Do you know how our bodies work? Apologia has answers for your Elementary Student!

I enjoyed using Apologia's Young Explorer Series in the past, with my two older children, so I was delighted to be asked to review Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology, which includes the text, an mp3* audio narration of the text, and two levels of their notebooking journal, the regular and the junior version.

I'm guessing that most of my readers have heard of Apologia if they've been homeschooling for very long, but for those who are new to this homeschooling thing, let me give you a quick run-down on some of the reasons why I appreciate Apologia.

• The text is written directly to the student, and is somewhat more conversational than the textbooks I grew up with. 
• Science is approached from a Christian Worldview, clearly and logically articulated, and reinforced through questions and activities that include that worldview.  
• The activities and experiments suggested in the book are generally able to be completed with normal household materials that one is likely to have on hand. 

Now, when I first used Apologia's Exploring Creation series, well over a decade ago, it simply consisted of the text. There was no MP3 audio CD (Helpful for those who have reading disabilities, or who simply process more easily when listening to audio), nor were there premade journaling notebooks. We had a printable pdf with notebooking pages, mostly for narration purposes, but nothing like the resource that was sent to us with the text for this review.

The course includes 14 Lessons, with a recommended pace similar to their High School Modules of 2 weeks per lesson, so a full year course.  The Lessons are:

1. Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology
2. The Skelatal System
3. The Muscular System
4. The Digestive and Renal Systems
5. Heath and Nutrition
6. The Respiratory System
7. Life in the Blood
8. The Cardiovascular System
9. The Nervous and Endocrine Systems
10. The Nervous System Extended
11. Your Senses
12. The Integumentary System
13. The Lymphatic and Immune System
14. Growth and Development 

The two journals include all the pages you will need (and more) to maintain a record of what your child has learned in the course with pages to write their narrative answers to the "Tell someone what you've learned" questions.  There are a few variations, of course. For example, the Junior Journal includes coloring pages, more flap books for vocabulary activities and the copy work pages use guidelines, where the older journal does not, while the regular Journal includes more detailed and difficult crossword puzzles

Journal Page found in both books

I will admit that my 5th grader's handwriting is not fabulous yet (remember the recent cursive review?) so the opportunity to have him practice in the notebook is helpful, but in this instance, he might benefit more from the younger journal instead of the older one as he is still working on uniform letter size.

Sample Copywork pages from Regular and Junior Journals

This was also his first experience with a larger crossword puzzle (more words) with smaller boxes~ Ummmm... I said to use a pencil for a reason... ;) This was also one of those activities that took much longer than I expected, but he is improving. :)

Use a pencil, bud! ;) 

Both journals include full-color Minibooks to add to each lesson. These pages are found in the back of the journal. Although not my circumstance, because I only have one student, I appreciate that these are almost identical (with the exception of the writing lines, which again, have guidelines in the junior version) so that those with multi-age students are able to have some journaling activities that are the same.


I am including a photo of the back of the Muscle Minibook prior to gluing it into the journal, so that you can see how clear the directions are.

A little bit more about the MP3~ It is read by the author, Jeannie Fulbright, herself. Her voice and inflections are pleasant to listen to, and I will note that she does not entirely read the text word-for-word, but all of the material is covered.
* The MP3 audio CD must be played on an MP3 compatible player, typically on your computer. This becomes a bit of an issue as more computers are made without DVD drives, so offering it as a download might be a useful suggestion.

Here's a little bit of information on how/why the Exploring Creation Immersion approach to science works, in Jeannie Fulbright's words:


I will also mention that when you purchase the text, you gain access to a password-protected resource that includes MANY extra links for further research and study if something, in particular, catches your child's interest.  Here is a screenshot of the first part of the resources.

As you can see, Apologia offers a very thorough and very engaging course for your young scientist, and their curriculum is something that I can highly recommend, as it has been one of my personal choices to purchase and use since almost the very beginning of my homeschooling career.

Not So Nutty Nitty Gritty 

• Company: Apologia 
• Product: Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology
• Ages: K-6th grade
• Price: 
• $49.00 Text
• $29 each for the journals and the MP3 CD Audio book

You can connect with Apologia on any of their many Social Media pages: 

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Blessings~

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