Our children are bombarded on a daily basis with competing messages. Every song, movie, book, TV show, blog, and game is full of ideas—ideas about truth, morality, beauty, identity, faith, and more. Not all of these ideas are true. Some are wrong, some are deceptive, and some are outright destructive. It is more important than ever that young children be equipped to discern among competing ideas and stand in the truth. This is why Apologia has teamed with Summit Ministries to bring you the "What We Believe" Series. The "What We Believe" Series is an outstanding way to teach your child the essential beliefs of the Christian faith, but it’s so much more! With this student-directed, Bible-based curriculum, your children will learn how to use Scripture as a lens through which to view the world around them—to see everything the way God sees it—and know the truth.
(Description of What We Believe Series taken from Apologia's website)
While most people associate Apologia with Science curriculum they also have a fantastic Biblical worldview curriculum geared toward children ages 6-14. This material is designed to teach them about who they are through God and to show them how they should live because of their unique design. As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew, Apologia generously sent our family the 2nd book in this Bible series called "Who Am I? And What Am I Doing Here?" book, notebooking journal, coloring book and audio CD. This material includes a recommended lesson plan that can be taught from four to nine months so you can take it at whatever pace works best for your family.
The second book in the What We Believe series, Who Am I? (And What Am I Doing Here?) helps children understand what it means to be fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of the Most High God. This study will enable students to develop a healthy self-image based on these biblical truths: God made me in His image and crowned me with glory; He has given me special gifts and a unique purpose in life; I can creatively express God’s love; I am meant to think about beautiful and praiseworthy things, especially God and His Word; I must make decisions based on God’s truth; I can always know the wise thing to do; I must cultivate the fruit of the Spirit in my life; I am a beloved child of God whose true identity is found in Christ. I especially loved the very first story was about a little boy in Russia who had clubbed feet. I connected with that story personally and our kids did too because I was born with bilateral clubbed feet and I have done mission work in Russia and Siberia so we all loved the first story shared in this book. Other stories (that we will get to further in our study) include a Muslim girl and even Superman! Throughout the book, there are snippets of information about artists and their art, musicians and tons of pictures (which my visual learners loved). They also introduce your children to other world relgions (Buddhist, Hinduism, Muslims, New Age, etc) in a way that a child can easily understand as it is written in third person point of view.
The Notebooking Journal is a wonderful companion resource to the book. It contains blank pages where they can journal what they are discovering through the book/reading, fun activities like seek-a-word puzzles, crossword puzzles and more to reinforce learning, vocabulary builders, creative writing ideas, mini books to make and even an "About the Author" section in the back where your child gets to write their own biography. It is more than a resource....it is a journal they can look back on years down the road and remind them of the concepts they learned about through this study.
Of course, any age child loves to color (ok, even I still love to color) so the 64 page Coloring Book was a huge hit at our house. We let the kids color a page after we had done the reading/discussion and the activities in the notebooking journal. However, if you have younger kids (our children are 6, 8 & 10) you could let them color while you are reading out of the book. The possibilities of how to use the coloring book are endless.
The audio CD was the only thing we were not big fans of. It contains a complete audio recording of the book "Who Am I?" and would be useful for auditory learners, slow readers or those who have learning issues that make reading difficult. While we have a 10 year old that has learning issues that makes reading difficult, she did not like the audio CD at all. She said the reader's voice was very boring (it is quite monotone) and not fun to listen to and she preferred that I read it aloud to them instead of them listening to the CD. As a parent, I did not like that the audio CD will not play a CD player and only works in a computer. On our computer, it was very difficult to figure out which track I needed to play for the right page in the book. I think the audio CD user-friendliness could certainly be improved upon.
Overall, we love the Apologia "Who Am I" book and corresponding resources. We are huge fans of Apologia homeschool materials and resources for parents. You can purchase these materials from Apologia. The book is $39.00, the audio CD is $19.00, the notebooking journal is $24.00 and the coloring book is $8.00. I do wish Apologia would offer a "bundle package" for the What We Believe series materials where you could purchase all 4 items for each book together and save a little money. You can also read other TOS Crew reviews here.
Disclaimer: I was given the above mentioned materials as a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew. No monetary compensation was received.
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