Apologia: Exploring Creation with Zoology 3 ~ Review

Funny Bunny LOVES animals!!  I'm sure that if she isn't working directly with animals when she grows up, they will somehow be in her life. 

That's one of the many reasons I was excited to receive Apologia's Exploring Creation with Zoology 3: Land Animals of the Sixth Day!

If you've never heard of Apologia, they are a family-owned corporation whose mission is to help homeschooling families learn, live, and defend the Christian faith. 

We are no strangers to Apologia's products.   Their Elementary Science curriculum is wonderful!  A few years back we purchased Exploring Creation with Astronomy along with the Notebooking Journal and enjoyed learning so many new things.  Their Worldview Curriculum with the What We Believe series is also outstanding!  I encourage anyone reading this to take some time and check out their website.

This year we were already studying Biology so extending our studies to specifically include land animals was perfect!

As you can see in the above picture, Exploring Creation with Zoology 3 is a beautifully illustrated hard cover book.  It is broken down into 14 lessons covering the different kinds of land animals.  Each lesson is packed full of information, so they suggest a two-week schedule for each one.  We work on science 3-4 days a week so that allows plenty of time to read the lesson and complete the notebooking activities and experiments.

Each lesson begins with a reading of the text and includes vocabulary words in bold along the way.  Periodically students are asked to retell or narrate the information they just learned.  At the end of the lesson, students are given the opportunity to Map It, Track It, Experiment, and complete a Notebooking Activity.

The Notebooking Journal is wonderful and includes a detailed suggested schedule.  Of course, the great thing about homeschooling is you decide whether you want to follow it, but I found it very helpful.  Throughout the journal are countless number of activity pages, review pages, assignments, projects, copywork, and more.  The journal is optional but using it in conjunction with the textbook helps retention and adds some fun to the lessons!  Below you can see two worksheets Funny Bunny completed for Lessons 1 and 2.

My Thoughts:  Since we work on science 3-4 days a week we used the schedule in the Notebooking Journal as a guide and just spread the reading assignments and journal activities out a couple more days.  I would read aloud and Funny Bunny would do the assignments and/or activities and that worked well for us.  The text is really engaging and she was always ready to hear more, sometimes making it hard to stop.  It stimulated some wonderful discussions between us, which is what a great curriculum should!

Edited on 3-11-14 -  Heart of Dakota schedules Apologia's Exploring Creation with Zoology 3: Land Animals of the Sixth Day in their Creation to Christ curriculum, which is what we used this year for 5th grade.  Funny Bunny read it on her own throughout the year and really enjoyed it.  She was sad when she finished it.  Definitely recommend it!

Thoughts of a 9-Year Old:  Apologia: Exploring Creation with Zoology 3 is super awesome!  From silly and pretty pictures to Bible verses, it has really taught me a lot!  For instance, there are general jobs like Veterinarians and very specific jobs like Horse Farriers (people who specialize in taking care of horses' hooves).  Also, something we may not think about, but dogs and cats are canines and felines, therefore making them carnivores.  There is so much to learn in this book.  I like it!

Find Out More:  You can find out more online at Apologia.  Exploring Creation with Zoology 3 is $39.  Also available are the Notebooking Journal or Junior Notebooking Journal for younger students.  Both are $24.  The elementary series is designed for grades K-6.

To help with purchasing decisions, Apologia has made available on their site the Table of Contents, lab list, all of Chapter 1, and samples from both Notebooking Journals.  You can find those at the links above.

My Crewmates are also talking about Apologia and you can check out what they think about it HERE.

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