6 In Homeschooling

Apologia Botany || A Curriculum Review

My kids are budding scientists.  Nearly every afternoon you will find us carefully mixing household items, creating charts, or dissecting small bits of God’s creation.  From my four year old carefully putting paper clips onto a foil boat and watching them float to my 11 year old learning Greek and Latin roots describing plants, Apologia is hands down my favorite science curriculum.

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Presently, we are working through Apologia Botany and I am enjoying it just as much as the kids.  

Why I Love Apologia

 

First, let me explain why I love Apologia Botany in general.

  1. The text is God centered.  God is given the glory for His amazing creation and verses are often included.
  2. Experiments are plentiful.  Not only do they keep inquisitive minds satisfied, they are simple and usually require everyday household items.
  3. Accompanying notebooks are full of engaging reinforcement activities which would take me forever to put together on my own.  The notebooks come in two different levels, giving you options to choose what works best for your family.
  4. If you choose not to buy the accompanying notebooks, activities are still included with each lesson for different levels.
  5. The textbooks are engaging with colorful pictures and illustrations.  

 

Apologia Botany begins with an explanation of the Taxonomy system and then breaks down into the following sections (each about 15 pages long):

  • Seeds
  • Flowers
  • Pollination
  • Fruits
  • Leaves
  • Roots
  • Stems
  • Trees
  • Gymnosperms
  • Seedless Vascular Plants
  • Nonvascular Plants
  • Nature Journaling

My 11 year old’s favorite activity in the book so far has been dissecting a flower.  The text provided step by step instruction for removing the sepals, petals, stamen etc.  It was fascinating.

My 4 year old planted corn seeds in a plastic cup and was delighted to see the plant emerge as well as watch the roots below the dirt.  

My 7 year old has been most excited about the light hut we made to germinate our seeds.  The text gives instructions for growing herbs and making soap out of them, but we used it to begin our garden plants.  It worked wonderfully and we all enjoyed watching the little plants emerge while it was still frigid outside.

If you live in a northern climate, you might consider going through this book during the spring and summer months as many of the activities require, you guessed it, plants!  

Here are a few examples of the fun activities in this book to give you an idea of how hands-on this is.

  • Flower pollination by hand
  • Make a leaf skeleton
  • Root classification hunt
  • Estimating the height of a tree
  • Bark rubbings
  • Opening and closing pinecones
  • Nature journals

Age Level

This text is probably written for kids reading at a fourth grade level or higher.  I read the text aloud to my second and sixth graders and that works very well for us.  My preschooler also listens and enjoys looking at the pictures and participating in the experiments.  

A Little More About Notebooks

The notebooks are optional, but make teaching so much easier. They come in two levels, so you can teach multiple grades together.  The younger one includes coloring pages, copywork and simple activities.  The older one includes lapbooks, crossword puzzles, diagrams, and copywork.  My 11 year old works through the notebook independently and enjoys the variety of activities.  

As you can see, there are multiple ways to use this Apologia Botany curriculum and it is easy to adapt to your family’s learning and lifestyle.

Other Apologia reviews you may find helpful are “Homeschool Science Anatomy Review” and “My Favorite Homeschool Science Curriculum”

Hi!  I am Heather from Lessons from Home where you will find encouragement for your homeschooling and parenting journey.  Healing from loss is also a big part of my blog as my family grieves the death of my beautiful 8 year old daughter.

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Apologia Botany Curriculum Review

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6 Comments

  • Reply
    Penny
    June 10, 2019 at 4:27 pm

    This looks like an amazing way to learn about plants and botany. I love that it includes so many experiments and hands-on activities.

  • Reply
    Marla
    June 11, 2019 at 11:03 am

    I always found this young explorer series worked better if I read it aloud to my kids. I never got into completing all the added notebook work, we personally found reading the text and completing the suggested activities there was enough.

  • Reply
    Sandra
    June 12, 2019 at 10:36 am

    This sounds like a really fun program! (Also, I am so sorry to hear about your daughter!! :((( )

    • Reply
      Heather
      June 13, 2019 at 8:27 pm

      Yes, reading it aloud works well for us too. We didn’t use notebooks for our first Apologia Science, but I’m glad we tried them. It’s nice that Apologia provides options!

    • Reply
      Heather
      June 13, 2019 at 8:28 pm

      Sandra, Thank you ?

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