This FUN-Packed Earth Science curriculum checks all the boxes for an unforgettable scientific journey studying God’s creation for all your elementary aged kids!
Disclosure: I was compensated for my time reviewing this product, but all opinions are honest – I want to help YOU in your choice of homeschool curriculum!
TL;DR: Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Earth Science is an elementary age Earth Science curriculum with an accompanying Notebooking Journal and a Junior option for younger kids. It uses colorful real life pictures, tons of hands on activities and a modest price point budgeting homeschoolers will find comfortable. It can be used for multiple grades and ages together, grades K-6 and ages 5-12. Click here to buy it on the Apologia store.
Homeschool Earth Science Curriculum For Your PK1Kids
If teaching Earth Science is on your radar for your younger elementary kids, you’re going to love learning about Apologia’s new Exploring Creation with Earth Science Curriculum. I feel so spoiled being able to review these books for you. I can’t wait to tell you how they measure up as an Earth Science curriculum for your young kids.
Exploring Creation With Earth Science
The Exploring Creation with Earth Science Curriculum is new from Apologia. It comes with a big-win component – the Notebooking Journal. There are two journals to choose from: the standard notebooking journal for older elementary aged kids, and the junior version for grades K-2. Of course I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the junior version – there are so many goodies in this book for your younger kids!
So let me break down this curriculum for you based on what you probably want to know for your own homeschooling family.
Worldview
As indicated in the title, this is a creation-based science curriculum. Scripture and Christian topics are woven throughout the lessons.
Each lesson begins with a Worldview statement and a verse to consider. There are gentle applications to our daily experiences with God, but they are not included at the sacrifice of science instruction – a distinction that is particularly important to my family.
Target Grades / Ages
Kindergarten through 6th grade
Ages 5 to 12
Junior Notebooking Journal: K – 2
Notebooking Journal: 3 – 6
Scope
The textbook covers the following topics:
- The Observable Universe
- Life in the Habitable Zone
- Spheres of the Earth
- Mapping Your World
- The Geosphere
- Making and Shaping the Land
- The Hydrosphere
- The Atmosphere
- Climate and Weather
- Weather Forecasting
- The Biosphere
- Cycles of Life
- Unique Places on Earth
- God in Creation
Components
- Full color textbook: The textbook is colorful and contains real pictures of the world around us, as well as what the activities should look like.
- Hands on activities: Simple, effective and fun activities are included with each lesson that gives kids a chance to work with and apply the ideas they’re learning.
- Notebooking Journal: The big selling point for me is the Notebooking Journal. A variety of no-prep activity pages for each lesson are the perfect pair to a textbook reading. The Notebooking Journal includes Coloring pages, cut and paste crafts, journal prompts, scrapbook pages, mini books, and more.
- Book Extras: Listed when you log in to your free Apologia account, a wealth of external resources are listed for each lesson in the textbook. These include websites, activities, and videos that provide opportunities for extended research into topics. It’s so helpful to have these in one place so well organized.
- Audio Book: The entire textbook is included as an audio book under your Apologia login. This allows you to play the audio while your kids read along or color in their Notebooking Journals, or listen to it in the car.
- Supply List: At the back of the textbook there is a simple, perfectly laid out supply list organized by lesson. I appreciate how easy it is to find this list and that’s it’s all there in one place so you can make sure you have the materials for the activities before you start your school year or week.
- Optional Lesson Plan: And for those of us who enjoy an efficient and simple lesson plan, the Notebooking Journal has a Suggested Weekly Schedule. Use this to track your lesson readings, activities, and notebooking journal pages.
So how does this measure up to what we like most in a curriculum for our PK1Kids?
Colorful Materials.
I’m a huge stickler for colorful materials. Textbooks and workbooks should be fun and engaging for younger kids, not boring and mundane. We want to keep the FUN in homeschooling, right!? Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Earth Science textbook is full color. It relies heavily on real life pictures as opposed to cartoons and drawing which is more appropriate for a science book. The realism of the photos spark curiosity about the world. Not a single page lacks photos and colorful diagrams which inspires interactive reading.
Different Types of Learning.
Kids learning styles are unique, even within the same family, so it’s super important for a curriculum to use different types of teaching styles. Some of my kids will sit and read a textbook and just absorb the information – but even their retention shoots through the roof when we do hands on activities. When kids manipulate objects while applying a concept, they begin having experiential knowledge that stays with them on a whole different level. So how does Apologia Exploring Creation With Earth Science use different styles of learning? Without overdoing it, this curriculum perfectly combines reading, listening, writing, crafting, and manipulating.
📖 Reading
The textbook lessons are broken up into short reading passages followed by activities. So expect to read about 2 pages, then have a short, simple, but effective hands on activity.
🎧 Audio
Apologia science textbooks are available as an audio book. While it’s not listed in their shop at this particular time, we expect to see it available soon. Pairing your text with audio can help your kids who are more audible learners. It can also change up the environment when you begin your lessons. Consider leading your older kids to read along with the text as it’s read aloud while your pre-readers color the lesson’s coloring page in their Notebooking Journal.
📝 Writing
Gently encouraging younger kids to do some kind of writing in response to what they’ve learned can help them remember things in a new way. It also makes them feel like a big kid! Don’t expect too much too soon. Your second grader may love writing their personal reflections in their Junior Notebooking Journal, but your Kindergartener will benefit from drawing pictures of their activities and practicing writing out one or two key words from the topic.
👐 Tactile Manipulation
Pretty much all kids benefit from some type of tactile manipulation when learning something new. Getting to cut, paste, feel, construct, create, paint, and play can both keep the fun in your school day AND make lasting memories of what you learned. Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Earth Science textbook includes over 70 hands on activities that provide an immediate manipulation of what they just read. The Junior Notebooking Journal provides another level of manipulation as they get to make mini books and paper projects that apply to the lesson topic.
💻 Independent Research
Some kids love to learn more about what’s interesting to them. With the Book Extras that come with Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Earth Science textbook, your curious kids can explore more about each topic with external resources.Hands on activities. Sometimes all we can do for a subject is a simple worksheet, but the best memories and learning happen when we get to do hands on activities. Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Earth Science includes over 70 activities in their text book that follow each few pages of learning. The activities are simple and often short, using just a few household items. This is a great change of pace from other programs that use huge experiments that my family struggles to execute and finish! The pace of learning a bit, then doing an activity is comfortable and effective.
Adaptability for multiple ages and levels.
Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Earth Science is adaptable for all elementary grade without extra prep work or busy work for Mom. When your kids each have their own Notebooking Journal, Science class becomes very easy to teach all your kids at once. Spend some time reading over the lesson and discussing it. Pre-readers can color in their notebooks while you read. Your kids can work in their Notebooking Journals according to their levels, and you can even explore the Book Extras if your older kids want to dig deeper.
Price:
I’ll be honest, I was pleasantly surprised at the price point for Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Earth Science. Currently on sale for less than $60 for the textbook & Notebooking Journal set, it’s a great value. For the most current price, check it out in their store:
Keeps their interest.
There are a few features of Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Earth Science books that help keep the interest of little ones. They way they’ve laid out the lessons with activities every few pages of text helps you break things up in a way that works best for your family. Add in the notebooking journal activities and you can easily follow the flow that keeps your kids interested. And what kid doesn’t want to make expanding universe putty and edible rocks?
Simplicity:
For our growing family, simplicity has become a major necessity in homeschool curriculum. I’ve got too many kids to have one subject become a huge production. I appreciate the simplicity of not only the straightforward lessons in Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Earth Science textbooks, but the simple flow of reading, activities, and notebooking. There’s nothing worse than setting yourself up to fail with a curriculum that just has too many things going on! Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Earth Science is do-able, and carries a high chance of being able to finish in a year!
View an interactive sample: https://view.publitas.com/apologia/apologia-exploring-creation-with-earth-science-sample/page/1
Tips:
For your youngest kids, consider covering the page opposite the one you’re reading with a piece of dark construction paper and take it one page at a time. This will help your kiddo focus on the pictures on each page.
Since the activities are short and simple, you won’t want to miss out on them! Take the time to gather your materials ahead of the lessons. The supply list in the back of the textbook is so simple and well laid out that it’s very easy to put together a science tote with all your items before you start the school year. Even doing this on a weekly or monthly basis will work. Pro tip: you can check out the supply list before you buy – it’s at the end of their product sample here: https://view.publitas.com/apologia/apologia-exploring-creation-with-earth-science-sample/page/20-21
Our favorite things about this curriculum:
Globe Activity: This curriculum includes an activity that travels throughout the book. Students create a paper mache style globe that they begin adding layers to – Geosphere, Hydrosphere, mountains, islands, and the like – as they learn about the different components of Earth.
Printable Crafts: Oh if you know me you know how I just adore printable crafts. It’s my love language, I’m sure! That explains why I just fell in love with the Junior Notebooking Journal. There are so many wonderful activities in this journal that correspond to the lesson texts. You can see some of these great activities in their online preview here: https://view.publitas.com/apologia/apologia-exploring-creation-with-earth-science-sample/page/26-27
Price: As a seasoned budget homeschooler, the price point is a significant Peak for this curriculum. The textbooks can be reused and the journals are a great value for the content.
I hope you’ve found my review of Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Earth Science helpful for your family.
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