Apologia - Who Is My Neighbor? Review

Who Is My Neighbor?

By: Apologia Educational Ministries, Inc.

www.apologia.com

$39 Student textbook

$24 Notebooking Journal    

$8 Coloring book

This product is a family-inclusive study of biblical worldview of servanthood. The authors are John Hay & David Webb. The recommended age for this curriculum is 6-14 yrs. old / a multi-grade curriculum.

There are 3 books in this series:

'Who Is God?'
'Who Am I?'
'Who Is My Neighbor?'

I am reviewing the third book in the series.  The prerequisites are the first two, but I didn't have them and it worked out fine. My children have a very strong Biblical background so the prerequisites were not an issue for us.

The student textbook is a hardcover containing 276 colorful pages. There are 8 lessons total.

 They recommend that each lesson be done in order, but you can do the lessons at your own pace if you'd like.  It includes lesson plans.  Each lesson takes about 3 weeks to finish; 2 days per week. If you follow the plans given, you should finish the textbook in 24 weeks. If you wanted to use this for a whole years curriculum it would be easy to space the lessons to fit your school year. Below is a sample lesson plan.

Week one, day one - You will read (or your child can read independently) a segment of the lesson and a short story. You will discuss the story and use questions to get their interaction.

Week one, day two – You will have them go over the 'words they need to know' segment.  They are also asked to memorize a Bible verse (primarily from the New International Version) and to read a few pages / articles. This is where the student will now use their notebooking journal (and/or coloring book).

There are several really nice pictures in this text and the text itself is suitable for a middle schooler to adult.

The student may read it to themselves or for the elementary age it can be read to them. I read it to my children. The text was written directly to the student and it has an engaging style. It even kept my 9 year old interested. :0) You could use the textbook only, without the journal and coloring book if you desired.  No teacher edition is needed or offered.

The notebooking journal is a spiral bound consumable book. It has a space on the front cover to write your child's name on it and contains 240 pages. These pages are also nicely colored. This journal helps the student remember what he/she has learned throughout the book. The child will answer questions, draw pictures, do puzzles, write and study vocabulary words, a place to interpret the Bible scripture, activities, etc. We found this journal suitable for my thirteen yr. old, but not for my dyslexic nine yr. old. Although, an elementary child that has strong writing and reading skills could use this book.

The coloring book followed along with the lessons. The pictures to color were detailed nicely so an older student may enjoy coloring them as well. This consumable book contains 64 pages.

Apologia also has science curriculum, for all ages, and they do offer online science classes you can take. They have homeschool planners and other reading books as well.

What I thought -

I absolutely loved this curriculum!  I have used Apologia science books before and liked them, but this is over the top!   I feel it is priced accordingly and I was happy that a teacher edition wasn't needed. I liked that it was written for the students to keep them interested. It was easy to use and written very well for the educator to present.  The children and I really liked the stories in the textbook. They kept you at the edge of your seat throughout.

I also enjoyed reading it to them.  I like curricula that I can have both the boys do together even though there is an age gap; my oldest is 13 and my younger 9 yrs old.  They found the activities to be fun and kept their minds in thought about our world as a whole and not just our geological location. It also helped teach them that we are here to serve others like God wants us to. This followed right along with what the children are learning in our church that we attend.

I would recommend the notebooking journal to be a more suitable book for the higher elementary through high school age, depending on your child's reading and comprehension abilities.  I chose to have my oldest do the notebooking journal and my younger son to use the coloring book.

I used this product the way they recommended but accommodated to our vacation schedule, which was easy to do. There wasn't anything I didn't like about this product, except it was really hard to put it down!  

I would highly recommend it to any Christian homeschooler that would like to teach their children to be a servant of God by serving others. This book is a HUGE asset to our homeschool library!

Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are mine.

To view other reviews on this product, go to

http://schoolhousereviewcrew.com/785807/