Apologia Exploring Creation with Astronomy

A very thorough science curriculum written from a Creationist perspective.

This is the best homeschool science curriculum out there. I love Apologia. They just need to work on appealing to the graphic learner sand use better pictures in all their science books.

I've used this with two different groups of elem. age students. It was a hit both times. We made our own notebook page; this was before the journals were out. This worked quite well, and everyone enjoyed it. It left ALL the kids asking for more astronomy study when the book was finished.

We have used Apologia Astronomy twice now. First as 2nd and K, second as 6th, 4th, 1st and 4 yr old tagging along. It is my favorite of the Apologia Early Explorers Series, but of course I did want to be an astronaut when I was a kid!! LOL
Neither time did I use the notebooking journals but I have used them for other books in the series. I have a love/hate relationship with them! LOL

We love Apologia. Their science cirriculm is by far the most solid curriculum offered to the homeschooling community. If your looking for a curriculum to truly prepare your children for college then this is it. Apologia offers a teaching textbook for parents to read aloud. Then there are journals that span K-12th grades. In our home this has worked wonders. The text can be very intensive and at times my little ones struggle to keep their attention devoted to the reading. I like to take breaks between pages and let them color a page in their journals or coloring book as I read. We ask a lot of verbal questions while reading as well to offset the constant reading from mom. I do highly encourage parents to get a prepackaged science experiment kit and lapbooks. Without these I think the program would be a bit boring for my littles. The texts is full of lots of photos as well. We love Apologia and I'm certain we won't be switching companies because we've found a solid fit with Apologia. I also recommend their audio CDs. They are read by the author instead of a "robot" type voice like many of the large leading homeschool companies. We had this issue with AO and my kids were laughing constantly at the audio reading. This is a very professional put together program with authors who are subject matter experts!

Outstanding astronomy curriculum! Easily adaptable to ANY grade level (as evidenced by the embarrassingly tremendous amount that I learned alongside my 1st & 3rd graders) , but so approachable and FUN with all of the experiential learning activities. (I def. recommend the notebook supplement to the text book.)

Just as another review stated, we made our own notebook to go along with this book. My daughter really enjoys this curriculum.

Great study. In my opinion, however, the student learns more when they create their own notebook, so we did not buy the journal for this subject. I did for another and found that it mostly created busy work, and the valuable projects were less memorable because so much of it was already created in the purchased journal.

Excellent curriculum! Journals are excellent! Each child can create their own based on personality! I would recommend this...and have!!!

We really enjoyed this curriculum. It was very in depth on the topic. My only complaint was that it was a bit dated. However, they have a new edition now that looks beautiful and I'm sure has remedied that problem. If you get a copy of the original just be aware of that issue, but it's easily remedied by a little research. It can be a bit daunting with all the reading. However, I would break it up over several days and we did a journal page or two throughout the week. We also incorporated DVDs, YouTube videos, and books from the library. There are many ways to add to this curriculum if you would like. I especially like in the notebook journals the additional resource page that gives suggestions for books and DVDs. We made good use of that. While the experiments and projects use easily accessible items, I would recommend buying a lab kit (rainbow resource sells them). I'm the type of person that if I don't have everything right on hand I will easily skip the project instead of going to the store. They are packaged very well, and all you need to do is grab the baggie marked for the lesson and you have everything you need!

I really LOVE all Apologia science texts we have used and have thoroughly enjoyed teaching Astronomy this year! Each chapter has hands on activities that deepen your students learning and offer lists of books that correspond to the material being taught. I also really like the Notebooking journals! It is a fun way for my kids to document the information they have learned.

I wish i could have started this series earlier,but my son and i both love it. this was our first book in the series we used and we have continued this series for the past 5 yrs. love the hands on projects. makes science come alive.

Loved the ease of use of this book. My daughter had a special interest in Astronomy, and this was perfect for helping her really learn about God's Creation!

I used this curriculum with my 9 year old son who loves everything space. I purchased the Jr. Notebooking Journal for him to use which was great. It's a place for him to keep everything he learned in one spot and look at whenever he wants to refresh his memory. Each lesson contained information to read and activities. The mini lapbooks and flipbooks you make in the Notebooking Journal are a perfect hands-on way to help your child retain the information you read with him. There are also experiments that use simple materials you most likely have around your home or can usually find at the dollar store.

Enjoyable for both 1st and 3rd grader. They really loved sharing what they were learning. Works really well with notebook journals.

Great hands on astronomy

We are just wrapping up the chapter on Jupiter so we're very near the end. We have really taken our time with this curriculum so it will extend to the whole year. You could finish it much sooner. Each chapter gives you activities and ideas for further learning. My oldest could read this on her own (fifth grade) but I chose to read aloud so my struggling 3rd grade reader and my preschooler could all join in. I love that many different ages and grades can absorb this information. My 4-year-old son has even learned quite a lot just from listening. Be aware that there is a lot of vocabulary, of course. I'm not heavy into memorizing dates/names but I do want them to understand the vocabulary (i.e. the difference between an asteroid and a comet) so it makes sense. I would definitely recommend this and when my three younger children are in school, we will be doing this curriculum study with them as well.

Love, love, love Apologia Science. It is broken down into easy to manage lessons with the ability to use at most any age. My kids love that there were a ton of hands on or outside reference material suggested.

I used this with my older kids in various grades when it was fairly new. It lived on my shelf collecting dust just in case I might use it until I finally sold it this year. We're just not going to use it again.

I liked that it was accessible to younger kids. We didn't care for the tone of the author at all. It talks down to kids, was too verbose, and felt like we had to wade a bit for the good parts. We generally don't have a problem using Christian science materials, but there was way too much time spent on worldview instead of just teaching the science. My STEM oriented child thought it was too wordy for the amount of meat, and my others were barely engaged.

The grade range given is a stretch in my opinion. 4th grade is the highest I would go, and an average 4th grader could easily complete this book in half a year or less.

So far, I like the approach and ease of this curriculum. For us, buying the box of experiments was a must.