Find Out How to Homeschool Physical Science with Apologia

Teaching physical science to a middle schooler can be overwhelming. Apologia makes it easy with their homeschool physical science curriculum for middle school/junior high.

Middle school, or junior high, can be a tricky age to homeschool. Your children want independence, but they still need guidance. They know how to read, yet they don’t always understand what they read. Many times they try to rush through their work.

Throw in a more abstract science, such as physical science, and teaching middle school becomes downright overwhelming!

How can you homeschool physical science, while giving your child more independence with the curriculum but still offering guidance?

Apologia helps make it easy!

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post for Apologia. I received the product for review and was compensated for my time. I am not required to give a positive review and all opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.

Science isn’t always an easy subject to teach in your homeschool. With so many unfamiliar terms to learn, many science textbooks can seem dry and boring. You may notice your child’s eyes glaze over while reading because they don’t understand it.

In our homeschool, science has been a difficult subject when it comes to finding curriculum that work for our needs. I want a text that is enjoyable to read and easy to understand.

Not only that, my boys are quite active. A hands-on science curriculum with easy-to-do experiments is a must. But I’m also very busy and can’t be running all over town to find obscure materials for them. I want a curriculum with experiments that use items I probably already have at home.

Apologia Physical Science is a curriculum that fits our family’s needs. If you have children at the middle school or junior high level, then you’ll definitely want to check it out too!

How to Homeschool Physical Science for Middle School with Apologia

As I mentioned above, middle school/junior high age children want more independence in their schoolwork. However, they aren’t always ready for it and their work suffers because of that. Specifically regarding science, they can get overwhelmed because they don’t understand the scientific terms they are reading. Physical science contains more abstract concepts that children of this age aren’t familiar with, which can be confusing to understand. Middle school age kids can also find difficulty knowing what is important to remember from what they read. They need independence mixed in with some guidance.

So how do you offer that guidance? How can you use Apologia Physical Science to teach middle schoolers in a way that helps them learn to be more independent, yet also understand the more abstract concepts and unfamiliar terms?

Note-taking

One way to do that is by teaching note-taking skills. Note-taking is an extremely important study skill for children to learn before high school. Children don’t naturally know how to find what’s important to remember from text they read. They need guidance to help them figure it out and teach them how to find it on their own.

When you use the Student Notebook that corresponds to the Apologia Physical Science text, you can help your child learn those necessary note-taking skills. The Student Notebook offers prompts in the form of questions that the child can find the answers to in the text.

Daily Assignments

Not only that, the Student Notebook also helps keep your child organized, another important skill to master on the road to independence. Each section of the textbook is broken down into modules. In the Student Notebook, each of these modules is broken down further into daily assignments. The child can check off each part of the daily assignment as it’s completed in the “What to Do” section of each daily lesson.

Hands-on Experiments

Hands-on experiments that are easy enough for children to do are also important to teach independence. The Apologia Physical Science textbook and student notebook both contain step-by-step instructions to follow for each experiment. They are easy enough for your middle schooler to follow on their own. Plus the student notebook also teaches your child how to record findings from the experiments. The experiments use items you’ll find around the house so you don’t have to waste time looking for them in stores, which is so nice for busy homeschool families.

How We Use Apologia Physical Science in Our Homeschool

In our homeschool, we begin our day with a morning basket time. This includes our enrichment work, nature study, and read alouds. Then we move on to the subjects they do together, like science and history. Even though this book is meant for junior high and I’m mostly using it for my older son, my younger son joins us for the reading and experiments. He will not be using a student notebook or taking tests. Combining my children as much as I can makes homeschooling multiple ages much easier.

The Apologia text has assignments 4 days a week, which we cover Mondays through Thursdays. Since the daily assignments are listed in the Student Notebook, I simply turn to those for our daily reading. I read aloud from the text to both boys together, pausing from time to time to check for understanding and to encourage discussion. On days that we have experiments, we do those together during this time as well.

Focusing on Study Skills

Using this homeschool physical science curriculum, I’m teaching the study skill of note-taking. The Student Notebook makes it so easy to do that. In our homeschool routine, I created time in the afternoon for my boys to work independently. During my older son’s individual work time, he’ll finish his daily assignments listed in the Student Notebook, which may include rereading the book to find answers. He will also have to finish the experiment sheet on days we have those.

At the end of each module, he will need to study his notes for the test. This is something new we’re doing this year. In the past we haven’t done tests. I’ve just checked for understanding of the material through discussion. However, I want him to start learning how to study and prepare for tests, so he has tests in science and history this year. Then when he starts high school, he’ll know how to read text for understanding and how to prepare for tests. The Student Notebook makes test preparation easy with a study guide at the end of each module.

Benefits from Using Apologia Physical Science

We’ve found many benefits to using Apologia’s Physical Science book in our homeschool:

• Hands-on experiments using common items found in home help make abstract physical science concepts more concrete. Using commonly found items saves you trips to the store.
• It’s easy to teach, even if you aren’t great at science yourself. Science is not my strongest subject, but I have no problem explaining the concepts to my boys thanks to this text.
• The Student Notebook helps teach note-taking, an important study skill, in a way that children can easily understand.
• The Student Notebook also helps kids with organization by keeping the notes and experiment records in one place.
• This curriculum guides middle school children toward independence with numbered daily assignments to check off when completed.

Teaching physical science to your middle schooler doesn’t need to be overwhelming. When you use Apologia Physical Science, your child will move toward independence through note-taking and organizational tools. The text guides you as the homeschool teacher to help make physical science concepts less abstract through fun and easy hands-on experiments. You and your middle schooler will look forward to homeschool physical science everyday!