This easy to teach early math curriculum from Apologia gives you the homeschool win you need: short, activity-packed teachings that use hands-on activities to make math fun from the start!
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 Mathematics Levels 1, 2, & 3 offers an unintimidating and exciting start to homeschool math for your younger kids. Textbooks contain Biblical connections for each unit. Colorful, engaging text-workbook combos utilize age appropriate activities for each lesson and book work is short and to the point to keep math fun. The books are consumable, but sell at a comfortable price point. Click here to buy it on the Apologia Store.
Homeschool Elementary Math Curriculum For Your PK1Kids
Math is often the subject that most kids will show their resistance to in homeschooling. I often write about “Keeping the FUN” in homeschooling because if you can start your kids off with fun curriculum and activities that aren’t super rigid and uncomfortable, you can set them up for a positive attitude for the rest of their education.
Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Mathematics series does a wonderful job of starting things off right with homeschool math. I’m so thankful to have this opportunity to hold these beautiful books in my hands and help you decide if this math curriculum is the right fit for your homeschool.
Exploring Creation With Mathematics
If you’re looking for a gentle start to math for your child – and for your own peace in the planning – Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Mathematics is a great choice. There are three levels which align with grades 1, 2, and 3, but your child may place differently. Use their placement guide to help you decide which level is best: https://www.dropbox.com/s/e2j6sp2u51okops/DecidingMathPlacement-Updated.pdf?dl=0
Here’s what I think you probably want to know for your own homeschooling family:
Worldview
This curriculum is Bible based, but you won’t find that interfering with the math instruction. Instead, each Unit begins with a 2 page Seeing Our Creator passage to connect the math concept to God and Scripture.
Target Grades / Ages
Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Mathematics series is intended for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade. However, I recommend taking a look at the sample and the placement test to confirm the level for your child. Math curriculum for younger kids can vary greatly because some kids simply pick up number sense through play more than others during their preschool years.
Level 2 starts in with place value for double digit numbers. If your first grader hasn’t mastered that concept, I suggest starting with Level 1.
Scope
Level 1:
- Introduction to Addition
- Addition and Subtraction
- Place Value
- Measurement and Data
- Geometry
Level 2:
- Number Sense and Place Value
- Addition and Subtraction with Two-Digit Numbers
- Money and Time
- Addition and Subtraction with Three-Digit Numbers
- Measurement and Data
- Geometry
Level 3:
- Addition and Subtraction Up to 100
- Multiplication
- Division
- Data and Measurement
- More Multiplication and Division
- Fractions
- Geometry
Full color textbooks that double as workbooks, with a hands on activity, small lesson, and short practice pages make up the winning combination for Apologia’s math curriculum.
Components
- Full color textbook: The textbook is a combination textbook / workbook so your child will complete their practice questions in their textbook.
- Hands on activities: Each short lesson begins with a manipulative activity to introduce or provide tactile practice of the lesson’s concepts. These are short, simple, and super effective.
- Teaching Guide & Answer Key. You absolutely need this book to go with your curriculum. It contains a daily schedule, lesson instruction and tips, supply lists, answer keys, and charts and lesson materials you’ll need for your kiddo. Pro Tip: the lesson manipulative materials are also included in the Book Extras you’ll receive access to, so you can print extra copies if you need them.
- Book Extras: Listed when you log in to your free Apologia account, a wealth of external resources and additional printable worksheets are listed for each lesson in the textbook.
Playdough makes everything fun! A+ for Apologia math!
No prep games are a huge win for mom, and the fun kept a smile on her face!
So how does this measure up to what we like most in a curriculum for our PK1Kids?
🖍️ Colorful Materials
I have such a strong opinion about this! Math – of all the subjects – must be colorful! Why start off with books and worksheets that are plain and boring when you can have something like Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Mathematics books that are full color and FUN!? These books will not be boring to your child.
🎲 Different Types of Learning
Math for young kids is all about playing with numbers. Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Mathematics series heavily relies on math manipulatives as it should. One difference with this curriculum is that it uses short activities for each lesson to start with. This helps kids get ready for math and really practice what they’re learning. It also keeps the play aspect of math which is vital to the early years.
👩👧👦 Adaptability for multiple ages and levels
Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Mathematics series is level specific, so you’ll purchase the level that you think best matches your child’s need. You might be able to reuse the Teaching Guide & Answer Key for subsequent students if you print additional lesson materials from the Book Extras (You may want to buy a new copy to save your printing since they’re so affordable.) If you have multiple kids in varying grades, you may need to use some creativity in your math lesson planning. This is pretty much the case with any math curriculum that’s not 100% independent.
👩🏫 Ease of teaching.
Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Mathematics series get’s a huge A+ in this category. The lessons are short and simple, and follow a repeating pattern: Activity, Lesson, Practice. Each Lesson activity starts with a small checklist of materials to gather. Lessons are on average less than 4 pages long. So far, this curriculum takes the prize for Ease of Teaching for all the math curriculum I’ve ever seen.
👐 Hands On Activities
With Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Mathematics series, students will complete varieties of activities. These include all sorts of games, building paper clocks, working with Hundred charts, building 3 dimensional shapes, using sorting mats, blocks, playdough, etc.
💵 Price:
The current sales price for both the textbook and teacher’s guide comes in under $70. While you won’t be able to re-use the textbook/workbook, I feel this is an approachable price for a core subject.
🔍 Keeps their interest.
We all know kids have short attention spans. This is another thing that Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Mathematics series does so well. Keeping the lessons short, beginning with a manipulative activity, and ending with a short practice is their secret sauce to keeping kids’ interest.
🕊️ Simplicity:
Again, Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Mathematics series scores extremely high for simplicity. As I’m now homeschooling 4 kids, I simply can’t put on a big song and dance for every subject I teach. Being able to open and go with any curriculum is a huge benefit to this tired momma! These books make it very easy to plod through a comfortable math lesson each day, making tangible progress in your homeschool math.
View an interactive sample: https://view.publitas.com/apologia/apologia-mathematics-level-1-sample/page/1
Just the right amount of practice to keep those smiles, but solidify the learning.
The simplest homeschool math curriculum I’ve ever looked at! Here, Ellie does a craft that helps her practice counting down from 20. Lift off!
Tips:
If you have multiple kids, it could be challenging sitting with each one of them individually to go through their lessons. However, the lessons are short and the activities could easily be led by an older sibling if needed. In my home, we now do “Math With Mom” and each kid gets one on one time during math while the other kids do their more independent subjects. It’s been a big win in our home!
Our favorite things about this curriculum:
Lesson Checklists: Each lesson begins with a simple checklist that shows what materials you’ll need for the activity. This is a huge advantage over other programs I’ve used that require hunting down materials lists and manipulatives. I really appreciate how straightforward the layouts for these lessons are. A master materials list for the entire year is located at the beginning of the Teaching Guide & Answer Key book.
Short Lessons: The length of these lessons is a huge win in my opinion. Chipping away at math a little bit each day is a great approach for little kids.
A Rhythm That Works: Play, learn, practice is a simple yet super effective rhythm that you get into when using this curriculum. It’s do-able, low stress and low prep, and simply works well.
I hope this review of Aplogia’s Exploring Creation with Mathematics has helped you decide if this curriculum is a good fit for your homeschooling family.
I am trying to teach 1-10 math facts for addition and subtraction to one of my children and it’s been a bit of a struggle. I hate to just drill flash cards. 🫤 Does this curriculum have games that would help do you think? Did you use it with any child that didn’t already know their math facts?
Hi! Yes, absolutely this curriculum is perfect for kids who don’t know those first 10 addition tables. It sounds like you like the idea of using games to teach math, so that makes this a great choice for you. There is a game or activity for every single lesson – they’re simple but super effective! 🙂
Thank you for your reply. 😊