Apologia Educational Ministries sent us their brand new Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal to review.
About the Journal
The Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal contains color journaling pages for children to document what they've learned through field trips and other explorations of the world around them. Additionally, there is information for parents with tips and suggestions. It is spiral bound with a laminated type cover.
What You'll Find Inside
To begin the journal, there is a page for your child's name.
The first section contains information about preparing for a field trip with tips for teachers and students. There are charts included for ideas for field trips that are "Off the Beaten Path" and "from your own backyard to half way around to the world."
There are lots ideas for science topics: plants, animals, earth, space/aviation, and the human body AND for social studies topics: history/government, municipal, business, and culture And others.
Next up are for kids to mark places they've explored in their state, in the US, and around the world with dates and destinations provided.
There are ten field trip pages with a page that gives instructions for how to use the pages. Each field trip page has a place to draw a map and put a drawing or add a photo. There are sections for the date, time, place, books read for the trip, an emergency contact plan, I want to see or do, story of my day, and something I never want to forget.
After the field trip pages, there are places for each season called My Special Spot pages. These pages include directions for how to use them as well.
The pages have a chart, a place to draw, a notes section, and a spot for location, date, temperature, and rainfall.
At the end of the journal, there are "As I See It" pages and a page of directions. Some of these pages have a specific topic and others are blank.
There are 17 "As I See It" pages total.
Bonus
The journal has book extras that accompany the physical book. You access the extras by going to a link provided and using your password. The extras include links to the following information:
- The Importance of Field Trips
- Field Trip Ideas and Searches
- Maps
- Field Guides and Identification Resources
- Natural History Museums
- Science Museums
- Children's Museums
- Aquariums and Zoos
- National Parks
- State Parks
- Botany
- Animals
- Earth Science
- Aeronautics and Space
- Human Body/Biology
- Chemistry and Physics
- History and Government
- Community and Municipal
- Business and Industry
- Culture
- Additional Field Trip Websites
- Art Journaling
- Quotes Relating Science and Faith
Our Experience
When the weather is nice, we spend our time outdoors in our own backyard and taking field trips in our area. Since this part of our schooling is with the whole family, we decided to use our Journal as a Family Journal. Everybody took turns working in the pages that stood out to them in different sections.
We took a trip to the zoo for a special Twilight Tour and Ceesa and Jo-Jo were super excited to journal about the trip.
Ceesa made a map of the golf cart that we road on for the tour! :)
She also really liked the things that were unique for our trip.
Jo-Jo made a map of the penguin habitat.
I told the kids they could pick their own pages. One of the pages Jo-Jo chose was My Special Spot in Summer. It is camp. She drew a map of the campground and wrote about things she likes to do there.
Wheel wanted to work to, so we decided to give him his own page. :)
Ceesa chose an "As I See It" page for heavens. She wrote about types of clouds, what they look like and how to make the forecast by reading them.
Future
I'm planning on packing our Journal in our camper. It would make an excellent addition to our camping activity kit.
Wishing you homeschool blessings,
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