Apologia Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition Review

This post contains affiliate links that will benefit the blog. My family had the privilege of trying Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition from Apologia for this review to use in conjunction with our own curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Apologia Educational Ministries, Inc. is the #1 publisher of creation-based science and Bible curriculum. They focus on Christian based homeschool curriculum. Their products are all taught from a biblical worldview. They have creation-based science, apologetics, language arts, Constitutional Literacy, and resources and books to help homeschooling families succeed.

Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition by Sherri Seligson is a creation-based general science curriculum consisting of a Student Textbook, Student Notebook and Solutions and Test Manual with one Test Packet. It is geared towards 7th grade to help students transition out of elementary to middle school, and to prepare for high school. Students will explore a wide range of science topics such as earth science, chemistry, physics, life science, biology, marine science, environmental science, science and creation, etc. This is great for homeschool science for middle school.

This Basic 3rd Edition Homeschool Science for Seventh Grade Set includes:

• Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition Student Textbook
• Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition Student Notebook
• Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition Solutions and Test Manual with one Test Packet

Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition Student Textbook is a hardbound textbook. This textbook has a total of 14 lessons/modules that explain general science and its many wonders. The book starts out with Apologia's Instructional Support that explains the curriculum parts. It then has a student notes section about the book with a course overview, activities explanation, lab equipment needed, and a description of learning aids available. Then it goes onto the table of contents. Each lesson has: a “Quaestio” which is basically means question in Latin, "What To Do" sections in green boxes, "Explore More" sections in purple boxes, vocabulary words in blue bold text, color pictures and charts, Experiments located on grid paper, Creation Connections and Think About This in gold text, "On Your Own" (OYO) Questions and writing prompts in dark blue boxes; and at the end of each lesson: Summing Up, Answers to the "On Your Own" Questions, and a study guide. At the end of the textbook there is a Lab Supply List, Index to help find things in the book, and Image Sources.

Lessons:

1. The History of Science - Search For the Truth
2. Scientific Inquiry and the Scientific Method
3. Documenting and Interpreting Experimental Results
4. Scientific Analysis and History
5. Earth Science - Astronomy
6. Earth Science - Geology and Paleontology
7. Earth Science - Meteorology and Oceanography
8. General Chemistry
9. General Physics
10. Life Science
11. General Biology
12. Marine Science
13. Environmental Science
14. Science and Creation

The Student Notebook is spiral bound which makes it easier to lay flat and stay open. This is a required consumable workbook and each is intended to be used by a single student with the textbook. At the beginning of the notebook there is an Introduction. This Introduction has Parent Notes, About Not Taking, About Experiments, About Grading, Grading Experiments, Experiment Grading Rubric, Recording Grades, Experiments, Exams, Grade Recording Chart, Student Notes, Taking Effective Notes From Science Texts, and Lesson Schedule. The middle section of the workbook consists of: What To Do prompts, Vocabulary to be defined, Summaries to be filled out, OYO questions to answer, History of Science timeline instructions to follow, etc. for the student. The last section in the workbook is the Appendix with a Lab Report Checklist, Lab Report Grading Rubric, and Image Credits.

The General Science, 3rd Edition Test Pages and General Science, 3rd Edition Solutions and Test Manual are packaged together. The test pages has a test for the student to complete after each module. This comes in a softcover and is in black and white. Within the solutions manual are answers to the study guide, summary and tests. This comes in a glossy softcover and is in black and white.

Author Sherri Seligson on General Science's Big Ideas:

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

I used this curriculum with my daughter Teela who is going into 5th grade and 11 years old. Even though this is actually for middle schoolers I think she did well with the content, but some of the lessons took her longer than it suggested, especially since she was distracted with summer. It suggests the each lesson/module should take about 2-2 1/2 weeks to complete, working four days a week for 45 minutes to an hour to work on this so the student completes the course in 33 weeks. For this review we did this for about five weeks starting at the beginning of the book, which got us through Lesson 1 (The History of Science - Search For the Truth) and Lesson 2 (Scientific Inquiry and the Scientific Method) during the review period.

Explore More activity about the distribution of food coloring in both cold (Teela's right) and hot (Teela's left) water.

The textbook has a lot of wonderful full color pictures and charts that make the learning a lot more fascinating. You could make spelling lists with the vocabulary words from each chapter too. I love the wonderful lesson by lesson lab supply list located in the back for knowing what to have on hand for the activities from each lesson. It is super helpful! Having an answer key for the "OYO" question sections was a tremendous help to me as well.

General Science Experiment for Surface Tension of Water

We loved using the link to the course website that is referenced in the textbook. It had a lot of fun third party websites that contributed more information to the study of different things. We especially loved links on: How to make Ancient Egyptian Papyrus, Model Si Nan of Han Dynasty, Greek Philosophy, Roman Coliseum, The Copernican Model: A Sun-Centered Solar System, Galileo Journey to Jupiter Project, Video about Surface Tension, Medical Evidence in the Old Testament, Mars Global Surveyor photos, online tour of The Lowell Observatory, Mars Rover Mission, Great Salt Lake State Park, etc. There was a lot more too.

Teela reading the textbook.

The Student Notebook is all in color like the textbook. I like that they also have activities that included science Experiments and Explore More sections from what was taught in the textbook. These were lots of fun and were hands-on way of learning the material. Teela loved these the best.

Teela working out of the Student Workbook.

Having the Test Pages and Solutions and Test Manual was very helpful as well. These come shrink wrapped together. I didn't have to print these out myself and had them for Teela to work from. I am glad that these were given in the set we received.

I love the Apologia's Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition. I would recommend this highly to anyone searching for a creation-based curriculum about general science for middle school grades in homeschool. Apologia also has other great homeschool curriculum for science as well that I would love to check out and some others that I have reviewed here.

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BUY IT
Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition Basic Set is $119.

An MP3 audio CD and a Video Instruction Thumb Drive are also available for purchase as well to accommodate all types of learning styles. We; however, did not receive either of them for this review.

Read other homeschool curriculum reviews for Apologia Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition...

Apologia Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology Review

This post contains affiliate links that will benefit the blog. My family had the privilege of trying Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology from Apologia for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Apologia Educational Ministries, Inc. is the #1 publisher of creation-based science and Bible curriculum. They focus on Christian based homeschool curriculum. Their products are all taught from a biblical worldview. They have creation-based science, apologetics, language arts, Constitutional Literacy, and resources and books to help homeschooling families succeed.

Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology by Jeannie Fulbright and pediatrician Brooke Ryan, M.D. is a creation-based human anatomy and physiology curriculum that is part of the Young Explorer Series consisting of a Student Textbook, Jr. Notebooking Journal, Notebooking Journal, and MP3 Audio CD. It is geared towards grades K-6. Students will explore the human body inside and out with fascinating facts, engaging activities, and intriguing experiments. This covers many subjects, such as the body systems: skeletal, muscular, respiratory, digestive, cardiovascular, nervous and more! Also included is nutrition and health, embryology, DNA, etc.

This includes:

• Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology Student Textbook
• Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology Junior Notebooking Journal
• Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology Notebooking Journal
• Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology MP3 Audio CD

Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology Student Textbook is a hardbound textbook. This textbook has a total of 14 lessons that explain human anatomy and physiology and its many wonders. The book starts out with Apologia's Young Explorer Series Instructional Support that explains the curriculum parts. It then has a table of contents and Introduction which tells you about the lesson increments, narration, notebooking activities, personal person project, projects and experiments, course website, textbook, and supply list. Each lesson has: colored boxes that contain things to contemplate with activities to do, vocabulary words in bold, scripture in italics, color pictures and charts, questions and writing prompts in light blue text; and at the end of each lesson questions to summarize of what was learned (in the "What Do You Remember?" section), notebooking activities, personal person project, and a large project or experiment. At the end of the textbook there is an Appendix with a Answers for the Narrative Questions, Photo and Illustration Credits, and Index to help find things in the book.

Lessons:

1. Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology
2. The Skeletal System
3. The Muscular System
4. The Digestive and Renal Systems
5. Health and Nutrition
6. The Respiratory System
7. Life in the Blood
8. The Cardiovascular System
9. The Nervous and Endocrine Systems
10. The Nervous System Extended
11. Your Senses
12. The Integumentary System
13. The Lymphatic and Immune Systems
14. Growth and Development

There are two slightly different notebooking journals. They are both spiral bound. The regular Notebooking Journal is for older elementary students (meant for grades 3/4 and older) and the Jr. Notebooking Journal is for younger elementary students (meant for grades K to 2nd/3rd). These are both consumable books and each is intended to be used by a single student. The main differences between the Jr. Notebooking Journal and the Notebooking Journal is that the Jr. Notebooking Journal has handwriting lines for copywork and writing assignments, beginning letter clues for the crossword puzzles, and coloring pages are in the Jr. Notebooking Journal instead of "What Do You Remember?" questions that are in the Notebooking Journal. Both versions have both manuscript and cursive copywork. The junior version also gives a lot more guidance and less writing. At the beginning of the journals there is a suggested daily schedule that outlines four to seven assignments per lesson. At a pace of two daily assignments per week, this course would take a full year.

The Audio CD contains the complete audio recording of the course Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology. It is read by Jeannie Fulbright (the textbook and journals' author). This is great for auditory learners, slow readers, or students with other learning disabilities that make reading difficult. This is an MP3 CD so you have to play it in a MP3-compatable CD player or a computer.

Zari coloring in the Jr. Notebooking Journal.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

I used this curriculum with my daughter Zari. I used the Jr. Notebooking Journal with her because she is 7 years old and in 1st grade. She has trouble reading larger words so I read some of the instructions to her and helped her through some of the writing as well. It suggests two days a week to work on this, but for this review we only did one day per week for about seven weeks starting at the beginning of the book, which got us through Lesson 1 (Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology) and Lesson 2 (The Skeletal System) during the review period.

The textbook has a lot of wonderful full color pictures and charts that make the learning a lot more fascinating. You could make spelling lists with the vocabulary words from each chapter too. I will probably do this when I teach my daughter Teela next out of the regular Notebooking Journal. I love the wonderful lesson by lesson supply list located in the front for knowing what to have on hand for the activities from each lesson. It is super helpful! Having an answer key for the "What Do You Remember?" sections was a tremendous help to me as well.

Zari experimenting with water droplets to magnify text in the book in a "Try This" section.

We loved using the link to the course website that is referenced in the textbook. It had a lot of fun third party websites that contributed more information to the study of different things. We especially loved links to the Egyptian Medicine, Microscope History, Inside the Cell Video, How Big is a Cell? interactive, DNA Double Helix Video, Human Skeletal System Using Pictures, Label the Bones, and The Amazing Regenerating Rib. There was a lot more too, but I did run into a few links that no longer worked as well and need updating.

Both the regular Notebooking Journal and the Jr. Notebooking Journal were in black and white except for the pages at the end that you cut out and paste onto other pages throughout the journals, for example; the mini books. The cut and glue pages reminded me a lot of a lapbook in this regard. I like that they also have copywork and activities that included science experiments and observations from what was taught in the textbook. These were lots of fun and were hands-on way of learning the material. Zari especially loved the coloring and drawing pictures to illustrate things...like the cell. She also loved the cutting and pasting because she was good at this.

Zari drawing animal cell anatomy and labeling parts in the Jr. Notebooking Journal.

The Audio CD is very useful for Zari because she can't read the textbook on her own yet. She liked listening and following along a whole lot better and the lady that reads has a nice voice that makes it more interesting. You can also listen to the MP3's in your car on the road traveling if you have a MP3 player there. I liked that I was given the option of listening too because I could hear what she was learning about without reading the text myself.

I love the Apologia Educational Ministries Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology. I would recommend this highly to anyone searching for a creation-based curriculum about the human body for elementary grades in homeschool. Apologia also has other great homeschool curriculum for science as well that I would love to check out and some others that I have reviewed here.

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BUY IT
Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology Student Textbook is $42. The Notebooking Journal and Jr. Notebooking Journal are $29 each. The Audio CD is $29.

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Apologia Educational Ministries Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition Advantage Set Review

This post contains affiliate links that will benefit my blog. My family had the privilege of trying the Marine Biology 2nd Edition Advantage Set and the Marine Biology 2nd Edition Audio CD, read by Marissa Leinart from Apologia Educational Ministries for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Apologia Educational Ministries, Inc. is the #1 publisher of creation-based science and Bible curriculum. They focus on Christian based homeschool curriculum. Their products are all taught from a biblical worldview. They have creation-based science, apologetics, language arts, Constitutional Literacy, and resources and books to help homeschooling families succeed.

Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition is a creation-based marine biology curriculum consisting of a Student Textbook, Student Notebook, Tests and Solutions Manual, and Audio CD. It is geared towards college-preparatory high school homeschool students who have already taken Biology. Here students will explore God's marine habitats and the ecosystem and marine wildlife within them. This is the newest and most revised edition, now in full color and with even more experiments. Students will explore our oceans, life in the sea, marine life, marine ecology, different communities and places in the ocean, ocean resources, and effects of humans on the sea. This course, like most Apologia high school science courses, is designed to be completed in two semesters, spending about 45 minutes, five days a week, on the subject.

We Received The Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition Advantage Set Which Includes:

• Student Text
• Student Notebook
• Tests and Solutions Manual

We also received an Audio CD as well to review.

Delbin reading the Apologia Marine Biology Textbook.

Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition Student Text is a hardbound textbook. This textbook has a total of 16 modules and 557 pages that explain marine biology and its many wonders. The book starts out with Apologia's Instructional Support that explains the different learners. It then has Student Notes which has notes on: what you will be learning, about the book, experiments, laboratory equipment, and learning aids. After that is the table of contents and Welcome pages which has scripture passages and things to ponder. Each lesson has colored boxes or colored paragraphs of text that contain: Dive In, On Your Own (OYO) Questions to be done after reading the material, Think About This (things to contemplate), experiments to do, vocabulary words in bold, color pictures/figures and charts/tables, Creation Connection (how what was learned ties to Creationism). At the end of each module there are answers to the On Your Own questions to check your students work and a helpful Study Guide to get your student ready for the tests. At the end of the textbook there is a Glossary; an Appendix with reference figures and tables, module summaries, and a complete list of lab supplies, and an Index to help find things in the book.

Modules:

1. The Oceans of Our Planet
2. Life in the Sea
3. The First Four Kingdoms
4. Marine Invertebrates I
5. Marine Invertebrates II
6. Marine Vertebrates I
7. Marine Vertebrates II
8. Marine Ecology
9. The Intertidal Zone
10. Estuary Communities
11. Coral Reefs
12. Continental Shelf Communities
13. The Epipelagic Zone
14. The Deep Ocean
15. Ocean Resources
16. Effects of Humans on the Sea

Delbin finishing a page in the Apologia Marine Biology Student Notebook.

The spiral bound Student Notebook is a consumable workbook and is intended to be used by a single student. At the beginning of the notebook there is an Introduction. This Introduction has Parent Notes, Rubric for Grading Experiments, Grade Recording Charts, Student Notes, Taking Effective Notes from Science Texts and a suggested Daily Schedule that outlines reading pages, OYO questions, and experiments for the student to do per day. The middle section of the workbook consists of lined pages to take Module Notes & OYO questions, Study Guide questions, and optional Summaries to be filled out by student. The last section in the workbook is Lab Reports and Presenting Your Research: Creating a Presentation Poster.

The Marine Biology 2nd Edition Test Pages and Marine Biology 2nd Edition Solutions Manual are packaged together. The test pages has a test for the student to complete after each module and quarterly tests as well. This comes in a softcover and is in black and white. Within the solutions manual are answers to the study guide, summary and tests. This comes in a glossy softcover and is in black and white.

The Audio CD contains the complete audio recording of the course Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition. It is read by Marissa Leinart. This is great for auditory learners, slow readers, or students with other learning disabilities that make reading difficult. This is an MP3CD so you have to play it in a MP3-compatable CD player or a computer.

I also want to mention that Apologia Educational Ministries has a Marine Biology Slide Set, Marine Biology Dissection Set, and Marine Biology 2nd Edition Video Instruction DVD as well. We did not receive these items, but they would be a great addition to the Advantage Set as well. These items would enhance the learning experience even more and provide a more hands-on environment for the student.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

I used this curriculum with my son Delbin who is 16 years old and in 11th grade now. We did an average of three days per week. Starting at the beginning of the book this got us through Module 1 (The Oceans of Our Planet) and Module 2 (Life in the Sea) during the review period.

Both the textbook and notebook have a lot of  wonderful full color figures and tables that make the learning a lot more fascinating. We also made spelling lists with the vocabulary words from each chapter too. I loved the wonderful lesson by lesson supply list located in the back for knowing what to have on hand for the experiments from each lesson. Having an answer key for the "On Your Own" questions was also a tremendous help to me.

Apologia Marine Biology Mountain Formation from Plate Movement Experiment.

The experiments were really fun to do as well. In Module 1 there were 5 different experiments: Mountain Formation from Plate Movement, Removing the Salt from Saltwater, The Effects of Salinity and Temperature on the Density of Water, The Coriolis Effect,  and The Motion of Waves. In Module 2 there were 3 different experiments: Photosynthesis, Respiration, and Osmosis. We can't wait to do more hands-on experiments.

We loved using the link to the course extras website that is referenced in the textbook. It had a lot of fun third party websites that contributed more information to the study of different things. We loved the ReefVid to see real life videos of different creatures and things in the coral reef, Oceanwide Images that shows cool pictures of marine life, Plate Tectonic Animations, and Coriolis Effect Animations. There was a lot more too.

The Audio CD is very useful when Delbin got bored of reading the textbook on his own. He liked listening and following along a whole lot better and the lady that reads has a nice voice that makes it more interesting. I liked that I was given the option of listening too because I could hear what he was learning about without reading the text myself. My younger daughter, Zari, who is in first grade and does not read much yet could listen as well and glean information from it too.

I love the Apologia Educational Ministries Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition Advantage Set. I would recommend this homeschool Marine Biology from Apologia highly to anyone searching for a creation-based marine biology course for their homeschool. Apologia also has other great homeschool curriculum for science as well that I would love to check out.

BUY IT
Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition Student Text is $68. The Student Notebook is $39. The Marine Biology 2nd Edition Solutions Manual is $22 and the Marine Biology 2nd Edition Test Pages are $5. The Audio CD is $29.

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A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks Apologia Science Lapbooks Botany Review

My family had the privilege of trying Apologia Exploring Creation with Botany Lapbook from the Apologia Elementary titles at the Apologia Curriculum page from A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

A Journey Through Learning is a company owned by Paula Winget and Nancy Fileccia that creates fun educational lapbooks, copywork, unit studies, and notebooking for homeschool. You can find all kinds of different topical lapbooks on their website including: science, history, math, Bible, holidays seasons, preschool, and more! They also have curriculum lapbooks such as: Jay Wile Science, Apologia Exploring Creation Science, Classical Conversations, TruthQuest History, A History of Us, and others! A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks were voted best every year since 2011!

Lapbooks are basically scrapbooking for any educational topic that you can think of. They have fun flaps, pockets, pictures, pull outs, etc. that are glued to file folders to have information at a glance right at your fingertips that fits in your lap...hence the name, "lapbooks". You could think of them as better, smaller versions of poster boards for say a report on a certain subject. They help your student have a tactile/kinesthetic & visual way of learning the information so it better sticks in the memory.

A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks are easy to put together. They are available in your choice of instant download, CD, or already printed format. You will need a few items to get you started: Printed copy of the A Journey Through Learning Lapbook, different colored file folders/cardstock (how many and how to fold them are specified), scissors, glue, hole punch, brads, stapler, crayons or colored pencils, and if you are doing an Apologia Science Lapbook, the required textbook to go with it. These lapbooks come with templates, topical information they call "study guides", and all the instructions you need to put everything together. Unlike other lapbooks their directions and placement key are on the SAME page as the mini-booklet to make it less confusing.

Apologia Exploring Creation Science Lapbooks from A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks utilize Exploring Creation Science books from Apologia to create a fun way of learning the material. These come in Fun Size (3 folder lapbook) and Serious Size (12-14 folder lapbook). The Serious Size lapbooks are available in both color and black & white (so that your child can color the graphics). These come with an answer key to all the questions on the mini-booklets (except the open ended ones) so you don't have to search for the answers in the book. Each mini-booklet page has directions at the top for construction of each mini-booklet, pages to read out of the book in bold text, what your student should record after reading to show learning, and a small key to show where the mini-booklets are glued to the lapbook folders. For Serious Size lapbooks you will also need duct tape and a three-ring binder for lapbook storage. Besides the answer key these also come with additional reading suggestions for each lesson and enrichment pages that your student can explore for the back of the binder.

The Exploring Creation with Botany Learning Lapbook™ by A Journey Through Learning is a very thorough PDF that helps teach lessons 1-12 from the Exploring Creation with Botany book (part of the Young Explorers Series) by Jeannie Fulbright in a hands-on and visual way. This has 98 total pages, 84 of those to print for completing the lapbook itself. This is split up into 4 units: Lessons 1-3, Lessons 4-6, Lessons 7-9 and Lessons 10-12. This is recommended for grades 2-7. In it you get step-by-step directions to construct a lapbook using 8 folders that will teach your student all about Botany in a more interesting way than just the textbook and workbook alone.

Teela working on the Botany Lapbook.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

My daughter Teela is going into 4th grade this year. We have been doing nature walks all summer and learning about plants and flowers. I wanted to teach her Botany so I purchased the Apologia Young Explorers Series Exploring Creation with Botany book and the Apologia Jr. Botany Notebooking Journal for her to do this year for part of her studies. This textbook is recommended for grades K-6. I then got the chance to try out the downloadable product of the Apologia Exploring Creation with Botany Learning Lapbook™ by A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks. We are glad we purchased the Apologia Exploring Creation science textbook because you need this to make use of the Apologia Science Lapbooks that go with them.

We went with printing the pages for the lapbook out in black & white because it is less work for my printer and Teela loves coloring. These pages were very straightforward and easy to follow. The mini-booklets went together easily and each page told where to glue them on the folder. I did have a bit of trouble knowing which was supposed to be back and which was front on the folder when I was helping place the mini-booklets on. So maybe in the future they could maybe address this.

One of the folders of the Botany lapbook we did together.

All in all I think that the A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks Apologia Science Botany Lapbook was a lot of fun and Teela seemed to enjoy putting it together as she read the textbook. I liked that they told her which pages to read in the book to correspond with the parts in the lapbook she was making. These lesson plans were a great help.

I highly recommend these lapbooks to any homeschooler that is already using Apologia science books or wants to. We liked them a lot and they were very educational as well as engaging. We would love to do the Astronomy one next.

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Apologia Educational Ministries Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition Review

The set of Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition curriculum.

My family had the privilege of trying the Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition from Apologia Educational Ministries for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Schoolhouse Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family. This post contains affiliate links that will benefit the blog.

Apologia Educational Ministries, Inc. is the #1 publisher of creation-based science and Bible curriculum. They focus on Christian based homeschool curriculum. Their products are all taught from a biblical worldview. They have creation-based science, apologetics, language arts, Constitutional Literacy, and resources and books to help homeschooling families succeed.

Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition is a creation-based astronomy curriculum that is part of the Young Explorer Series consisting of a Student Text, Notebooking Journal, Jr. Notebooking Journal, and Audio CD. It is geared towards grades K-6. Here students will explore the most distant reaches of God's creation and His incredible universe. This is the newest and most revised edition, now in full color and with even more activities. Students will explore our solar system, including our sun, the planets, the asteroid belt, dwarf planets, and the Kuiper belt, then stars and other galaxies far far away in our night sky.

We Received The Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition Which Included:

• Student Text
• Notebooking Journal
• Jr. Notebooking Journal
• Audio CD

Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition Student Text is a hardbound textbook. This textbook has a total of 14 lessons that explain astronomy and its many wonders. The book starts out with Apologia's Young Explorer Series Instructional Support that explains the curriculum parts. It then has a table of contents and Introduction To Astronomy which tells you about the textbook, activities, course website, notebooking journals, and Apologia science kit. Each lesson has colored boxes that contain scripture and things to contemplate, activities to do, vocabulary words in bold, color pictures and charts, questions and writing prompts in orange text, cautions in red text, and questions at the end of each lesson to summarize what was learned. At the end of the textbook there is an Appendix with a supply list for the activities in each lesson, Answer Key for the questions at the end of each lesson, Index to help find things in the book, and Photo Credits.

There are two slightly different notebooking journals. They are both spiral bound. The regular Notebooking Journal is for older elementary students (meant for grades 3/4 and older) and the Jr. Notebooking Journal is for younger elementary students (meant for grades K to 2nd/3rd). These are both consumable books and each is intended to be used by a single student. The main differences between the Jr. Notebooking Journal and the Notebooking Journal is that the Jr. Notebooking Journal has handwriting lines for copywork and writing assignments, beginning letter clues for the crossword puzzles, and coloring pages where open-ended questions are in the Notebooking Journal. Both versions have both manuscript and cursive copywork. The junior version also gives a lot more guidance and less writing. At the beginning of the journals there is a suggested daily schedule that outlines four to seven assignments per lesson. There are three different types of assignments: textbook reading assignments are designated in green, notebook section assignments are designated in blue, additional activities found exclusively in the Apologia Science Kit are designated in brown, and the additional bonus activities only found in the kit are designated by a symbol.

The Audio CD contains the complete audio recording of the course Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition. It is read by Jeannie Fulbright (the textbook and journals' author). This is great for auditory learners, slow readers, or students with other learning disabilities that make reading difficult. This is an MP3CD so you have to play it in a MP3-compatable CD player or a computer.

I also want to mention that Apologia Educational Ministries has an Astronomy 2nd Edition Science Kit as well. We did not receive this, but I really wish we did. It has all the materials needed to complete 63 total activities: 42 activities found in the textbook and 21 bonus activities noted in the textbook and found only in the Apologia Astronomy Science Kit. These bonus activities are marked with a symbol in the textbook. Since we did not have this kit we could not do the bonus activities and for some of the activities we needed to go purchase the things we were missing because we did not have all of the required materials at home. This kit looks like it would be a great addition to the rest of the set because it would give you everything you would need to complete all the activities.

Also listed in the textbook as one of the recommended resources for the Astronomy course is the Field Trip Journal that I reviewed previously. This is great to record up to ten field trips from planning stage to memories. Great to take textbook lessons to the next level with real-life adventures.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

I used this curriculum with my daughter Teela who is 8 years old and in 3rd grade. I used the Jr. Notebooking Journal with her because she needs a little help with her handwriting. She also tires of writing too much. We did an average of two daily assignments per week, and starting at the beginning of the book, which got us through Lesson 1 (What is Astronomy?) and Lesson 2 (The Sun) during the review period.

Teela reading the Exploring Creation with Astronomy Textbook.

Both the textbook and journals have a lot of  wonderful full color pictures and charts that make the learning a lot more fascinating. We also made spelling lists with the vocabulary words from each chapter too. I loved the wonderful lesson by lesson supply list located in the back for knowing what to have on hand for the activities from each lesson. Having an answer key for the "What Do You Remember?" pages also was a tremendous help to me.

We loved using the link to the course website that is referenced in the textbook. It had a lot of fun third party websites that contributed more information to the study of different things. We loved the Planet Size Comparison website that lets you compare the size of two planets, NASA on The Commons Flickr page with lots of pictures to look at, discussion of What was the Star of Bethlehem?, The Sun website which provided information about the sun and the Total Solar Eclipse that will be happening August 21st, 2017 and a movie from NASA of 3 years of the sun in 3 minutes. There was a lot more too, but I did run into a few links that no longer worked as well and need updating.

Teela doing the minibooks and coloring in the Jr. Notebooking Journal.

Both the regular Notebooking Journal and the Jr. Notebooking Journal has some pages (for example the minibooks) to cut out and glue to other pages. This reminded me a lot of a lapbook in this regard. I like that they also have copywork and activities that included science experiments and observations from what was taught in the textbook. These were lots of fun and were hands-on way of learning the material. Teela especially loved the crosswords and making mnemonic devices to remember the planets in order.

Teela working on the writing portion of the Jr. Notebooking Journal.

The Audio CD is very useful when Teela got bored of reading the textbook on her own. She liked listening and following along a whole lot better and the lady that reads has a nice voice that makes it more interesting. I liked that I was given the option of listening too because I could hear what she was learning about without reading the text myself and my younger daughter, Zari, who is in Kindergarten and does not read yet could listen as well and glean information from it too.

I love the Apologia Educational Ministries Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition. I would recommend this highly to anyone searching for a creation-based astronomy course for their homeschool. Apologia also has other great homeschool curriculum for science as well that I would love to check out.

BUY IT
Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition Student Text is $39. The Notebooking Journal and Jr. Notebooking Journal are $27 each. The Audio CD is $29.


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Apologia Educational Ministries Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal Review

My family had the privilege of trying the Apologia Educational Ministries Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal for this review to use in conjunction with my own homeschool curriculum. This is a Schoolhouse Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family. This post contains affiliate links that will benefit the blog.

Field trips are always a welcome get away for my family. I especially love the field trips that are educational, but any field trip whether for eduction or fun or both are great because they get us out of the stuffy house and let us see stuff we would have never been able to see otherwise. I also love to document my experiences by photography, sketching, scrapbooking, journaling, and blogging because they are outlets where I can be creative while writing about my adventures in life. I believe that it is easier to actually learn by doing and seeing. Field trips let us learn in this way.

The Apologia Educational Ministries Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal is a neat spiral bound book with pages to fill out. The Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal can be used for one child or the whole family. It lets you record your trips in the journal in a fun way. It has colorful pages that are appealing to children as well as adults. The pages are made from a lightweight card stock so they won't tear easily. The front and back of the cover is shiny so if there was a little bit of moisture that spills on it you can wipe it off easily, but it won't repel a lot so be careful around liquids. The book has 64 pages total and 9 different sections which are listed in the table of contents with their page numbers. This is a scrapbook, a field trip recorder, a 4H event recorder, a nature journal, and a family trip memory book wrapped up into one neat workbook.

Jaedan filling out his experiences at the Sluggerville Museum on the Field Trip Pages.

The Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal also has a lot of pages that are fun and get your creative juices flowing. In the front of the book it has a page to fill out the name of the person or family the book belongs to. Then it has the Table of Contents listed to easily find the pages you are looking for in the book. Next it has pages about Preparing For A Field Trip. These pages have great tips and things to do before you go and when you get there in checklist format. After these pages there are Field Trip Ideas. These ideas are so versatile and are in a easy to read chart. The Places I've Explored Maps are great to fill out what you've experienced around your state, around the United States, and in the World. The Field Trip Pages have you fill out things about a specific trip, like: where it was, date, a map of the place, a list of books to read about the place (that should have been read before the trip, but can be read later as well), a spot for a photo or drawing, emergency contact plan, and a list of things wanting to be seen or done on one page and then a page opposite that one where you can write a story of your day and something that you never want to forget after you have made the trip. There are 10 sets of these pages. There are also My Special Spot Pages that document a small (about 20' X 20') section of wildlife throughout all four seasons in the year. These pages have a place for a photograph of the spot during that season, a place to record: location, date, temperature, and rainfall; notes, and a grid to draw an aerial map. After these are As I See It Pages. These pages have 7 that have fun prompts and 10 pages that you can complete as you desire. These are made to capture things in sketch format instead of words.

Included in most Apologia Educational Ministries products, they have a link to a list of helpful third party websites to go along with your product. These you have to log in for to have access to with the password provided in the product. For the Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal extras they had all sorts of links to explore online about field trips and journaling, including: The Importance of Field Trips, Field Trip Ideas and Searches, Maps, Field Guides and Identification, Resources, Natural History Museums, Science Museums, Children's Museums, Aquariums and Zoos, National Parks, State Parks, Botany, Animals, Earth Science, Aeronautics and Space, Human Body/Biology, Chemistry and Physics, History and Government, Community and Municipal, Business and Industry, Culture, Additional Field Trip Websites, and Art Journaling.

How We Are Using This Journal:

My whole family has been using the Apologia Educational Ministries Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal for different things that we have explored since we got it. Here are just a few of them...

• When my son, Jaedan, and I went to Louisville Kentucky May 22nd through the 24th I brought the Apologia Educational Ministries Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal with us just in case we found the time between studying history and being with our group to fill out some pages in it. Our trip there included seeing two very cool museums. I let him fill out two sets of field trip pages for both museums because I wanted his thoughts in the book about our trip and I knew I would be writing a blog post about it later too. 
• On Memorial Day, the day after our mother son trip to Louisville, my family met my parents and my sister, Melody, and her two kids at Claggett Creek Park in Keiser Oregon. Melody had came all the way from Nevada to visit. We had a lovely Memorial Day eating picnic food at a picnic table there and watching our kids play on the playground. I filled out the field trip pages for our picnic, but included what the rest of my family thought about the trip as well. 
• We also went to Everfree Northwest in Seattle Washington, which is a My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Convention, as a family on May 30th. Even though this trip was mostly for fun we still had a blast. I filled out the field trip pages for Everfree, but included what the rest of my family thought about the trip as well.

We also love the As I See It pages where you get to draw what you see and the My Special Spot pages where you can record seasonal changes in nature out in the wild. We haven't gotten to fill out the My Special Spot pages completely because we haven't had this book for that long, but we plan on using this whole book to travel, study, explore, observe, record, document, and create memories that we can remember as a family from years to come.

I like that field trips are only limited by imagination. You can do virtual field trips or real ones. You can go just in your own backyard or across the world. It is up to you what you do with the Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal. Let your imagination go and explore!

BUY IT
You can purchase the Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal on the Apologia Educational Ministries website for only $22.00! You can download sample pages on there as well.

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