When we started home education, I wanted to find science that was more interesting than the anodyne science that the children had seemed to do at school at primary school age and was delighted to find Apologia Elementary.
Apologia Elementary is a Christian, home education curriculum from the US but available in the UK from Conquest books who deliver very promptly. There are books around various themes-botany, astronomy, the human body and three on zoology. Each book is meant to take about a year although we've found they take a little less. The science is in much more depth than that we had seen done at a primary age previously.
A vaguely Charlotte Mason approach is used with text which can either be read aloud or the child can read and suggestions for narration and composition. The composition ideas use a variety of formats. The books are said to be suitable from ages 5-12. I don't think that my five year olds would have managed these books unless they were read to them with a fair amount of explanation. We are currently using them with our 10 year old and they are ideal for him.
One of the really great things about these books is the activities. Melting chocolate with a magnifying glass was a favourite. There are activities in each chapter and they are designed to be done at home with ingredients readily available. Conquest do supply equipment for all the activities but this is fairly pricey and it isn't difficult to find the necessaries around the house.
The picture below is our salt dough model of Olympus Mons after it had erupted.
Now, a confession, we started the first term of home education using the first zoology book. Our son found it so different from school science that we changed to a more standard curriculum for a couple of terms before he asked to do science in more detail and we went happily back to Apologia. In retrospect, I would have done some sort of fairly hands on science for a term before starting Apologia. Otherwise, Apologia Elementary is something I would throughly recommend.
Thank you for the information, Sarah. Though my kids are not old enough for this, it really gets me thinking about where to even begin with curriculum selection.
ReplyDeleteOne question, though. Isn't year 5 the same as 5th grade?
My understanding was that British system is:
Reception (average age 5)
Year 1 (average age 6)
Year 2 (average age 7)
... and so on
and the corresponding USA grade is:
Kindergarten (same average ages as above)
1st Grade
2nd Grade
... and so on
Please correct me if I am wrong about the British system.
Have you heard of Veritas Press and the Classical Model? What do you think of these?
I'm no expert on grades but my understanding was that the British system is one year "ahead".
ReplyDeleteReception is really 4+ as children enter the year in which they will be five so a child born on 1st September will be five at the beginning of term whereas one born in July will be four most of the year.
I don't know much about the US system so may well be wrong-apologies if I am.
I have heard of Veritas Press and the Classical model. I haven't used any curriculum from Veriatas although looked, very recently, as a friend recommended the recitation of the history timeline. I have enjoyed "Teaching the Trivium" by Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn which is also about Christian home education using a classical model. In honesty though, we use an eclectic approach with nods to Christian classical education, Charlotte Mason and the National curriculum.
I think the age cut-offs for the different grades in the US may vary slightly by state--in my local community at least, a child must be 6 by September 1st to enter 1st grade in August. So had I enrolled my son in the public schools, he would have been in kindergarten this year, as he didn't turn 6 until October.
ReplyDelete