ABC's and Sweet Tea: Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition by Apologia Educational Ministries ~ A Schoolhouse Crew Review

Gavin has always enjoyed anything Astronomy. I can remember him from a very early age asking questions about the planets and stars out in "space." I was so excited to be able to review Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition by Apologia Educational Ministries because I knew he would love it!

If you're part of the homeschooling world, or even if you're not, then you have probably heard of Apologia Educational Ministries. With them being the #1 publisher of creation based science and Bible curriculum, it's hard not to know them. Author Jeannie Fulbright and Damian Ludwiczak, an engineer for NASA, teamed up with Apologia to create the 2nd Edition of Exploring Creation with Astronomy.

What did we receive for this review?

We were very blessed to receive what we did for this curriculum. They didn't leave anything out!

Astronomy 2nd Edition text book - 216 page textbook that is very well put together. Vibrant colorful pictures throughout the book make it easy for the child and parent to stay engaged.
Astronomy 2nd Edition Notebooking Journal - The perfect companion to the textbook with its full color pages and activities. It's also spiral bound to make it super simple to use. This journal will have everything you need to complete the experiments and assignments. This book is for grades 3/4 to grade 6.
Astronomy 2nd Edition Junior Notebooking Journal - This is also a full color spiral bound journal that provides everything needed for assignments and experiments. This one is geared for K-2/3 grade depending on your child's writing level
Astronomy 2nd Edition Audio CD - This audio CD, read by author Jeannie Fulbright, is perfect to be able to listen in the car, or just follow along in the book.

How did we use this in our school?

I decided that this was going to be Gavin's complete science this year. It is so much fun and we have loved it so far. Apologia never disappoints!

First of all I want to talk about how this is set up to be used with the Notebooking Journals. At the beginning of the Notebooking Journals, they both have a suggested daily schedule. This makes it much easier to plan out your lessons. You can do them as in depth as you want, or skip a few things here and there, although I doubt you will want to. The daily lesson breaks it down for you so that you know what text you should be reading that day, and also what activities you should be doing in your journal. It also lists the activity you can do if you order the additional science kit. We didn't have that but it wasn't hard to find alternate activities to go with the lesson.

Each chapter, or Lesson, is broken down into each planet or part of space that it's covering.

Lesson 1 - What is Astronomy
Lesson 2 - The Sun
Lesson 3 - Mercury
Lesson 4 - Venus
Lesson 5 - Earth
Lesson 6 - The Moon
Lesson 7 - Mars
Lesson 8 - Space Rocks
Lesson 9 - Jupiter
Lesson 10 - Saturn
Lesson 11 - Uranus
Lesson 12 - Neptune
Lesson 13 - The Kuiper Belt and Dwarf Planets
Lesson 14 - Stars, Galaxies, and Space Travel

We start by looking at our Daily Lesson. We will open up our books and either I will read the text for the day, or we turn on the CD. It is such a nice option to have that since you know sometimes us homeschool moms lose our voices from reading so much! After we are done reading, we will look at what activities we have for the day. This is both of our favorite part!

When you get to the Notebooking part, there are so many different activities for your child to do. You can either do them all, or only do a few. It's completely up to you to see how much time you want to spend in it.

Gavin has enjoyed all of the activities he's done so far. There are mini books, crossword puzzles, copy work pages and so much more!

He has also had a lot of fun with experiments. After the first Lesson about Astronomy, they got to do a fun activity using balloons to make the model of all of the planets! He had a lot of fun doing this one.

What did we think?

Of course we love this program. Everything is laid out so nicely, and user friendly. That is such a blessing to busy homeschool moms who want to have some fun in science. Most of the experiments can be done with household items or things that are really inexpensive! I would highly recommend this for anyone who wants a curriculum that guides you along, but is also easy enough to be hands on. If you are interested in something like this Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition by Apologia Educational Ministries is perfect for you!