Friday

Who Am I? And What Am I Doing Here? Review


I'm thankful for the privilege to give you a review again of something by Apologia Press.

What We Reviewed

We had the opportunity to review the second book in the What We Believe series, Who Am I? (And What Am I Doing Here?)It is geared towards ages 6-14 and "helps children understand what it means to be fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of the Most High God."

What Products are Available?

This particular subject comes with several teaching tools. The teacher's manual (retail $39), the student notebooking journal (retail $24), the Who Am I? coloring book (retail $8) and the Who Am I? Audio Book, MP3, CD (retail $19).

I do not believe all of the products are necessary unless you have several children who would fit the various criterias. Our four year old daughter especially enjoyed the coloring book which has pictures and Scripture or thoughts that accompany the stories in the teacher's manual. This is nice for your younger child to use while you are reading and discussing.

The CD is intended to be an accompaniment to the book for those who are auditory learners, slow readers or have other learning disabilities that make reading difficult. However, it must be used on a computer or an MP3 compatible CD player.

Our son enjoyed using the student notebooking journal. It gave him the opportunity to draw, write or create based on what he learned in the lesson.

And me? Well, I enjoyed the Teacher's Manual with it's nice hard cover, beautiful pictures and well-written text. (I was born to be a teacher, I'm pretty sure...) This book is truly incredible. The message that it is conveying is truth that needs to be taught to our children. It really is a phenomenal curriculum and I would strongly urge you to purchase it.

From a parent's perspective, I can only think about how important something like this is in today's world. Our children are bombarded with the ideas that life is not valued in the unborn or in the elderly or that perhaps their own lives are not important as so many of our youth succumb to suicide.
"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." source

"Our children are bombarded daily with competing messages. Every song, movie, book, TV show, blog and game is full of ideas--ideas about God, people, truth, beauty, and right and wrong. Not all of these ideas are true. Some are deceptive and even destructive. The What We Believe series is designed to help children learn to discern the truth by using God's Word as a lens through which to view the world around them." (source--back over of the CD)

How We (and Will Continue to) Use this Material

The schedule that is recommended in the book is pretty low key, allowing you to take your time to work through the book.

I like that about it because our schedule is pretty jampacked  right now and I do use a Bible curriculum already. That being said, I haven't used this daily (although my son is frequently asking when we can use it again because he really enjoys it.)

However, God has really impressed upon me over the last couple of months to be bringing Scripture before our children daily so I definitely plan to incorporate this into our breakfast time during the summer when we're out of school. It will give a nice structure to our Bible discussion time.

And, truly, this is more than a Bible curriculum because it helps your children develop higher level biblical thinking skills. Can't we all use more of that?

What Other Books are in the Series?

There are three other books in this series: Who is God?, Who is My Neighbor? and What on Earth Can I Do?. I would love the chance to review all of these pertinent topics with our children someday.

If You'd Like to Check It Out
 
For samples, please click on a Sample Lesson, the Table Of Contents or here for the CD.
Click here to see what my fellow crewmates think about this product:

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Disclosure: I was given product to keep from Aplogia in exchange for a candid review.

9 comments:

Belley Family said...

Do the authors give a doctrinal viewpoint? Thank you.
(P.S. Thanks for supporting BEYOND THE MASK!)

becky@purposefulhomemaking.com said...

Are you asking for a denomination or rather Bible translations that they use? Once I know for sure what you would like to know I will try to find out. :) Sure...are you associated w/Beyond the Mask?? We know (some) of the Burns'. :)

Anonymous said...

I would also like to know what their doctrinal veiwpoint is. Maybe not so much the denomination, but their veiws on things of the Bible. Does that make sense, lol? I have been looking at them and wondering if I should use them next year, so reading your reveiw has been helpful, thank you.

Morgan said...

The books are from a creation standpoint (6 days rather than millions of years). It is a non-denominational standpoint, but there may or may not be things you disagree with. If that's the case, it's easy to read the text to them and then explain what you and why.

My family is non-denominational and so far I have not had any issues with the text in book 1 (Who is God). I like that it goes deeper into what we believe and why so that they can easier defend (and keep) their faith as they get older.

becky@purposefulhomemaking.com said...

They are taught from a Christian perspective and are based on the Word of God. Does that help? Thanks so much Morgan for helping out with this question. :)

David Webb said...

As the co-author of this series, I hope I can be of some help on the question of the series' doctrinal viewpoint. John and I are committed to leading students into biblical truth, not to get them to conform to a particular religious tradition. Therefore, the entire What We Believe series is intentionally nondenominational in content. John and I come from two different denominational backgrounds ourselves, and we have made an effort to omit from the course minor issues of doctrinal difference that can divide and separate Christians and instead focus on the larger issues that define orthodox Christian faith. Whatever your family's denominational preference, you can easily supplement the lessons to cover what your local church teaches about such doctrinal distinctives as water baptism, spiritual gifts, or worship music. I hope this helps.

becky@purposefulhomemaking.com said...

Thank you so much Mr. Webb for weighing in on this. I appreciate it. This curriculum is truly a great resource and I'm so thankful we had the opportunity to review it! Thanks again!

Heather Brandt said...

I appreciate your review because I wasn't sure if the series would work with my son (he's only 5). Now I know it is possible to use it with a variety of ages and it sounds great!

becky@purposefulhomemaking.com said...

Heather, I really do love this and am using it through the summer w/our children (http://www.purposefulhomemaking.com/2012/05/school-may-be-out-but-were-not-done.html). I just break it up quite a bit because of their attention spans (mostly the 4 1/2 and just turned 7 yo's are listening, but I have a 2 1/2 yo in there to work with too!)
I'm excited b/c I get to review Who is My Neighbor very soon--should be coming any day now so you can look for that review in the next month or so. :) Thanks for stopping by!

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