I wrote in August that we were sticking with the Activate 2 Student Book and adding in the Activate 2 workbook as our main Science resource, so I thought I would give a quick update on how we are progressing.
We have started with the Biology section and my daughter has decided to do the Biology section independently. Now I am going to admit that Biology is my daughter’s favourite Science and she does know a fair bit of biology already so she is quite confident when it comes to Biology. Her decision to do Biology independently (although in all truth it is not totally indpendently because she talks to us about what she is learning and we discuss it but she is working through the books by herself) was a bit if a surprise. But I like encouraging them to research and work on topics that they like so we are going with it.
So the way we are working through the Biology section is as follows. She reads the pages in the Student book, sometimes comes and chats to me about something interesting and then she first completes the Foundation workbook page and then the Higher workbook page. She checks her answers herself and if there is an issue (very rare that there is) she comes and talks to me about it. She is really enjoying doing it this way and is actually working through the pages a lot quicker then I had expected. She has told me that the questions in the Foundation workbook are very easy but she likes doing them first because it is quick refresh of what she has read.
Biology is definitely one of the subjects that my daughter enjoys so she does do extra reading (she often takes out human biology books from the library) and we do look for documentaries that we can watch together. She is also a very conscientious kid so I know that if she is getting questions wrong or not understanding she will come to me (she has often marked her own work in the past she always brings examples that she did not get correct to me so we can work through them).
I also think that the Activate 2 range works well for this more independent style because the Student Books are well written, they do not dump a lot of confusing information all at once. The kids can read them bit by bit and they gradually build up in a clear and logical manner. The workbooks are also perfectly linked to the student book. For every double page in the student book that she reads there is also a question page in the workbook and the workbooks have the answers at the back.
Do I think we will continue the whole year in this manner? No, we will work through Physics and Chemistry together. She does not enjoy those two and is not confident with them.
That being said. I love this. I love that she is working through Biology independently, she is taking more control over her own learning and is enjoying doing it this way. And I am thankful that we have found some Science resources that are encouraging her to do this.
For more detailed posts about what is included in the individual books you can read these posts – Activate 2 Student Book, Activate 2 Workbooks.
ofamily learning together 