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This year I am teaching jr. high science to Rosie and our co-op using Apologia’s Physical Science Text.

I really like the student workbook that goes with this text and told my students that this was my preferred lab book. To my surprise, almost everyone in my class bought one!  I just think it helps the student to be more organized and think about the work more thoroughly.

Last year when I taught General Science, I discovered some things in the notebook that were not covered in the text!! So to my mind, that gives the Student Notebook extra value!

Last week, my class of 11 students met for the first time. To my surprise, only 3 of those students are from my General Science Class. Of the ones that did not return:

  • One had already taken Physical Science from another teacher before General Science. It was time for her to move on to high school science. 
  • Two were 9th graders and felt compelled to take Biology instead of Physical Science. 
  • Two moved away – which I really felt bad about because they were delightful students!
  • One student and I just didn’t click, so the family decided not to sign up for my class, but I wish them only continued success as the year progresses in 8th-grade science at home. 
So I have a practically new class to get to know. Some of them are new to the co-op so they are totally brand new to me. It will be fun getting to know them all as the year goes on. One of my students that moved away said, “I like science because I love history!”  I always tried to include some historical fact for him every week. I’m going to miss that, although I am tempted to try to include as much history as I possibly can. This week I have a great video about measurement and the St. Louis Arch for them to watch on our class Youtube Channel. 
I developed a syllabus and we’ll be sticking to the timeline pretty closely. Since I will be trying to provide as many of the supplies as possible I did ask for a $30 lab fee. I think that should be reasonable, although last year I know I still bought a lot of things out of pocket – like my hot plate,  that was hopefully a one-time capital investment. 
Last week, we broke down H2O into hydrogen and oxygen atoms using electrical energy. At the same time, we made copper hydroxycarbonate using the copper from our wires and baking soda in the water. It was a lot of fun and a great first experiment. 
This week, we are going to have to spend more time on learning to do conversions in the metric system and we have two measurement studies. I have links on our Youtube page to help the students and also a workbook page for extra practice. 
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If you’d like the syllabus and access to the Youtube Channel, sign up for my newsletter to get the links to both!

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