Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Need Science HELP !

I'm homeschooling this coming fall ...YEA !!
I could tell you more stories about DS correcting his teachers and how we have had to teach him to bite his tongue, but you all have similar stories so I won't bore you.

I thought I had all of his curriculum until my parents came out for a visit. As I have posted in the past my father is a retired Dean with a double PhD. I had him review the curriculum I had picked and he loved most of it except Science.
I have researched and researched this board and several homeschooling boards before I made my decision on Apologia Science. I knew it was Christian based but heard it was thorough and it had book, tests and DVD it seemed complete. DS loves to hold and read books and that was his only request when it came to picking material.

Well Dad tore it up...He said the material is good but it was not "true" in a lot of the Christan undertones. It was very slanted and that worried him.
Now Dad has a PhD in Marine Biology (MS in Bio) and his other PhD is in Theology. He is very religious but
he obviously believes in evolution and is very serious about science. Dad thinks DS should just get a freshman College text (DS will be in 6th next year) and read that.
I want something more organized and I want the material to be correct. I have been to a lot of the text review webpages and pretty much there are so many errors in the textbooks reviewed I don't know where to turn...

So Here I am again...HELP !!! :-)

What are you using with your children? What have you heard to be a GOOD program?
Thanks

My kiddo is only 8 so not at the same level. We are using Brigham Young University's middle school science courses.

How about looking into high school courses online via universities?
These are some universities that offer free science courses:
MIT, Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley, Tufts, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and UC Irvine to name a few.

Here's a thread from last year with some good discussion, MyHeartBrks:

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/43004/1.html

Have you checked the Secular Homeschool Forum? This topic comes up often there, as you might expect; here's a sticky with some suggestions:

http://www.secularhomeschool.com/threads/1241-Secular-Science-Recent-Threads

Maybe you could try some Teaching Company courses with a textbook added? Here's their site:

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/CoursesByCategory.aspx?ps=910

Here's a great blog with lots of secular science ideas:

http://farmschool.wordpress.com/science/

A couple of links for science resources (I'm pretty sure these are all secular, but I haven't seen all of them yet, so my apologies in advance if there's something inappropriate for your needs here):

http://www.middleschoolchemistry.com/
http://www.cavemanchemistry.com/index.html
http://www.bitesizephysics.com/index.html
http://www.biozone.co.nz/modular.php
http://www.singaporemath.com/Secondary_Science_s/31.htm
http://waylifeworks.jbpub.com/samplepages.cfm

Hope you find something you will like using...

peace
minnie

We like http://msnucleus.org/curriculum/curriculum.html

It's free, it starts with fairly high level concepts right from the beginning and it is very hands-on. I do suplement it with books and things from the library, but that is easy to do because we are there regularly anyway. We also add stuff we find online or whatever, but I have a science-oriented, hands-on child.

I bought one of the Apologia textbooks when I first started homeschooling, my DD made it a short distance to where they discussed the dinosaurs on Noah's ark and closed the book for good.

My DD was 6th grade last year and we did a combination of PLATO middle school sciences and Glencoe texts with independent labs. Then we moved on to high school texts and a few intro college texts. That is the continued plan for next year. We have also used some of the MIT Open Courseware for high school. My key to keeping it correct is lots of living books from lots of sources so there are differing presentations.

I think your Dad is right. My old college science texts have been by far my son's preferred materials here, even with access to more "kid friendly" and multi-media resources. He is also a fan of The Khan Academy , The Hippocampus, and Academic Earth , all of which are both organized and correct. My son is also a fan of Principles of Alchemy which is a great physical chemistry course that doesn't require high school math to complete, and it is also a lot of fun. It is set up as a series of dialogues between Merlin and young Arthur.

I hope that between all of us here you can find truly accurate materials that will work for you.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I will check them out.
Duke has a Biology program I wanted to look at... I can't seem to get Cengage to tell me if they have the book.
They placed me on hold twice then disconnected the line.
Duke of course tells me I need to contact Cengage...argh

It's my first year so I am being anal about everything. Hopefully once we get going it will be more relaxed.
DS loves Science so I think he will be self directing
Thanks again

You'll be fine, MyHeartBrks! It's a little scary at first, I found, too, but you'll hit your stride in no time, I'm sure!

And all of us are here if you need suggestions or a pep talk!

mm

I know several people that have use the Plato series with success. It's worth a look to be sure.