Apologia Exploring Creation with General Science 2nd Edition Lapbook Journal Printed

Apologia Science courses are written from a Biblical worldview with the homeschool in mind. At the elementary level, courses follow a Charlotte Mason-inspired methodology, with lessons organized around narration, notebooking exercises and hands-on activities or projects. Children at different ages can use these together, learning at their own level. Each course is designed to be teacher-student interactive, so teacher involvement is fairly high at this level. At the junior high and high school levels, science courses are more traditional in nature, with the textbook written to the student. Teacher involvement time at this level is much less than at the elementary level. Textbooks contain student reading, lab instructions, "On Your Own" questions and Study Guide questions. A Solutions Manual provides the answers to these and the test questions. Lab kits are available separately for both the elementary and upper-level science courses which include most of the harder to find items you will need.

If the read-the-book, answer-the-questions, write-the-lab-report approach won't work with your student, you might want to incorporate a lapbook journal into your Apologia course. Research has shown that the more senses a student uses when learning and reviewing new material, the more he will retain. Lapbook Journals take the basic academic requirements needed for these courses and add a hands-on element. These journal projects provide On Your Own journal pages, Study Guide booklets, and Lab Report forms designed to be prepared, placed in a three-ring binder and reviewed often. On Your Own journal pages, printed on white paper, provide lined space for writing the answers for the short sets of questions interspersed within each module of each course. Decorative borders and pleasing graphic layout of the questions encourage the student to give more complete answers. The Lab Report pages provide a consistent and orderly means of recording the course labs. These sheets are printed on both sides with supplies, introductions, and procedures on one side and observations, diagrams, and summary on the other. These sheets are offered in two formats - one which has all the information for the supplies, introduction, and procedures provided and one where the student must supply this information. Both formats require the student to complete the observations and summary and to supply needed diagrams. The On Your Own and Lab Report forms provide a unifying and orderly way of recording information. What really separates the Lapbook Journals from ordinary course completion are the many booklets provided as a means of supplying the answers to the Study Guide questions. After all, what are you more likely to remember, writing out the answer in boring black and white or making a brightly colored booklet to iconize the information?

Like their younger Lapbook cousins, the Lapbook Journals come in three formats - printable CD-ROMs, interactive CD-ROMs or pre-printed packs. The CD-ROMs supply all of the forms in pdf format so you can print them out as needed or for multiple students. Interactive CD-ROMs give the student the ability to type in answers to the forms prior to printing. The pre-printed book contains all forms for all modules printed out and ready to fill in and assemble. Both versions require a three-inch, three-ring binder, glue, scissors, metal brad fasteners and ribbon (if desired), and staples. The pre-printed version requires white cardstock (100 - 200 sheets) for the booklet background pages (master is provided). The CD-ROMs require regular white copy paper (I would prefer 24# for the two-sided lab reports), colored paper (again, brightly colored 24# seems best), and white cardstock. One quirk in the CD-ROM (to my way of thinking) is that each module is presented as a single pdf. This makes it easy to print them out module by module although it may be a bit frustrating because different types of paper are required for different parts of the pdf. However, if you wanted to have only one print session for the year and print everything out at once it would be even more frustrating since you would have to open each module and print a few pages of each for one type of paper. It seems there could be some improvements on the organizational structure of the CD-ROM. Note: the CD-ROM license allows you to make as many copies as you need for your own family but does not allow for sharing between families or using in a co-op. A co-op license can be obtained from the publisher's website. One booklet for each Study Guide question is a lot of booklets. Some students might tire of the projects or be overwhelmed at the prospect. Not to worry. The author makes it very clear that you (or your student) are in charge of this project and you can pick and choose which booklets you wish to make. There are complete directions and some pictures for making the booklets. The author assures us that soon pictures of every booklet will be available for viewing on her website. Please note that there are separate Lapbook Journals for the 1st ed and the 2nd ed of each of these courses. Be sure to order the Journal that corresponds to the edition that you are using. ~ Janice