Going on a Safari (with Apologia that is)

. . . of the 6th day that is.
"We are going on a safari. A safari is where we go across a stretch of land. You see lots of things like snakes, tracks of animals and lots of other things!" ~ Nathan
We miss Apologia, so I realized that we can just make the switch back. (What a revelation).
I also realized that it was time to break up the boys. Jordan needs to move up a level. So, Nathan and Dylan are continuing on with Zoology 3 and Jordan will do Apologia General Science. I will share more about what Jordan is doing as we finish module 1 (which is about 4 weeks long).
I won't post weekly about science, but I will mention what we are working on in our highlights post.
So, for my middle boys, we are going on a safari with Apologia Elementary's Exploring Creation with Land Animals of the 6th Day. This week we designed our notebook cover (Nathan's is pictured above) and completed the notebooking pages from Notebooking2Learn Science yahoo group. The pages are cute with a newspaper layout to them.
Inside this weeks issue:
  • God Made the Animals
  • Predators and Prey
  • Creation Confirmation
  • Studying Animals
  • Habituation
  • Animal Careers
  • Zoologist
  • Pet Careers
We did a fun little experiment to learn about Natural Selection (not to be confused with evolution). Or it can be called Survival of the Species. Nathan chose to title his experiment "Yum! Yum!" (Candy bars are a rarity in our home [on my watch that is] and were bought for this experiment, so it made for a fun first lesson).
First, they tore up several different pieces of construction paper to make an animal habitat. Second, they sorted the "animals" to make sure they had an equal number. Then they mixed the "animals" in with their habitat (the colored paper) and made their hypothesis.
The Procedure.
Nathan thought the Mr.Goodbar and the Krackel would be the easiest to spot since they were lighter in color ~ meaning they would be the first to die off because they would be easy prey for a predator. (I can't find Dylan's lab sheet as I type this, and don't remember what he hypothesized).
Then they searched for 15 seconds to see how many they find of each. (The original experiment called for 2 minutes with M&M's, but we don't eat those and the organic kind [Sunspire Drops] cost more than I want to spend.)
Of course being the predator was much fun.
Let the hunt begin.
It was a great first lesson and we are happy to be back to our "plan".

2 comments

  1. Currently we are taking a break from our Apologia studies and are using Considering God's Creation by Eagles Wings. The good change for us right now is that we're doing something hands on every lesson which seems to be a need for my youngest especially. We're really enjoying our study of the planets, but will only touch on various topics through the year. The BAD news is that we miss Apologia like crazy! Me especially...the heart of how it's written is incredible. I am feeling we need to put in some chemistry pretty soon, but I didn't see that until later for them if I'm not mistaken..

    I am glad you all have made the switch back and yes, we can do that kind of thing. I love the candy bar idea! : )

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  2. How fun! What a great lesson!

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