I’m a little ashamed to admit that I failed Chemistry the first year that I took it in high school. I had to retake it and pass so that I could even graduate. In addition to teaching Math, I’ve also been apprehensive about teaching high school Science. I’ve mentioned this in the past, but I love finding homeschool curriculum that does most of the work for me and I think I’ve found just the thing for high school science. We were given a year’s access to Fascinating Chemistry from Fascinating Education. Since this is for high schoolers and Rachelle is a freshman, she’s the lucky student for this review.
When I was in school, most students took Biology the freshman year, followed by Physical Science and then Chemistry. However, Sheldon Margulies, the creator of Fascinating Education who is also a neurologist, recommends taking Chemistry first. The baffled me to start with, but his reasoning is that all life is built from the periodic table elements. If you think about it, this makes total sense, because it’s true. This is the reason I chose the Chemistry course for this review. It’s the course I’m most intimidated by, so I figured I’d get that one out of the way.
Fascinating Chemistry is presented in 3 parts: the lesson in video format, a downloadable version of the lesson in PDF format, and a test. Chemistry contains 18 lessons in total, although there is a 19th lesson that just consists of chemistry formulas and problems. Lesson videos are broken down into slides, or topics, but move onto the next automatically.The videos are narrated by Dr. Margulies. Along with the lesson-breakdown is a tab for glossary terms for each lesson. When you click each word its definition pops up. One thing I love about the videos is if you need to stop watching your progress is saved and you can start back where you left off. This is so convenient, because if you’re like me you’re lucky to remember what happened last week. You can also see below that the viewed topics are greyed out, which is also helpful.
The lesson script is a PDF download of the lesson. It’s also broken down by slide/topic and has some graphics from the video lesson. This is so great for your child to have so they can further study the lesson. I don’t know many people who can listen to or watch something one time and remember most of the content. This allows them to highlight what they feel is important or study what they learn each day.
Tests are multiple choice. Students will enter their answer and then click to submit it. I noticed that some answers are given immediate feedback and some aren’t. After completion results are given, with options to review the quiz, print the results, or retake the quiz. A passing score is 80%.
Fascinating Chemistry is pretty simple to use, which I love. Once logged in, I can pretty much let Rach run loose with it and do as much as she wants at a time. I do print out the PDF for each lesson for her to do more studying because Rach is like me in that it’s hard for her to remember things. We take a minimum of 1 week and 1 hour per day to do each lesson since there is so much information in each one. I love that the tests can be retaken because I typically make my kids redo their work until at least 95% mastered.
If you’re looking for an easy-to-use science curriculum, you need to check out Fascinating Education for sure. They do offer some bundle discounts!
Be sure to click through to read the reviews from my fellow Crew Mates. Some folks had a chance to try Biology and some used Physics. Thanks for stopping by!
Leave a Reply