I’m gonna be real transparent here and just say I haven’t formally taught health and nutrition the last couple years. Sure we go over the basics, but I’ve found all of the curricula for teaching health and nutrition to be boring and too school-y, leaving out the important Biblical standpoint. So I’ve taken it off our curriculum agenda.
{I received a copy of Apologia’s Exploring Creation Through Health and Nutrition and was compensated for my time in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own. For more information check out my full disclosure policy.}
I plan to revisit it since having a chance to check out Apologia’s Exploring Creation Through Health and Nutrition. I have yet to find an Apologia Curriculum that I don’t just absolutely head over heels love!
ALL their subjects are taught around a Biblical Worldview! That is Gold for this homeschool mama!
Contents
Teaching Health and Nutrition
I wasn’t sure if this would be a good fit for us, because my girls are only 8, 11 and 12. It is actually a high school course. I decided to go ahead with it because of my middleschooler. But I soon realized that the way Dr. Laura Chase wrote it, I can easily use this in a morning time style without using some of the student notebook with my other two.
It covers the physical, nutritional, emotional, and spiritual aspects of growing into a healthy adult.
There are some topics that are heavy and some controversial as well. I just pick and choose what I feel like they are ready for and skip over what is a bit advanced. This curriculum is made for teenagers, but I know my kids and what they can handle.
The modules are broken up in to short paragraphs with subheadings throughout so I can easily see what is coming up. A couple of my favorite things are the temperament test in module 1, the safety projects in module 5, and the exercise record in module 12.
Teaching Health and Nutrition – Spirit, Soul and Body
This course is phenomenal. God is included in a natural way, the way all courses should be taught. Not just a scripture thrown in here or there, but it is based entirely off of how we were created – in His image and His purposes for us and backed with Scientific proof.
It teaches not just the physical aspects of health, but the person as a whole – spirit, soul (mind, will & emotions) and body. It’s quite impressive.
After all, we are more than just a physical body. We are a spirit, we have a soul and we live in a body. Dr. Chase has a gift of explaining difficult concepts in layman’s terms so even I can understand it. Ha!
Teaching the Tough Topics
My 12 year old daughter just started her first year of PUBLIC school 3 weeks ago. My plan is to go through and discuss module 15- The Gift of Reproduction with her. This covers everything that she needs to know from puberty to purity, sex in the confines of marriage, the damages of promiscuity, STDs, and more.
I know “sex-ed” is taught to 7th graders in public school but not the way I want her to learn it. I doubt the mention that sex before marriage is damaging is even on their radar.
I’m actually really nervous for her to learn from their worldly view without first learning through a Biblical Worldview. So I’m scrambling to get through it with her so she has the Truth already set as her foundation. We’ve had many discussions about the majority of it, but I want to reinforce it.
Please parents of kids in puberty, you must discuss these tough topics with your kids, they WILL hear it from someone else. This module is great for the parent who doesn’t want to discuss in your own words. It goes into great detail, so read it before to get comfortably reading and discussing it with your child.
God created sex to be a beautiful part of a marriage, but has been twisted into something dirty. It’s not and they need to know that sex is a good thing, but within the confines of marriage. Remember, we have a real enemy that wants nothing more than to steal, kill and destroy our kids and he starts in this arena.
15 Health and Nutrition Modules
- Who Am I and Why Does Health Matter?
- Physical Influences on Thoughts and Feelings
- Mental and Emotional Stability
- Interpersonal Harmony
- Treasuring your Senses
- Processing Nourishment and Hydration
- Food Science I – Macronutrients
- Food Science II – Micronutrients
- Let’s Look at What you Eat
- Delivering the Oxygen
- Let’s Move
- You’re Stronger than you Look
- At War with Infection
- Peace in Difficult Times
- The Gift of Reproduction
The Student Notebook
This Science course comes with a textbook and also a student notebook. We have not used the notebook, because like I said my girls are young. There are a few parts that we will probably do together. My oldest daughter could do it, but she already has piles of homework from her school.
The Notebooks are consumable, so you will need one for each child. But you absolutely do not need them to go through the course, but I would definitely encourage you to if you have older kids. If you’ve never used Apologia, the notebooks for their courses are amazing.
The student notebooks are a fun and thorough way for students to practice note-taking and processing their thoughts in a written way. They include short assignments and practical ways to apply each lesson to their own lives.
It includes “on you own” questions that give your students extra practice to really learn the concepts taught and prepare them for the exams. Yes exams, there are exams at the end of each module.
At a high school level I think it is important for them to use these notebooks for that very reason. Besides the note-taking practice, exams will help to prepare your student for college. Also, if you want the high school health credit that they get after finishing this course, it is required.
If you are into grading the notebook contains a rubric as a guide. An added bonus is a lesson plan built right in to make it open and go.
Final Thoughts
Apologia’s Exploring Creation with Health and Nutrition is Biblically based, Scientifically sound, easy-to-understand, well written, and self-guided for the older students. If you are a Christian parent, you will find this to be a must-have for your highschooler.
For more information check out their website and be sure to follow them on social media, to stay in the know for newly released curricula and deals. Additionally they have great freebies too, like this Whole-Health activity eBook or the Apologia Welcome Home eBook and Catalog. Enter to win the Exploring Creation with Health and Nutrition Basic set below that includes both the text book and the student notebook.
- Facebook – facebook.com/apologiaworld
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Forest Rose is a God Loving, Blessed Wife, & Mama to 3 girls. She’s passionate about lifting moms out of the trenches that are discouraged, overwhelmed, or feeling alone or isolated. Her hope is to point them to Christ and equip them to rise up with a newfound hope and joy within, that He alone can provide. Besides blogging, she also loves to create printables!
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