| | |  | New in July | Home » » » Exploring Creation with Botany | | | | | | | Description: | | This wonderful book uses the classical and Charlotte Mason methodology to give elementary school students an introduction to God's incredible world of plants. Narration and notebooking are used to encourage critical thinking, logical ordering, retention, and record keeping. Each lesson in the book is organized with a narrative, some notebook work, an activity, and a project. The activities and projects use easy-to-find household items and truly make the lessons come alive! They include making a "light hut" in which to grow plants, dissection of a bean seed, growing seeds in plastic bags to watch the germination process, making a leaf skeleton, observing how plants grow towards light, measuring transpiration, forcing bulbs to grow out of season, and forcing pine cones to open and close. Although designed to be read by the parent to elementary students of various grade levels, it is possible for students with a 4th-grade reading level to read this book on their own. Grades K-6. | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Jeannie Fulbright | | Hardcover:
| 176 pages | | Publisher:
| Apologia Educational Ministrie | | Publication Date:
| 2004-06 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 1932012494 | | Package Length:
| 10.9 inches | | Package Width:
| 8.7 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.7 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.9 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 18 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 18 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
37 of 41 found the following review helpful:
 Apologia Goes Elementary!Jun 17, 2005
By CD
"devotedmomof7"
This fabulous book and the others in the elementary series perfectly lay the groundwork for later success in the unparalleled Apologia Science books.
The philosophy is that, rather than be given a quick shot overview of a scientific subject, young students will thrive best with an exciting, intensified study that thoroughly peaks their interest beyond trite summaries.
Written in the typical user-friendly Apologia style, these books are readable by the students. An in-depth study of the Plantae Kingdom is covered with continually fun activities that are teacher/parent friendly. The students learn Latin terminology that will aid them with more advanced vocabulary study, as well.
We are using this in a homeschool Botany class where 6 families meet weekly in various settings to amplify the theme. We met at the park waterfall to study mosses and at a berry farm to pick blueberies together during the study of fruit plants. A visit to the bee farm and butterfly pavillon will provide visual integration of the pollination chapter. The students each made their own light hut to grow herbs which will later be made into their own herb soap.
A free downloadable workbook is presently on their website, along with a multitude of internet links for each chapter. This is an effective and exciting study ~ well worth every penny!
45 of 54 found the following review helpful:
 Nice, but not a Charlotte Mason style book...Feb 16, 2007
By Caelae
I must express an opinion different from all the other reviewers so far. I purchased this book for our daughters to use, and came away very disappointed. Granted it has lovely pictures, and good diagrams and the activities are interesting....if you can make it long enough to get to one. The writing style is not what Charlotte Mason would have approved of. She had no patience for twaddly textbooks that moralised everything, which unfortunately this book does. The style is boring and pedantic, and even my younger children disliked it. I personally want to give the glory to God for His creation, but stressing every few lines the awesomeness of His creation soon becomes hollow. His creative glory should be self-evident to your children, because they are actually out there looking at it. This textbook requires you to read portions for days before you ever come to an activity. It especially bothers me that the book is written in a sing-songy conversational manner, as if the author were in the room leading a class. This annoys my kids, because when the text asks them if they've ever heard of a botanist ("BAW - tan - ist") they look at me like, "why are you asking us such a dumb question Mom?". Obviously, as their teacher I know what they've already studied, and it sounds really silly to be speaking to them as if I've never met them before.
Charlotte Mason would have had the children read a PRIMARY source work, not this kind of predigested moralised stuff, she would have had the children go outside and look at a flower, draw it, observe its changes, not sit for days on the couch reading from a textbook. We finally gave up on this book, as my girls were becoming very bored, and starting to dread "science" time. We decided to change to actually doing science, with activity based explorations they will remember as they grow up and will truly know that God is awesome from what they see before them. Reading eight pages and then doing a quiet notebook page is not doing science. If you decide to use this book, I strongly suggest you read it aloud, skipping all the pedantic nonesense, and get to the real subject matter, and then right away do an activity that will engage your children. I wish I could be more positive about this book, I had such high hopes for it.
14 of 16 found the following review helpful:
We love Exploring Creation with Botany!Jul 20, 2006
By K. Rebresh
My 11 year old daughter chose this book after looking at several science books over a variety of topics. She enjoys reading it, growing her own plants in the light hut she made (all detailed really well in the instructions), and notebooking the information she is learning. She enjoyed the "shoe" experiment, which enabled her to easily understand and memorize taxonomy. She is looking forward to making her own herb soap as soon as her plants are big enough.
I like Exploring Creation with Botany because I was looking for a science book that would explain God's creation with much more interest than a textbook. Jeannie Fulbright's book does just that and my daughter can even teach herself since it is so well-written. My original plan was for my daughter to learn botany on her own, but it is so interesting that I am learning with her and enjoying it. I wish I'd had a book this interesting when I was in school. I like that it is written directly to the student and that each topic is covered in depth. The supplies for the experiments are easy to find, too.
We already have Exploring Creation with Astronomy by the same author and we are looking forward to more learning adventures with it!
11 of 13 found the following review helpful:
From A Kid That Uses Apologia ElementaryFeb 16, 2008
My name is Windsor and I'm using my mom's account with permission.
I wanted to say something about this book. I really like it because I can understand it. I had to do this kind of science again this year because I didn't understand it last year in Abeka. I really like doing the projects with my mom and sister. Science is so cool and I really like how the book sounds in my head when I read it or my mom reads it to me. It's kind of like hearing somebody that really knows how to explain something say stuff that I need to know. I keep a notebook and am learning to draw cool nature stuff. I just wanted to say thank you to Mrs. Fulbright for writing something I can understand. Thank you. From Windsor a 9 year old science learner.
9 of 11 found the following review helpful:
From a Jewish homeschooling perspectiveJul 21, 2006
By S. D. McCormick
I have been reading textbook after textbook trying to find a publisher that could meet my son's needs. My son is enthusiastic about science. He is entering the third grade, but reading on a fifth grade level. We are an observant Jewish family and I had not found what I was looking for in any secular text, but was skeptical to purchase a text from a Christian perspective.
My son wanted to study botany, so I decided to purchase this book and evaluate it myself before telling him about it. I devoured this book over one weekend. It was an interesting read. I know that it will captivate my son and keep my interest as well.
Since my son is going to be the one to do the reading of the text, I wanted to ensure that this was taught from the Jewish perspective. There were only a couple of changes that I made to the book to fit our families needs perfectly.
I am SO happy with this one, that I am going to purchase the General Science text for my 7th grader!
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