Lions and Tigers and Bears {A Review}

What do a lion, a tiger, a bear, and a raccoon dog all have in common? What about a triceratops and a snail? They are all in the Apologia Educational Ministries Exploring Creation with Zoology 3: Land Animals of the Sixth Day Textbook and Junior Notebooking Journal.

 

This is my first review of Apologia and I’m so impressed.

The hardback texts are designed for ages K-6 and the spiral bound Junior Notebooking Journal is for younger elementary. Although it is called a textbook, it is easy to read and written to be conversational.  Zoology 3: Land Animals of the Sixth Day has readings, map it, track it, notebook activities, and experiments for each chapter. Zoology 3: Land Animals of the Sixth Day Junior Notebooking Journal has notebook pages with boxes for drawing and lines for writing, field trip suggestions, projects, explore more, copy work pages (both print and cursive), stickers to use with your map it activities, and miniature books.

Lesson 1: Camouflage Experiment

The combination of picture boxes and writing spaces was great for my Jo-Jo and Ceesa both. They enjoyed working while I was reading.



Sample of one of Ceesa's pages from the
Junior Notebooking Journal. 


We really enjoy the integration of experiments, mapping, suggested activities, books, and movies. They are just the right combination for us. I especially appreciate how the study of creation is at the core.

Map It! activity with stickers from the Junior
Notebooking Journal.

The text reading is recommended for 2 days a week and each lesson is to be split over 2 weeks. We spread the lessons and activities out to 2-3 days adding the copywork on a third day. Generally, we read from the text and chose notebook pages to complete once a week. Then on the second day, we either did the experiments listed in the text or added animals to our zoo project which is suggested in the Junior Notebooking Journal.

Explore More: Create a Zoo

I found that most of what was mentioned for the projects and experiments we already had on hand. However, several companies carry the "complete" list of supplies for the Apologia experiments. 

Lesson 2: Sight or Smell Experiment

The day we received the text Ceesa began flipping through the pages and read one of the vocabulary stories. They were so excited to learn about predator and prey that they made up a game. There was a lot of running and jumping!

Jo-Jo working on a copywork page from the
Junior Notebooking Journal-Ceesa worked on
the cursive pages and Jo-Jo the print pages.

Jo-Jo started telling predator becomes the prey stories. "The lion hunts the antelope and the hunter shoots the lion." They also made up a safari game where they wrote extra pages about the animal and set up animals.

A page from Ceesa's safari notes-a game
the girls made up on their own.

This curriculum is totally a keeper for us!

Wishing you homeschool blessings,

Exploring Creation with Zoology 3: Land Animals of the Sixth Day Textbook costs $39 and Junior Notebooking Journal costs $24.


 

Disclaimer:  I received both the text and the notebook through the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.