Christopher said he’s getting bored with the elementary school science lessons we’ve been doing and he wants something more challenging. Awhile back I had looked at the BYU Independent Study college courses and saw they have Bio 110 and a certain text. I checked Paperback Swap and why look – there it is! Seemed like a good reference book so I picked it up, and Christopher decided he wants that to be his text for the next year.

Looking through it while the vocabulary is obviously advanced, it’s really not horribly over his head – he asks me when he doesn’t know a word but it defines most everything. The chapters aren’t too long and have review sections, self testing, etc. We’ve decided to try doing one chapter a week together, and the other kids listen in – I’m surprised at how much they (a) already know (b) are picking up despite the advanced vocabulary. We had a great discussion today and I’m really excited for what we’ll be learning together.

And a free college textbook is always great! It’s an older edition but I’m not worried, by the time they take this for college credit I’m sure there will be a few more editions out. Rather than giving them the super simple (and boring) version of biology let’s just give them the big stuff and see how they do!