Little Bits of Life: Apologia Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology Review

It's Science time with Apologia. Last year we reviewed Exploring Creation with Astronomy it was a blast and this year we are crazy excited to be reviewing Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology. Before we even finished the Astronomy course my girls were begging to do Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology. They took one look at it online and couldn't wait to get it.

Our favorite UPS man delivered the package. Shipping is fast by the way. The girls were excited and dancing all around.

UPS Man: Must be a new toy.

Girls in a sing-song voice: No new science stuff.

UPS Man: You going to make soda explode again. (He actually observed us doing this one day.)

Girls: No we are going to grow bacteria and see where our insides live.

UPS Man: Cool

I wonder what he thinks of us...

The kit we received from Apologia for this review has:

Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology Text
Junior Notebooking Journal (grades k to 2d/3rd)
Notebooking Journal (grades 3/4 and older)
MP3 Audio CD

I am going to start with the notebooking journals. Both versions are

spiral bound. We prefer spiral bound so the page we are not working on can be folded back out of the way. Most of the notebooking journal is black and white but the mini books in the back are in COLOR! The girls are currently in 3rd and 5th grade so we will be using the standard notebooking journal. You are probably wondering what the difference between the two is. The junior notebook is designed for younger kids or kids with limited writing abilities. The main things we noticed are that it uses primary writing lines you know the kind with the dashed line between the two solid lines. It also has fewer writing assignments and each lesson begins with two coloring pages. The notebooking journal is going to be recommended for kids that have mastered writing. Both books offer fun activities to reinforce what they are learning from the text book. Activities include color mini books, additional experiments, crossword puzzles etc.

Our favorite things in the notebooking Journal include:

A daily schedule so they know what reading is due for the day and what notebook assignments and activities or experiments they need to do. This is important to us as my girls are getting old enough where they want to be a little more in charge of their class work. This keeps them on track. I date each assignment so they know when I expect them to turn it in. Exploring Creation with Anatomy and Physiology utilizes a 2 day a week schedule. If you do more than 2 days a week you are going to finish this way before the end of the school year. If you work more than 2 days a week you could easily do two of Apologia's Science programs in one year.
Templates for the notebooking activities.
Review Questions for each lesson. The girls do these with me and usually take turns answering.
Scripture copy work. This is offered in both print and cursive. We use the cursive version because that's is just where we are at with handwriting.
Full-color mini books. The girls love making these. I thought they might have grown out of liking these by now but they are still finding them fun and enjoy filling them with facts.
Project pages are included which is basically a log for experiments that they will do throughout the course. We like these. It makes a nice place for them to record what they did for the experiment and their findings. Very neat and tidy for the portfolio box.
A final review is included we use this as a final test and the girls are required to write the answers down to show everything that they remember about the course.
Last on our list of favorites for the notebooking journal is the More to Explore ideas. These are included for each lesson and they are just some bonus things that they can do to expand learning. Sometimes it's a project or experiment sometimes its a book or a video that goes with the lesson. It's just some fun extra things to do.

The Textbook is marvelous it was written by Jeannie Fulbright and pediatrician Brooke Ryan, M.D. It contains 14 lessons in full on color. The pictures are great they offer tones of detail and the information is written in a way that is appropriate for the grade level that this course is geared toward. Apologia does teach from a Creation standpoint. This is something we love and one of the reasons we keep coming back to them.

The textbook covers a nice variety of topics with lots of activities that you can do at home using things us probably already have or can get at a local store. The book includes a list of things you will need so you can get them together beforehand. I highly recommend this, because there will be some things that you will most likely have to order like the blood typing kit. But you can get those at various places and they are an affordable price. I don't believe Apologia is offering a Lab Kit for this one. If they are I couldn't find it on the website.

Lessons contained in this text are:

Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology
The Skeletal System
The Muscular System
Digestive and Renal Systems
Health and Nutrition
Respiratory System
Life in the Blood
The Cardiovascular System
Nervous and Endocrine System
Nervous System Extended
Your Senses
Integumentary System
Lymphatic and Immune System
Growth and Development

If you visit the website you can download the scope and sequence of this course. I put a copy of it in my lesson plans in case I ever need it.

Experiments or projects that they will do are fun. We have not done all the experiments in the course yet as we have not yet finished it and I don't believe we will get to blow up any marshmallows in the microwave. But they will do things like making a model cell out of Jell-O and different candies which we have done already, and later in the course, they will find their blood type and sample bacteria from around the house. The girls are crazy excited to get to do thee two. From my prior experience with the bacteria sampling experiment don't let them sample anything you plan to eat later lol. It always makes me want to clean the entire house 10 times over. The girls would like to sample bacteria from a public bathroom, so we will probably end up doing more than just the assigned experiment. We really enjoy the hands-on experiments. It adds a whole new level of learning and the material really sinks in when they can bring it to life. The girls look forward to doing each one and will sometimes peek ahead to see what is coming. Each lesson takes about 2 weeks if you hold to the pace that they set in the book. The girls often have a hard time just doing science 2 days a week... What can I say they really enjoy science with Apologia and sometimes sneak and do an extra lesson when I have gone to bed and Nana is watching them.

This is our Jello cell. It did not come out as well as we had hoped. Our local grocery store didn't have yellow jello and the orange made it hard to see the cell parts. I think next time we will put the cell parts in before it sets up completely. We had a hard time getting it out of the bowl. When we finally did a big chunk split off. But we still had fun doing the project and I do have to say it was one tasty cell.

Last but not least is the MP3 Audio CD. If you don't have any experience with this. It is the textbook in audio format. We like to play it when we learn on the go. I can pop that baby into the trucks CD player and the girls can listen to the lesson on the way without getting car sick. Then when we reach our destination they can do the notebook assignment. While it is not necessary to have the Audio CD it is very handy. I would recommend it if you have a struggling reader. They can follow along in the book as it reads to them. Which is nice and helps with the words that might be a little hard to pronounce.

I hope this review gave you a good idea of what Apologia Exploring Creations with Human Anatomy and Physiology has to offer. If you are still hungry for another look at Apologia from a different family click the banner and check out what the rest of the Crew is saying about it. I appreciate you taking the time to read my review leave a comment to let me know if you use Apologia Science and what you think about it.