The Edible Cell Project

IIn trying to keep with the more hands-on biology, we recently finished the Incredible Edible Cell project and had a lot of fun creating & sampling our hard work.

Armed with all kinds of goodies, we began constructing our plant & animal cells.



Such a great student!



 

The finished projects

Apologia Anatomy = HS Health?...

One of my favorite resources is yahoo groups. One of my favorite groups is the Apologia elementary science group where Jeannie Fulbright (the author) actively participates. This week during a thread regarding her newest text, Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and learned that it qualifies for a 1/2 credit in high school health.

I have always enjoyed her books and love the notebooks we create throughout the year. This is encouraging to see that I can continue to double up sources for my children and still supply what is needed during the high school years.

The Mad Scientist

APOLOGIA SCIENCE

This year my middle daughter and I are tackling Apologia Physical Science. There is a bit of excitement for me this time around because I have already taught this class once before! At the beginning of the year I pulled out my old files and found my lesson plans; printed my file of On Your Own questions, study guide questions, and the module summary; and prepared her science notebook.

We cover one module every two weeks leaving time to work on labs. However labs has been the hardest part for me. We thoroughly enjoy doing them but often I find myself scrambling around at the last minute and then muddling through the lab report portion. So today I went to my favorite place for inspiration...Google. In my quest, I revisited an old favorite http://www.donnayoung.org/ and found some helpful lab report resources. From there I found a link to a lab report blog.

Here are a few highlights:

• Name: first & last


• Date


• Experiment # & title


• Materials


• Method/Procedure


• Results


• Drawing/Charts


• Conclusion - what you have learned

I believe that modeling is the best way to learn and this helps builds the proper foundation for the higher sciences. Another fun tool is powerpoint. Using the study guide as my guide we use different slides to illustrate and discuss the main ideas. Yes, I am a technology/gadget nerd so I look for all kinds of opportunities to merge my passions with homeschooling.