 day to lab work each week. For text work, my dd reads the lesson and does the Guided Reading worksheet independently. We then orally go through the section assessment questions. Once the chapter is completed, we have a day for chapter review and then next day is chapter test. For lab day, I pick a lab related to the topics read that week.

 

I have found this program to work well with my dd, and I am grateful to the other posters who have educated me on how to use this series. I'm sure other posters will chime in.

 

Louise

[Sunshine State Sue]

I'm looking at life science for next year. This series has several books related to biology.

 

1. How many books do you cover in a year?

2. What materials do you use with the texts (workbooks, labs, etc)?

3. What about labs--are there labs in the text or just the lab manual. Are they easy to implement at home.

4. I own a good microscope. What other equipment do I need.

5. In general how have you used this program with your children.

 

Thanks

 

We use SE in conjunction with Exploration Education or TOPS, so we only cover 1-2 in a year. It seems like 3-4 is normal.

 

I buy the teacher's manual and the guided reading and study workbook. If you email me, I will send you a sample of the workbook.

 

There are labs in the student book. The expected outcome is in the teacher's manual, along with a list of what you need for every lab. The teacher's manual also contains the answers for the section assessments. The answers for the workbook are only in an expensive All-in-One Teacher's manual.

 

This is what we do for each chapter:

Day 1 - ds reads Section 1 and does the corresponding workbook page.

Day 2 - ds reads Section 2, does corresponding workbook page, and Section 1's section assessment (for review purposes).

Day 3 - ds reads Section 3, does corresponding workbook page, and Section 2's section assessment.

etc.

After all sections for chapter have been read, ds takes a day to do the final section assessment and whatever labs we can muster. :D

Final day for chapter, ds does chapter assessment.

[Sunshine State Sue]

:tongue_smilie:

Edited April 15, 2009 by Sue in St Pete