Exploring Creation with Anatomy & Physiology by Apologia – Review

My people love science – like, really love science.  So much so that My Little Man has been asking me to buy Apologia textbooks for him to read for fun over the past few years – but we’ve never had the chance to see the whole program.  That’s why we jumped at the opportunity to use Apologia’s Exploring Creation with Anatomy and Physiology – the textbook, the Jr. Notebooking Journal, the Notebooking Journal, and the MP3 Audio CD that accompanies the text.

This Apologia line is from a Christian worldview and is intended for elementary students.  It’s hardcore science – there’s nothing watered down for younger kids.  Knowing every single term was a challenge when the kids were younger, but My Little Man loves that now as a fifth-grader.  The textbook is full of colorful diagrams and pictures, as well as boxes with simple experiments that you can do for fun.  Most of these are shorter and easier than the formal experiments in the notebooking journals, and my kids love doing these.

We did one of these recently.  As directed, we put a baby tooth into a glass bottle.  The idea was to test the effects of soda on teeth.

My kids don’t drink soda, so they thought it’s effect on teeth must be pretty bad, but they were interested in finding out exactly.  As you can see, just opening the can proved to be more difficult than expected for this one, and as the top popped, she was disgusted by the smell of the soda!  Watching her do this was so funny!

My Big Helper carefully poured the soda into the bottle and observed it closely for a while ….

before wondering what the soda tasted like.  She gave it a try, but she didn’t like it (phew!).  I don’t think she’ll give it another try for quite a while.

She spent time over the course of the afternoon watching the bubbles rising off that tooth.  She observed that the soda must be acting on it immediately, because the bubbles were only in that part of the bottle.  I can’t wait to see what else they observe!

This tooth experiment was one pulled from the textbook.  When my kids were younger, we’d snuggle on the couch together and read.  Now that they’re so much bigger, they prefer to read the text on their own so they can study the diagrams, etc., as long as they’d like.  We listened to the CD for a bit, though.  

I was really impressed with the reader.  She was enthusiastic but not cheesy and her timing was perfect – not too fast, not boringly slow.  She read the text as if she enjoyed it and was having a conversation with a friend.  When she came to an experiment box like the one above, she mentioned it and moved on.  I could see us listening to this in the car, if push came to shove, because she made listening to the text enjoyable (and I don’t generally enjoy listening to non-fiction).

My kids followed along in the book as they listened.  In the end, they agreed that they’d prefer to read it on their own, but I’m glad that the CD is an option.

Notebooking journals in two levels came with our materials.  There’s a Jr. level and the regular notebooking level.  I’ll show you examples of the types of pages in both.

I have to say, though, that these books rule.  We’ve used Apologia before and appreciate the level of accurate information and professionalism that surrounds these books, but trying to use the hardcore book in a co-op situation where we had to keep up with other kids was too much for us.  

Back then, I (falsely) assumed that these journals were like workbooks, and I’m not a fan of busywork.  These notebooking journals are anything but, however.

This was an interesting-facts page from the Jr. Notebooking Journal.  My Little Man cut out the colored sheet, folded the flaps, and glued it to another page in the book.  Then he wrote facts and the answers to the questions behind the flaps.  It’s definitely not your typical worksheet.

This is another page from the Jr. Notebooking Journal.  There is a page like this for nearly every chapter.  I love the way that these diagrams exist to help students dig in and study each part of the skeletal system – and the other systems, too.

In My Little Man’s Jr. Notebooking Journal, he cuts out the vocabulary words as flaps.  Then he tapes each flap over the proper definition.  He enjoys this much more than writing out definitions.

Both journals have copywork pages with scripture for each chapter.  They’re available in both printing and cursive writing.

I love the options for writing that the Jr. Notebooking Journal presents.  My Little Man can have super neat handwriting when he wants to, but he rarely does.  His natural handwriting is very large, and having only short lines or small spaces in which to write stresses him out.  Except for the diagrams and copywork pages, there are few pages that require writing in the Jr. Notebooking Journal.  I love that this allows kids to participate fully in the work without having to write.  Both journals study the same information in different ways, so you can choose the Notebooking Journal that works for you, regardless of the age of your student(s).  Or, if you’re like us, you can use both, because they work really well together.

My Big Helper got really into her pages.  She loved being able to draw this cell diagram, and she spent a long time on it.  As soon as she was done, she pulled me over and told me all about each individual component of a cell – she had learned it well.

She liked writing out the answers to these questions, as well.  There’s a page like this for most chapters.

Her vocabulary work in the regular Notebooking Journal is a bit more advanced than in the Jr. Journal, but it’s still fun.  There are puzzles for all of the vocabulary activities.  My Big Helper loves these!

So we’re loving these Notebooking Journals, and I’ll definitely be purchasing these for all future Apologia science work.  They’re great!

Both Notebooking Journals also have this cool feature: paper people in three different skin tones in the back of the book with plastic overlays for the body systems.  My kids both think this is gross, but in a good kind of way.  You cut out your paper person, then you tape on each body system as you study it.  You also cut out a picture of your head and tape it to the top, and then tape another paper person on top when you finish.  Then you can lift the flaps, so to speak, and see where each body system is in relation to the others.  My kids happily cut out and add their new body systems with each new chapter we study.

Between the textbook, the Notebooking Journals, the labs and activities, and the additional books and movies listed, there’s enough material in this course to keep you studying anatomy and physiology every day, all year long.  As rather eclectic people, though, we’re also doing lots of other studies, and that would be too much for us.  The layout makes it easy to choose the activities that are most beneficial for your students.  We’ve been finishing a chapter about every two weeks by working two or three days each week.  We break the chapter up into chunks to read, and the kids work on their Notebooking Journals a little bit at a time.  I can tell they’re understanding and getting the information by the way that they make comparisons between the facts they read and items in real life, and it fits into our schedule well this way. I enjoyed the thoroughness of Apologia before, but after seeing this complete set of materials and using it for several weeks, I’m a HUGE fan. If you’re in the market for a science curriculum, give the Apologia line a try.