My Apologies Apologia

I have to start by saying that I LOVE this Science curriculum. As a matter of fact, I love them so much that when you combine that, with my very small, practically insignificant desire to purchase and collect curriculum (some might call it an addiction, but as you can see by my description, that certainly doesn't fit), you will find that I have already bought 5 of the books. If you don't know what that means... it is equivalent to approximately 5 years of topics including Botany, Health and Anatomy, Astronomy, and 2 years of Animal Science.

However, as a homeschool mom, one of many important lessons and benefits I am learning along the way is flexibility. I have the "power" to say when something isn't working for us and then I have the "power" again to change it. Wow! Having the power is cool, using it is slightly harder for me. I don't like change and I also really enjoy doing what I say I'm going to do...you know checking it off my list. However in a conversation with a friend of mine recently after listening to me whine about how bad we were doing in Science... she said simply this "You might not just be an Apologia kind of family". Ouch...that hurt! However she is right...for now.

A few years ago I was introduced to the concepts of lapbooking and notebooking. Honestly, my first thought was to literally "spare my kids the busy work" that to me looked like it went along with this type of program. Somehow an opportunity came up to try one and I quickly learned that they think it is the "coolest thing ever." I did what any normally sane homeschooling mom would do...I decided to add a little bit of it in with what I had planned since they did enjoy it so much. (control freak alert....)

So, my original plan for Science this year was to do 2 weeks of Apologia then 2 weeks of notebooking animals that we all decided we wanted to learn more about. That didn't last long, because we quickly once again, fell off the Apologia plan. I even tried Astronomy this year as I heard that was a lot more fun than the Botany I already tried. We did keep up with our notebooking plan though which is a good thing.

Many people have benefited from my lack of follow through on these books and I have lent them out to families that are embracing them and loving them as much as I know we will one day. I do plan to try again and I know when we are ready they will be awesome!

Since first semester is almost over, I thought I would post something Connor and Brody are VERY proud of. I bound up 5 of the animals they have worked on so far this year into one big notebook and they just love looking at it. So....here you have it...Bears, Cats, Dinosaurs, Lions & Wolves! Not bad if I do say so myself;)

Here is what the kitchen island looks like during one of the many creation stages...

This morning I put a challenge before them. After a short unit we are doing on The Human Body, I have asked them to come up with something THEY want to learn about...could be an animal or maybe not? Anyway, they are going to create the "notebook" on their topic from start to finish, no preprinted sheets this time. They are also going to do separate topics, and research and read on their own. They seem to be up for it and excited which is great! I can't wait to see what they do.