TOS Review - Purposeful Design
What Is It:
Purposeful Design recently sent us a copy of their new book, Purposeful Design: Understanding Creation. This book takes the reader through creation, day by day, with beautiful pictures and excellent explanations of exactly what that creation day entailed. It's a hardcover book with 7 chapters, one for each day of creation.
The chapters include:
- Creation of the Heavens and the Earth - the Foundation of it All
- Creation of the Atmosphere and Water
- Creation of the Dry Land and Vegetation
- Creation of the Sun, Moon, and Stars
- Creation of the Birds and Fish
- Creation of the Land Creatures and Humans
- The Seventh Day
Each chapter does more than just talk about Creation. Jay Schabacker shows us exactly what that specific creation day gave to us. There are experiments, scientific facts, and stunning photography. There is quite a bit of history, not all Bible specific, but general history. This book will get your student thinking about things in a new way. Each chapter has countless topics that will have them asking more and more questions. Many unit studies could come out of this book!
This book really deserves a special place in the house, it's gorgeous!
How We Used It:
Exploring Creation was written for elementary aged kids, but is really a great resource for any age. There were parts that were way over my 7 year old's head and parts that worked perfectly for my preschooler. Depending on how in depth you want to go, you can adjust this for pretty much any student.
We've done unit studies on creation before, but this book gave us a lot of information that we hadn't covered. For instance, the chapter on the creation of the sun, moon, and stars, there is an excellent section on how the sun's rays change with the seasons. We've covered seasons before, but this was an excellent explanation that really stuck with Josie. There were also pages on solstices and details on the tilt of the Earth that she wasn't as ready for yet which makes this a book we can go back to a little later. Love that!
The creation of land and plants chapter was really fun for Gabe. We talked about how plants help people and did some fun apple projects. Again, the pictures were so well done, that alone captured their interest.
There are also science experiments with really good explanations. One of my biggest gripes with most science experiments is that they are fun, but don't explain in a way that my young kids can understand. This ice floating project was just one example of how well rounded the chapters are.
Bible verses are scattered throughout and of course there is a heavy Christian influence, but there are so many awesome facts and pictures that make this more than a Christian book. I'm excited to use this book to pull together some great unit studies on our world and how it works together.
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