The Classical Circus: Review: Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics

Apologia Educational Ministries is a wonderful publisher of many different homeschool resources. They might be best known for their homeschool science programs. Their science programs can take you from elementary through high school. I recently received their newest elementary books to review:

Like Apologia's other titles in the Young Explorer Series, the Chemistry and Physics book is aimed at students in grades K-6 and is written by Jeannie Fulbright. Jeannie is the homeschooling mother of four children, and when she realized the need for creation based science materials for homeschooling families, she set out to write them.

The Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics text is a lovely hardback book. It's a full color 280 page book, broken down into 14 lessons. These lessons are meant to be completed at your own pace. The text is complete, requiring no supplementation, so you can go through the book without adding anything. However, if your student loves the subject matter, you can add in additional books from the library and fun field trips.

Topics covered in this textbook include:

Matter
Atoms
Compounds
Mixtures
Motion
Energy
Sound
Light
Thermal Energy
Electricity
Magnetism
Simple Machines

Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics is written in a conversational style. When you read the book to your child, or when they read it to themselves, it's like the author is sitting down with you and you child and is explaining all of these concepts. Interspersed in the text are "Try This!" boxes; these are small experiments for the student to complete to demonstrate what they are learning in the text. There are also additional experiments and projects at the end of each lesson. These are a bigger and take a bit more time than the experiments in the "Try This!" boxes.

All of the experiments use easy to obtain items. There is a handy supply list in the back of the book to help assist you in gathering the needed supplies. If you don't have the supplies around the house, they are easily purchased at your local grocery or big box store.

Notebooking is recommended as a way to record what your children are learning, and to help make this easier, Jeannie Fulbright has written journals for your child to fill out. There are two levels. The Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics Notebooking Journal is for children in about 4th through 6th grades. The Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics Junior Notebooking Journal is for children in about kindergarten through 3rd grade. They are similar, but the Junior version contain primary lined pages, less writing in general, fewer crossword puzzles, and some pages that require writing have been replaced with coloring pages. They contain the same minibooks and activities, and can be used at the same time with students at different levels.

This program is so easy to use, especially with the schedule in the front of the Notebooking Journals. If you use the journals, you'll simply read the text, do any experiments, and then do the notebooking activities. The schedule is a 28 week schedule, and is broken down so you'll do science twice a week. If you're not using the journals, you'll read the text, do the activities, and you should have your child narrate to you and do the notebooking activities in the text.

I've got 3 boys in the suggested age range. Jacob (6th), Micah (4th), and Nicholas (2nd). The Notebooking Journal was perfect for Jacob, while the Junior Notebooking Journal was perfect for Nicholas. Micah was kind of my wild card. The activities in the Notebooking Journal were fine for him, but he hates writing and would've preferred the Junior Notebooking Journal. We enjoyed this program, and followed the schedule in the front of the journals. The experiments are fun and don't take a lot of work, and the notebooking journals make the program super easy on Mom. The quality of the textbook and notebooking journals is fabulous, and is what I've come to expect from Apologia Educational Ministries. The Young Explorer's Series is already a popular homeschool science resource, and they've got another hit on their hands with Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics.