TOS Review: Apologia: Who Is God?

I confess that I am starting this review off a bit biased.  This is our fourth year using the elementary Apologia science books.  We love them.  So when I got the opportunity to review a different type of Apologia book, I was thrilled.  And I'm happy to say, I'm not disappointed.

We received the (text)book "Who is God? And Can I Really Know Him?" from Apologia.  This book is the first in a series of books concerning having a biblical worldview.

The Apologia website really explains best what this book is about:

Who is God and Can I Really Know Him?, introduces the concept of worldview while laying the foundational truths upon which the evangelical Christian worldview is built: God is truth and He reveals His truth to people; He is the one true and almighty God; He is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; He created everything; we are God’s children and are made to love and to praise Him; God meets all our needs; sin keeps us from God; and Jesus is the only way to God.

This 252 page book is divided into 10 lessons.  The first lesson only took us two weeks to complete, however, it is more of an introduction to the whole book and is shorter than the other lessons.  We are now working on about one lesson per month.

Here is a list of the 10 lessons:

1. Where am I building my life?
2. How can I know what's true?
3. What is God like? part1
4. What is God like? part 2
5. Who are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?
6. If God created the world, why isn't it perfect?
7. Why did God create me?
8. Will God meet all my needs?
9. Why does sin keep me from knowing God?
10. Is Jesus the only way to God?

I pull this book out about 3 or 4 days a week and we read a section or two or three from the book.  (There is a suggested schedule you can follow that the book describes in the introduction but the book is so well laid out, I didn't feel the schedule was needed.) It seems each section results in discussion and since this is important stuff (more important than reading, writing and math) I want to be sure we have the time to discuss without rushing.  The lessons start with "the big idea" which explains what that lesson is about.  The lessons also contain Bible memory, vocabulary, a fictional story that goes with the lesson, and notebooking work to do.   Here is a direct link to some sample pages from the book.

The beginning of the book guides you to a website with some extra help. The website contains links to notebooking pages you can use that go well with the book and additional resources to expand on what you are learning.  Also, there is a "Teacher Helps" section for each lesson.  This section is similar to a teacher's manual.

At the end of each lesson is also a section called "House of Truth."  There is an actual house to build that can be purchased to use with this curriculum, however, it is really geared toward a group setting as the house itself is costly.  The book extras section directs you to where you can purchase this item.  We simply discussed this section without building a house.

Thus far, we have not come across anything objectionable in this book though we have had several good discussions.  As with any book that is trying to explain God, the Bible or anything biblical, we make sure that what we are reading coincides with what the Bible actually says.  So far, so good.  This book really seems to incorporate much of the basics of Christianity. 

As I mentioned earlier, this is a book that shouldn't be rushed through.  Especially if you have a child like my Precise Prince.  He is always coming up with questions-most of them based on what we are reading, but sometimes they are new questions that don't really directly relate to what we've been reading-his mind goes in circles until he finds a question.  The questions are sometimes hard for me to answer but we sit and discuss and we are both learning from this. One example of our discussions is when the book calls God a person.  Precise Prince said, "He's not a person, He's a Spirit."  When using the term person, it brought to mind humans in all their sin.  However, the book defines person-"A living being who has mind, emotions, a will, a conscience, and a spirit."  Precise Prince of course had something to say about that, "God doesn't need a conscience."  However, when I defined conscience simply as being aware of things, this definition satisfied Precise Prince and now we can read God is a person. 

The bottom line is that I highly recommend this book. It is so important for our children to have a biblical worldview and this book does a good job getting them started in this.

The cost of Apologia: Who is God? is $39.00.   The age recommendation is 6-14.  It should be 6-adult.  I know I'm getting some good information from this book too. 

This spring there is to be a coloring book, an MP3 audio Cd and a pre-printed notebooking journal to go with the textbook that will be available each for purchase separately.

(I received a copy of Who is God for free in exchange for my honest opinion.  No other compensation was received.)