What on Earth Can I Do? #hsreviews @apologiaworld

My kids are always wanting to learn more and I often find it hard to provide materials for them that I know their dad and I will totally approve of and we’ll not have to reteach parts or skip parts.  That is why we were thrilled to be able to review What on Earth Can I Do? which is part of the What We Believe Series from Apologia Educational Ministries.  I have long wanted to use some of the Apologia materials but had been more focused on their science courses. 

 This is the 4th of the What We Believe and focuses on helping children learn how to be good stewards of what they have been given in all areas of their life including the gifts that God has given them as well as the goods.  I know some might think this is going to focus on serving God and tithing, but it is so much more!  It is written with scriptures and applications that a child of the grade 1-6 can apply to their own lives.  By gifts we are shown not only money, homes, but also our talents and things that we are good at, our bodies, our finances, and simply everything we have and do.

We received four pieces to our What on Earth Can I Do? Series:

• What on Earth Can I Do? Hardback Book available to purchase for $39.00
• What on Earth Can I Do? Junior Notebooking Journal available to purchase for $24.00
• What on Earth Can I Do? Notebooking Journal available to purchase for $24.00
• What on Earth Can I Do? Coloring Book available to purchase for $8.00

You can purchase all four books together or simply just the hardback and a notebook.  The entire program is geared towards grades 1-6 though of course the junior notebooking journal is more geared towards the younger ages 6-9 while the notebooking journal is available for the older grades.  This series is designed for daily use to help teach our children more about what they can do to glorify God by using scripture as a base.  Differences in the two notebooking journals are that the junior does not contain as much student writing, it has more coloring and filling in the blank and less of the questions that need a long written out answer.  Both cover the same things, just focused towards different age groups.

When we first started using the program I wasn’t sure what to do with the coloring book.  The Junior Notebooking Journal does have ample coloring inside of it that the regular notebooking journal does not.  I had thought I would use it with my younger student until the books actually arrived and I was able to look them over.  Then I was thinking that maybe my older student wouldn’t want to use the coloring book.  Boy was I wrong!  My older child is a 9 year old girl in 3rd grade studies.  She has informed me on several times that she wants to be an artist when she grows up and she proved herself yet again by wanting to use the coloring book and doing a wonderful job of coloring as well.  The coloring book could also be used with a younger child in preK or Kindergarten to let them listen and learn along.  My younger students had enough school to keep them busy and my oldest really wanted to use it, so that is what we did!

The junior notebooking journal was used by my 7 year old son.  He and my 9 year old are actually in most of the same grade studies.  They are in the same math grade, reading level, etc and I wanted to see what worked  best with my kids.  We used the curriculum daily, Monday through Friday.  Doing daily lessons did not take long and then we could take our discussion into the main part of our school and include the rest of the the children in them.  They may not have been doing the entire study, but they did hear our discussions and occasionally gave some good points of our own!  The young mind is a sponge and we need to be so careful with what we fill it with!

I was impressed by this course.  Like I said above, I have long wanted to try out the Apologia coursework with my children.  Now I am convinced that my eldest will love their stuff.  She has been begging for an anatomy course and they have just the one.  For me as the parent I wasn’t sure what the set up of the curriculum would be or how my children would take to it.  Different learning styles being what they are.  

For me, I feel that even my learning disabled students would be able to use this.  They might be older than the recommended age when they would use the junior notebooking journal, but that would be the one that they would do best with.  They have some developmental delays and I was a bit worried about how Apologia would work for them.  After seeing it and reading through how it is done, I can say that it is not geared towards only advanced students like I had thought.  Yes, my advanced kids did wonderfully with it and they really and truly loved it, but it is my opinion that my delayed students would love and enjoy it just as much but at a bit of an older age so that they can get to the same level of learning.

I know how hard it is to keep a Christian worldview in this world, both in our daily lives and in our children’s schooling.  So many companies are becoming too worried about what they say and how they say it that they are not always coming across with the whole truth.  They skirt around religious issues and make sure to share all the other “theories” as well or include the “millions of years”.  This tends to confuse my children as we teach a Creation view here and that we actually live on a young Earth.  I was so pleased that Apologia in their What on Earth Can I Do? series has not skirted around God but made Him the focal point in the curriculum.

You don’t have to take my word for it of course, feel free to visit the Main Crew Blog Post and learn more of what all the other TOS Crew thought of the series.  We all reviewed the same series and everyone and every child are different so there are plenty of different views to read on!

You can also visit and follow Apologia on their social medias to learn more about them, their beliefs, and when they might be having sales on their products!  They are on Facebook, Twitter, Google +, and Pinterest.   As for me and my children, I can truthfully say that we are impressed with what we have seen of Apologia and plan on using them again in the near future!  I also want to point out that this is technically the fourth part of the series.  It does not seem to detract from this set in anyway to be used with out the first three.  I think they would be great to use before this, but not necessary. You can get the full effect of the course without the other three if you’re not interested in using them first.