How do you know when a homeschooling curriculum just isn’t working for you? Listen for the words you use to describe it!
“We used Jay Wile for my two oldest. We struggled/battled/survived but it is just not working for my 9th grader. We stopped halfway through Physical Science, switched to Alpha & Omega Switched-On Schoolhouse, which wasn’t much better. I’m dreading Biology next year but will struggle through Jay Wile if there is nothing else out there for the non-Science family.”
Struggled, battled, and barely survived? Those words indicate it was a curriculum mismatch!
I love Apologia, but I recognize it isn’t for everyone. I have heard more complaints about physical science and general science than I have heard about their biology, chemistry and physics. It may be just that particular BOOK that wasn’t good. Biology, chemistry and physics are so different from one another, it’s very easy to love one of them and loathe the other two! Don’t completely give up hope on the other Apologia books.
Apologia is a textbook curriculum. Another option is Beginnings Publishing’s Spectrum Chemistry. It’s a little bit more experiment based, and less focused on reading.
You can search for a science that is interesting to your children. Check out or call HomeScienceTools.com to find other options.
You might consider taking a year to learn a science that truly interests your children; astronomy, geology,botany, electronics, crime scene investigation, or computer science, for example. Then the following year, when they have forgotten how much they loathe science, you can reintroduce biology or chemistry.
For a non-sciency family, remember that you want to find something that your children can tolerate, even if they don’t end up loving it. You want to make sure they are consistent, because if they do science only sporatically they may end up hating it even more. Try to find some fun and meaningful supplements, particularly if they are kinesthetic learners. A field trip to the zoo or hospital, a hands-on first aid class, or botany lab work outside can help.
You can get the Total Transcript Solution here. Then all you have to do is implement!
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Christianbook.com Curriculum Page
Margaret says:
Yes! Not everything is a good fit for everyone. This is why I sometimes hesitate to recommend curriculum to another homeschooling mom. I know how easy it is to make a (bad) curriculum decision based on someone else’s success.
Margaret´s last [type] ..New Bible curriculum for your family
July 20th, 2010 at 7:12 am
J W says:
I’ve had a curriculum work one year, and not the next. I’ve even started to consider methods of schooling I’d previously not thought of, and methods of schooling that I’d previously dismissed out of hand. The point is – read up on methods, approaches, and get thee to a convention. I gave one of my kids a list of required subjects, some suggestions of vendors to look at for those subjects, and turned her loose at the convention. After 2-3 hours, she took me to her favorite vendors. I purchased most of her faves with no qualms, and some we negotiated. This might not work for some, but it worked very well for us.
July 21st, 2010 at 6:01 am
Barbara says:
Because one of your children may struggle with a science curriculum, please don’t rule out science as something they don’t love. Like Lee said, it could be the curriculum, not the subject. I have used Apologia with almost all four of my children. The first three loved it, but the last one struggled and there were tears with the general science so we stopped using it and have found a different curriculum. She is a great lover of science, and I didn’t want her to end up hating it and thinking science wasn’t her her thing (she is interested in science as a career choice). Curriculum, with any subject, is not a ‘one size fits all’, and the great thing about homeschooling is that we are not limited in what we use to educate our children.
October 6th, 2011 at 6:47 am
Johnne says:
I had the same problem. I found Biology 101 DVD series for my very visual learner. She loves it. The author applies each concept to every day life which is very important to my daughter. I highly recommend it. They also have Chemistry 101 and are working on Physics. I will be buying all of them.
October 13th, 2011 at 6:46 am