Wednesday, May 19, 2010
RE: Kinetic Books
Recently, I have been pondering Algebra as I plan to get it underway this summer with my son. While poking around on the Well Trained Mind Forum I came across a product I had never herd of, Kinetic Algebra. The web site demo and downloaded the sample lesson, it looks impressive. It is set up similar to the 3rd-7th versions of Teaching Textbooks where by all the lectures, problems, solutions and samples are on line. The curriculum seems to be quite comprehensive, and I really like the immediate feedback aspect to problems solved. At the price of $34.95, no printed book, or $54.95 with a printed book, one has to wonder if this is too good to be true, well I intend to find out.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Apologia Human Atanomy and Physiology
After months of waiting, and much anticipation Jeannie Fullbright's Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology has finally arrived. This is the sixth book in her immensely popular Young Explorers series published by Apologia. All the books in this series are intended to be used for 1st-6th graders. I have found the ones I have used to be very adaptable making it an excellent choice to teach multiple children the same subject.
For my family, the appeal of this particular book is the topic, human body which is of extreme interest for my kids. They enjoyed the Astronomy, Botany, and Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day, however, their interest in studying animals began to fade fairly early on in the Swimming Creatures book. If you have children for whom animals are of particularly high interest I imagine you would have no trouble completing all of these, this just does not happen to be the case in my house.
As you would expect from Fullbight, the photos are incredible, the writing is engaging and easy to understand, yet not too simplistic for an older student. I think she does an even better job of the "creation confirmations" in this text. The book is full of them and often in an unexpected context. For instance, she informs the reader that examining the rules God gave the Israelites shows us evidence that God is real. Today we understand why the rules were given, to protect the Israelites' from germs and disease, knowledge that only He had back then.
An improvement I see in this text are the "Try This" exercises'. There are far more of them scattered throughout each chapter and I think they are of higher caliber than those in previous books. The "Try This" exercises' give this test a more hands on feeling than some of the others. Additionally, I think the labs are some of her best yet, edible cells, vinegar chicken bones, finger printing, the relationship between smell and taste, and growing bacteria to name a few.
This course comes with an accompanying course notebook. I have always printed off the notebook pages from the Apologia web site. Unfortunately, they were not available for this text so I decided rather than wing it myself I would give the notebook a try. It is very well done, containing many places to record notes, draw diagrams, label parts, answer narration questions, do copy work and play a few word games. In my estimation the course notebook seems to be deeper than what has been provided on the web site free for previous courses.
In conclusion, if you have enjoyed Fullbrights books in the past, are drawn to narration and notebooking style science this will not disapoint. However, if you are looking to cover a wide array of topics and require lots of hands on, this may not be your best bet.
For my family, the appeal of this particular book is the topic, human body which is of extreme interest for my kids. They enjoyed the Astronomy, Botany, and Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day, however, their interest in studying animals began to fade fairly early on in the Swimming Creatures book. If you have children for whom animals are of particularly high interest I imagine you would have no trouble completing all of these, this just does not happen to be the case in my house.
As you would expect from Fullbight, the photos are incredible, the writing is engaging and easy to understand, yet not too simplistic for an older student. I think she does an even better job of the "creation confirmations" in this text. The book is full of them and often in an unexpected context. For instance, she informs the reader that examining the rules God gave the Israelites shows us evidence that God is real. Today we understand why the rules were given, to protect the Israelites' from germs and disease, knowledge that only He had back then.
An improvement I see in this text are the "Try This" exercises'. There are far more of them scattered throughout each chapter and I think they are of higher caliber than those in previous books. The "Try This" exercises' give this test a more hands on feeling than some of the others. Additionally, I think the labs are some of her best yet, edible cells, vinegar chicken bones, finger printing, the relationship between smell and taste, and growing bacteria to name a few.
This course comes with an accompanying course notebook. I have always printed off the notebook pages from the Apologia web site. Unfortunately, they were not available for this text so I decided rather than wing it myself I would give the notebook a try. It is very well done, containing many places to record notes, draw diagrams, label parts, answer narration questions, do copy work and play a few word games. In my estimation the course notebook seems to be deeper than what has been provided on the web site free for previous courses.
In conclusion, if you have enjoyed Fullbrights books in the past, are drawn to narration and notebooking style science this will not disapoint. However, if you are looking to cover a wide array of topics and require lots of hands on, this may not be your best bet.
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