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lapazfarm
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| Posted: June 14 2010 at 1:00am | IP Logged
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I just got a post up at my blog about the resources I've finally decided upon for high school chemistry next year.
Have a look if you like.
Battling the chemical beast
I'd love your feedback here or at the blog.
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Theresa
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Paula in MN
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You always find the best Science books....the ones that make me want to learn! Thanks for some wonderful ideas!
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 Paula
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SallyT
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Going to look now, Theresa. We're doing chem this year, and I am so in need of inspiration!
Sally
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SallyT
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Those books look fabulous. I don't know that my girl who'll be doing chemistry would be as sold on the Caveman approach as a boy would, but I love the look of it! We have the big ol' Apologia text, but I would love to find more readable supplements and "living"-type books to build in, and ways to make the course more experiential, especially for a not-very-sciency person. I hope you'll blog about your progress through the year to keep the rest of us going.
Sally
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Carole N.
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| Posted: June 14 2010 at 1:31pm | IP Logged
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We have The Joy of Chemistry and the Lab Manual. We love them. My son was inspired to become a chemist!
ETA: I purchased the lab manual on Theresa's recommendation!
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lapazfarm
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Carole, can you share a bit about how your son is using the books, especially the Joy of Chemistry? Isn't he doing it in a sort of coop setting, or with friends if I remember correctly?
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Theresa
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Donna Marie
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My 3 eldest (16,16dds, and will be 15yods this fall) are doing Joy of Chemistry with a group of friends. The dad has to teach his son and so he decided his son needed to catch more excitement from a group and invited a few more into their home one day a week for a few hours. so far it is working out well..they just started and will have 2 more classes and will pick up again in the fall...works well for this very pregnant mama, I say!
I was going to supplement this book with more of MacBeth's recommendations and I was looking for a lab manual and I would love to see that manual you have up close and personal.
I want this to be as fun as possible for them. I heard of an Elemento game...has anyone seen it and can they recommend it??
My son is a math-science person and the girls are not. So for us, we are looking for challenging and gentle at the same time. Try and figure that one out..I am still working on it! 
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lapazfarm
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Oh, so it must be you and not Carole I remember saying that they were doing Joy of Chemistry in a group setting.
Anything you want to know about the lab manual, let me know I'll be glad to share if I can.
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Donna Marie
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What kind of materials will I have to purchase to do labs with them? A scale?? what??
I need to know where I am going budget-wise this year...time for creativity in that area...
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Carole N.
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Theresa, my dh is a chemical engineer, so he has taken over the course work from me. I do monitor the progress, but my ds has been reading the Joy of Chemistry along with some of MacBeth's recommendations. The lab book came along a bit after we started and it really inspired my son. Unfortunately, we have had a hard time finding some of the chemicals required. And they cannot be shipped from the States.
But currently, they do the little experiment in the book keeping it in the lab notebook. The lab manual goes into great detail about how to set up the notebook. He reads the chapter and discusses it with his dad. There are tests and then we supplement with the lab manual experiments when we can locate the supplies necessary. We have created some of our own experiments which has been quite interesting.
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Angie Mc
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Theresa, I have nothing to add other than...
We delegated out Chemistry to the local community college and I found it to be lackluster. One of the few moments when I thought, "Gee, maybe we should have done this at home." Sooooooooo, there's a very good chance that I'll be back in a few years to check out all this good stuff for Aiden  .
Thanks for sharing.
Love,
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Mackfam
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Bumping. 
Theresa,
Any thoughts after your year of Chemistry with Superboy? And in reflection and hind sight - what did you think of the lab manual you used for the year? Were materials fairly accessible? Labs laid out in understandable format?
How about other thoughts to add on The Joy of Chemistry? Living? Readable?
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Kristie 4
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Not Theresa... but we used some of the things she did.
-The Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: These labs were super- but also super expensive. Could be easier on your side of the border, but we had a hard time accessing the chemicals. Some were quite heavy on the math (so mostly just my dd did them- my ds wanted more of a 'booky' chemistry course!)
-The Joy of Chemistry: WE LOVED THIS!! I took chem. throughout University and learned alot from this book. My liberal arts loving ds loved this- my math minded daughter opted for a text full of the more mathy chemistry.
What we ended up doing was doing the Illustrated Guide experiments every few weeks but interspersing it with some of the demos. from The Joy and other labs that had more easily accessible materials.
My son really enjoyed Napolean's Buttons and both kids fell in love with The Disappearing Spoon.
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Kristie 4
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Oh, and we found the Joy of Chemistry very readable and living!!
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Mackfam
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Great feedback, Kristie! Thank you!!!
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Jen Mackintosh
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Kristie 4
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One more thing: Barb at Harmony Art (I think that is the name) had some great ideas in the chemistry planning she did for her kids.
Hereis the link.
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Kristie in Canada
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lapazfarm
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Last year was an oddball year and nothing went as planned because we moved TWICE during the school year. Very disruptive. But, that being said...
Caveman Chemistry was a big hit. We thought we had a kiln to use (required for several labs), but the lady who offered ended up bailing on us at the last minute, which was very frustrating because ds really enjoyed the book.
We ended up switching to Joy of Chemistry mid-year and that went pretty well. It isn't the meatiest of texts, but for someone like my son who isn't all that into math/science it was just fine. The labs/demos are very do-able with easy to find materials. We gathered everything we needed ahead of time (and I mean everything--even down to plastic cups and spoons, paper towels,and paper clips!LOL!) and kept it all in a bin so we wouldn't be stuck not being able to do a lab because of not having the right materials. That made things run pretty smoothly.
We ended up not even needing the extra lab book. Again, all of the moving realy took a chunk out of last year so we didn't get nearly as much done as we would have liked.
If I had it to do over I'd definitely keep the Caveman Chemistry and make a super effort to find a kiln to use. That book is just so neat. Joy of Chem was a nice, easy back-up plan, but it just doesn't have the pizazz of Caveman Chem.
However...
My next chem student (in 6 years) will be a girl and I'm not so sure she will appreciate the appeal of the Caveman!LOL! So most likely for her, the Joy of Chem will be the way we will go.
Does that help at all???
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Yes! Tremendously! My 11th grade dd needs two more terms of Chemistry to have enough to complete a full credit for high school and with yours and Kristie's feedback I'm settled on a basic course that seems very doable.
lapazfarm wrote:
| The labs/demos are very do-able with easy to find materials. We gathered everything we needed ahead of time (and I mean everything--even down to plastic cups and spoons, paper towels,and paper clips!LOL!) and kept it all in a bin so we wouldn't be stuck not being able to do a lab because of not having the right materials. That made things run pretty smoothly. |
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I'm thrilled to hear this! I'll work on consolidation of needed lab equipment, too.
I've got Joy of Chemistry and we'll work on labs from the book as you and Kristie mentioned doing, and then the Khan Academy Biology lectures went over so well this year, that she'll probably complete the Khan Academy Chemistry lecture series.
I plan on supplementing with Chemistry of Mythbusters and hope that some additional labs might spring from this (I know there were more Chemistry based myths than this! Need to double check my list!) and (finishing) viewing the University of Nottingham Periodic Table of Videos.
Thank you ladies, for your wonderful input!
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Kristie 4
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We also used the Khan academy lectures as well as the Periodic Table of Videos. The first we used as an alternative to the text for my dyslexic dd and the second we interspersed here and there for fun. I must admit that the Khan lectures are done so well that my much younger son was filling shells like it was a piece of cake!
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Kristie in Canada
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Topic: Chemistry
