This blog is my attempt to document our busy but BLESSED lives raising and educating our children for His glory. A child of God, wife to one, and mom to 6 fabulous kids. We are in our 15th year of homeschooling using a Classical ~ Literature based approach.

Come along for the good, the bad & the ugly.



Tuesday, April 17, 2012

TOS Review: Christian Kids Explore ~ Biology

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For the past 6 weeks or so I have been trying to narrow down our curriculum choices for next school year.  Science, this year has been the hold out and has had me wracking my brain. When the interest form for Christian Kids Explore series by Bright Ideas Press came out I was ecstatic that I was chosen.  Bright Ideas Press is a Christian company that publishes Christian curriculum for science, history and language arts.  As a member of the TOS Review Crew I received a free copy of the Biology curriculum which is suggested for grades 3-6 and is priced at $34.95.

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Christian Kids Explore Biology is a 291 page paperback text which is broken down into 8 Units. Each Unit includes  3-6 lessons which comes out to be 35 weeks of hands on F-U-N science. You can check out the Table of Contents and a Sample Unit by clicking on the links. You and your child will study everything from Creation to Photosynthesis to Monkeys and Apes to our five senses.  This book has you covered for Biology. Everything is broken down and laid out in a easy to follow arrangement with a “Teaching Time” and a “Hands- On Time”, which includes an experiment or a diagramming assignment.  I love the simplicity of this curriculum so that either the parent or the child can read the short  “Teaching Time” section for each particular unit. Best of all is that there is a schedule included so that you can get science done in only 2 days a week! This program also has a Resource CD so you do not have to struggle to make photocopies of handouts from the book.  The Resource CD is available as an instant download for just $7.95 – regularly priced at $12.95.  This is a great plus for me since I am using this program with multiple students.

Christian Kids Explore Biology is written for your 3rd-6th graders. In our homeschool we used this book as a supplement to our current science program with excellent results. Once we photoreceived the book I was able to go through the lessons and  place a paperclip on the corresponding  lessons that I wanted to explore a little bit more. We were able to dig a little deeper into certain areas and do different experiments which really helped to cement the ideas for the girls. I should note that because I used this book as a supplement to our current program we did not start at Lesson 1 and progress through, rather we skipped around as needed. I did find that it lacked the rigor that I was looking for in a stand alone program for my logic stage child, however, my both of my girls enjoyed it so much that we are going to continue using this book for the rest of our school year. There are lots of extra’s in this book that you can use to make this more in-depth including the coloring pages and the extra book resources listed in the appendix. We are changing up the way we study science starting next school year so I also plan on purchasing each of the remaining guides including Earth Science, Chemistry, and Physics along with there corresponding resource CD’s. I would recommend this book if you are looking for a great, easy to follow science program. Check out what my Crewmates thought of all the books by clicking, HERE.

 

Company ~ Bright Ideas Press

Product ~ Christian Kids Explore Biology

Price ~ book $34.95, Resource CD $12.95 *on sale for $7.95

Ages ~ 3rd – 6th grade

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Disclaimer ~  I received a copy of Christian Kids Explore Biology, in exchange for a thorough and honest review. Though I am compensated with free products, I am not compensated in the form of cash for my reviews. The opinions I have given are mine and may differ from others but are not influenced by the company or the free product provided.

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