We have a long list of reasons we homeschool. One of those is to ground our kids in faith and learn the ways of God. Creationism is our "hub" of learning, as everything is based on how and why the universe was created.

I came from a public school system, and although I exceeded expectations in most of my courses, I constantly found myself frustrated with all of my science classes. The frustration continued and even worsened in college. I became very creative in trying to avoid all of my science general requirements. The main source of this frustration was that what I was learning in school didn't make sense with what I knew was true about God and His world. The church couldn't answer any of the questions about the conflicts, either. No one could tell me how to mesh 6 days, Adam and Eve, dinosaurs, Noah, ANY of it! This left me with a resistance to anything having to do with science.

My husband and I didn't want that for our children. We wanted them to enjoy every aspect of learning, excel, and have answers to the questions I hadn't gotten.

Finding a science curriculum that could do all of this this wasn't easy. It's been a journey down an educational path. We started out researching Christian Homeschool Curriculum Publishers; their philosophy towards education as a whole, and creationism in particular.

Abeka was the publisher that seemed to fit the most of our research criteria. The kids loved it. We all loved it. It was one of the more expensive curriculums, but we knew the kids' educations deserved it. Throughout that first year, however, I found myself feeling like something was missing. We weren't going as deep into creationism as I wanted to. Although they were enjoying science more than I did even at such an early age, I could see questions forming that I wasn't able to answer either from personal knowledge or from the books.

So back to the drawing board we went. We tried Bob Jones and Alpha Omega, among others. Although they were all very good, they weren't exactly what we were looking for.

Our journey continued down the path where we found Answers In Genesis. After reading several of their resources, I finally was able to put the world together with the Bible. When we found out Ken Ham, the founder of AIG, was going to be at our State's Homeschool Convention that year, we were among the first to sign up. We learned so much from the General Sessions he led, and delved even deeper with the Breakout Sessions. We purchased the science curriculum, which was new that year, and were anxious to get a new school year started. However, we found the curriculum to be way past elementary age. Since I, too was learning all of this for the first time, I understood how it was over the kids' heads.

So our journey continued. I attempted to take AIG's wealth of information and organize it into a curriculum we could use. We finally began flourishing in science, but I was uncertain if I was putting it all together in the best order and placement possible. The research and planning began taking over all of my time, and I still had five other subjects to plan for and teach.

That's when our journey landed us at our current stop.

I don't remember where we saw it or who recommended it to us, but at some point, I came across Apologia's new curriculum for elementary ages. We had known of Apologia since we started on this trip, but at the time, the "Young Explorer" series was yet to be available. Now that Jeannie Fulbright had written it, and Apologia Educational Ministries had published it, I couldn't wait to get my hands on the books! We began with Exploring Creation with Astronomy and my daughter changed her birthday wish from a toy to a telescope! We moved from there to Exploring Creation with Zoology 1. This semester we will begin the second Zoology book. Since starting this course, my other daughter has joined several clubs that focus on animals and has even signed up for a supplementary advanced course in hopes of one day being a veterinarian. Next year, we will be starting Exploring Creation with Botany. I wonder what doors will be opened with this new study?

So, here we are, at the end of our journey--for now. We finally found the depth we were searching for on the level our kids could understand. We use AIG's resources to supplement the science curriculum that has advanced our whole family into worlds we never knew before.