Little Homeschool Blessings: Apologia Educational Ministries: Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition {Review}

Apologia Educational Ministries sent us Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition, which includes: Student Text, Notebooking Journal grades 3 and up, Jr. Notebooking Journal grade K to 3, and an Audio CD of the text. We also received a free sample of How Many Times do I Have to Tell You? And let me tell you, I was so excited. I am always so impressed with Apologia. I appreciate the way they explain scientific observations from the perspective of creation.

~Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition, Student Text~The program is organized into chapters or lessons titled: What is Astronomy, The Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, The Moon, Mars, Space Rocks, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Kuiper Belt and the Dwarf Planets, and Stars, Galaxies, and Space Travel. Each chapter, in addition to information from a Biblical world view, contains activities and experiments, What do you remember sections, scriptures, prompts for reflection, full color illustrations, think about this sections, and wisdom from above sections. The back of the book has supply lists for each chapter and an answer key for the questions.

For our review, we were able to get through the first two lessons and start the third. So we finished What is Astronomy? and The Sun and began Mercury.

I so appreciate Ceesa. While she is really out of the age range for this study, I asked her to help with the experiments. I would read the text to Li and Jo-Jo and when we came to an activity or experiment, I would hand the book over to Ceesa. I would gather the materials as she was reading the experiments through and then she would lead it for the others. What a blessing she is!

She helped Jo-Jo and Li make the solar system from balloons. I think she did all of the blowing up of each planet and the sun.

Jo-Jo attached the cards that were labeled with the name.

And Ceesa hung them up.

Li was inspired to make a space ship and an astronaut. We made the astronaut in such a way that he could push the astronaut back and forth to the space ship and across to the other side.

The kids used a magnifying glass, a paper plate, a chunk of butter, and the sun to discover how the heat of the sun can melt things.

To learn about eclipses, Ceesa demonstrated how they work by shinning a flashlight on a globe and placing a ball between the two.

The kids also created a contraption for trying to see sunspots. They didn't find many.

In the middle of reading the chapter on the sun, we were blessed to see a double rainbow. We had guests with us and everyone went outside to see it. Jo-Jo explained what she had learned about rainbows from reading about the sun.

There is a website with additional activities, website, and readings that goes along with the curriculum. We found a model of the SOHO that Jo-Jo decided to try out.

And once we got into the chapter on Mercury, the kids made their very own craters in flour with pebbles.

~Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition, Notebooking Journal~ The Notebooking Journal contains a suggested daily schedule that includes text readings, experiments, corresponding notebooking pages, and experiments from the kit. For the kids, it has pages for copywork (in print and cursive), facts and reflection, crosswords, lapbook style activities, drawings, book lists, movies, experiment documentation, activity records, vocabulary, investigation charts, creative writing activities, design activities, questions, and review.

We know several families that use Apologia for science and do not use the notebooks, but our family really does enjoy them and we would recommend them highly.The kids say that using their notebooks is one of their favorite things about the program.

We like following the recommended schedule in the journals. Jo-Jo used the notebooking journal. She enjoyed working on it and I allowed her to complete the assignments at her own pace. She would often times sit down and work on several pages or assignments at once after we had done the readings and experiments.

~Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition, Jr. Notebooking Journal~ The Jr. Notebooking Journal contains a suggested daily schedule that includes text readings, experiements, corresponding notebooking pages, and experiments from the kit. For the kids, it has pages for copywork (in print and cursive), facts and reflection, crosswords, lapbook style activities, drawings, book lists, movies, experiment documentation, coloring pages, activity records, vocabulary, investigation charts, creative writing activities, design activities, questions, and review.

Li used the Jr. notebooking journal. I didn't have him work on every page in the journal, as he just isn't to the point that he can complete all of the activities by himself, but Ceesa did help him with several by writing for him and helping him assemble a lot of the lapbook type of pages. The lapbook style pages are his favorites. He enjoys the interaction they provide.

~Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition, Audio CD~The audio CD is a complete recording of Jeannie Fulbright (the author) reading the text. The CD can be played on a computer or an MP3-compatible CD player.

We listened to ours a few times to see how the children liked it. Since we do not own a CD player that would play the CD, I would have to turn the computer on for the kids to listen. In the end, we found that they liked me reading it just as much, so that is mostly what we did.

Although we did not receive it for our review, Apologia has also just made available an Astronomy 2nd edition Science Kit. It is 15% off right now!

If you are interested in other things Apologia has to offer, you can see our reviews here: