Tony Silva

Friendly Chemistry
http://www.friendlychemistry.com
$75 for Student Edition; $60 for Teacher’s Edition

Friendly Chemistry, designed by Joey and Lisa Hajda is unique in both its adaptability and teaching concept. Joey Hajda holds a doctorate in veterinary medicine; he and wife, Lisa have education degrees in instructional design. Their background in both educational theory and practical homeschooling comes through in the design of the curriculum.

Fresh & Friendly

The course includes 32 lessons that cover all of the basic chemistry topics one would expect in a typical high school curriculum. However, it is designed in a way that makes an often tedious and foreboding topic seem fresh and friendly. A variety of games are included to make concepts easier to learn. If you’re using this curriculum in a co-op, there is even an icebreaker at the beginning of the course similar to those you’d find in courses specifically designed for classroom use.

While adaptable to homeschool and independent study uses, Friendly Chemistry is well suited to use as a co-op curriculum. Other than a fairly steep price tag for most co-op students, all the best elements are in place: a well organized student textbook and a well structured teacher’s edition that makes presenting the coursework easy – even for those not acquainted with chemistry.

Lab work is not overly complicated. Materials required are typically available in the home or they can be found at the places you shop. Other activities keep the students engaged, and they range from making “atomic radius cakes” to performing an “elementary” one-act play. If you think chemistry is all about Bunsen burners and test tubes, this course may not meet your expectations. If you are more interested in getting basic chemistry concepts across, you have a friend in Friendly Chemistry.

Try then Buy

A few sample pages from each text, along with a list of the manipulatives and cards included are available on the Friendly Chemistry Website. You will want to go over these before buying this product. The Hajdas clearly have a heart for homeschooling (they have 10 children homeschooled from early childhood through high school).

From an instructional design point of view it is a solid curriculum; it has been endorsed by many top reviewers in the homeschool community. We are quick to remind people that the apparent flaws in self-published resources rarely affect the content itself. As economies of scale have created more consumers in the homeschool marketplace, the quality of curriculum goes up. The best of the self-published products are good candidates for major publishers to acquire. We would not be surprised to see Friendly Chemistry distributed in a professionally edited “commercial” format at a reasonable price as consumer demand for this type of curriculum continues to grow.

Quibbles & Bits

As we went through the materials, we found the misspelled words and occasional grammar errors to be somewhat distracting. Friendly Chemistry does not have as many of these errors as other products of this type. And if you’re given to making lemonade out of lemons, it could be an interesting cross-curriculum opportunity. Give your students extra credit for finding the errors and explaining how they can be corrected.

Including the flash cards and manipulatives with the program is a great concept. It would be better if they were printed on perforated card stock to make things easier. Hint: Homeschool moms should invest in a good paper cutter; this is not the first product we’ve reviewed where flash cards had to be “prepared” by the consumer.

This package would benefit from having index tabs in both the student edition and the teacher’s edition. A “wrap-around” approach, including the student text in the teacher’s edition would be helpful, but would drive the cost up.

We also recommend a “assemble your own” discount for co-ops using multiple copies of the student edition.

Laurie Hibbitt of the Iron Sharpens Iron Co-op in Indiana contributed to this review.

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