Science Fun With Apologia Swimming Creatures

Tomorrow is our co-op day for science and this year we are studying Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day, written by Jeannie Fulbright and published by Apologia. Our group gets together once a month, and we also have several children who do experiments from General Science together, as well as a couple high school students who are working their way through Chemistry. Because we only meet once a month, we generally cram the elementary science reading and note booking into the two weeks before our meeting date. This leaves the other two weeks a month to spend time on the art history that we are currently studying.

I usually read the science chapter aloud while my 6 and 10 year olds work in their notebooks, and my 4 year old colors a picture from his sister's notebook. We have purchased the companion notebooks the last few years, and although they have lots of great activities, there are almost too many.  I often end up frustrated with all the blank pages, or pushing my young students to do more writing than is necessary. I haven't resolved this issue yet but one idea would be just to pull out the pages I want and put them in sheet protectors in a three ring binder. Certainly less overwhelming than forcing my students to complete every activity.

We have been using the Junior Notebook for my 6 year old and both she and her younger brother enjoy the lovely coloring pages. Today, we read about fishes, labeled the different types of fins on the pre- drawn fish in their notebook, and then planned out our experiments for tomorrow. We will also be making tiny clay sea creatures for our ocean boxes tomorrow which has been one of my children's favorite activities so far. This has been a fun and creative way of remembering all the different types of sea creatures.

In the last three years of doing Apologia's elementary science we have had lots of fun learning about science and expanding our science vocabulary. Jeannie has done a wonderful job of writing an engaging curriculum that is easy to use and yet does a thorough job of introducing children to the amazing world that God has created.

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