For some time I have been following a programme for English, for Maths and for History and along with our Bible studies and extra choices of coding, Spanish, and baking we were all beginning to feel that it was time to add in some science since our routine was very settled and we could easily cope with the workload. I had done one off unit studies with the children on the human body and on animals so I decided to turn our attention to the sky and study the heavens. My previous approach was to gather information and suitable books myself and with the help of Pinterest and the many practical ideas and craft projects we were able to cover a large amount of information on these topics with very little expenditure. However as I started researching astronomy I kept coming across a problem that was seeming to be unavoidable. Nearly every website or book I came across would at some point go on to support the view of evolution, many millions of years ago and the Big Bang theory. I came to the conclusion that for the first time I was going to purchase a Christian curriculum for this topic.
I soon came across the apologia science range (a close second was the Answers in Genesis curriculum) for elementary age children.
I purchased the Exploring Creation with Astronomy textbook and on it's arrival spent a happy evening perusing it's content and thoroughly enjoying the read, I almost couldn't put it down.
It's a captivating read and has plenty of pictures and illustrations to draw young readers alongside and stimulate their interest. The chapters are quite detailed and would therefore be suitable for the older elementary aged child as well as the younger. The book is split up into 14 manageable lessons that can be spread throughout the year allowing for extra weeks to be given to topics that the children find most interesting. At the end of each chapter it is encouraged to complete some notebooking pages and there is an experiment suggestion which use mainly everyday household objects. Another positive is that their are online resources that can be accessed in addition to the textbook courtesy of Apologia that can be used to aid lessons.
We have just completed the first chapter and my 5 and 7 year old enjoyed and understood a lot of what was being said. My 7 year old was able to complete some notebooking pages on his own, with hand drawn pictures and his own writing. My 5 year old drew his own pictures and I assisted with his writing by asking him questions about what he had found most interesting and writing down his answers for him to copy.
We then had a go at the experiment suggestion which involved creating the solar system with balloons and trying to make them proportionate to their sizes. Here is our attempt,
Our yellow sun was never going to be big enough but it was the biggest we could blow the balloon up to.
On the way home from church last night I was delighted to hear my boys getting very excited pointing up at the sky shouting a satellite, a satellite! Wondering what they had seen I finally caught sight of the moon in the day sky and smiled...my boys were listening to our lessons and were eager to share their newfound information with anyone who could hear them in the vicinity.
Chapter 2 here we come!
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