Home With Purpose: Apologia's What We Believe Series: Who Am I and What Am I Doing Here?

Our worldview is important. Learning to be discerning and to view the world from a Christ-centered perspective are critical skills for our children to learn. A worldview curriculum can be a valuable tool in our discipleship toolbox to help us teach our children how to take Biblical truths and apply them to real life. There are good worldview curriculums on the market, but most seem to be aimed at high school age. But what if you'd like to start developing these skills in younger children? Enter Apologia's What We Believe series:

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.

The first-of-its-kind family-inclusive study of biblical worldview introduces young people, ages 6-14, to the basic truths of the Christian faith.

Several years ago the Dancer and I worked our way through the first volume, Who Is God and Can I Really Know Him? We really enjoyed it and I was impressed with the quality and layout of the textbook and the content of the lessons. Now, as part of the TOS Review Crew, I've been given the opportunity to review the second volume, Who Am I and What Am I Doing Here? I was generously provided with not only the textbook, but the notebooking journal, coloring book, and audio MP3 CD as well, none of which were available when we did the first volume.

Whereas Who Is God? focused on God and his attributes, Who Am I? focuses on developing 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

Each of the eight lessons focuses on one of these truths, using multiple approaches to convey the point.
We are very much enjoying this series! The textbook is gorgeous. I love the layout of the lessons, and the way each topic is approached from several angles to ensure each concept is grasped well. For example, besides the main body of the lesson, there's also:

Short fictional stories featuring children working through issues and applying the concepts taught in that lesson. They do a great job of illustrating the ideas and bringing them home! And the follow-up questions to the stories give great talking points for further discussion.
Short articles are sprinkled throughout the text on topics that tie back to the theme of the lesson across multiple fields: art, math, science, history, etc. For example, lesson 1 has a small article on Norman Rockwell and one of his paintings. Lesson 2 has one on how to figure out how tall you will be as an adult. Each ties back to the concepts in the lesson in some way. This integrated approach gives the student a broader understanding of the main subject and also exposes them to new interests, skills, and experiences.
The "Worldviews in Focus" section depicts a typical day in the life of a child being raised in another culture with a different worldview, helping children understand why others believe as they do.
The photographs, illustrations and charts are wonderful and clearly illustrate the concepts in each lesson.
I love the "House of Truth", a visual model giving a concrete way of thinking about life in the kingdom of God using a model of a house: foundation, walls, and roof, each constructed of different truths.
There are also Bible memory verses for each lesson, vocabulary words, character traits, prayers, and more.

The suggested lesson plans are flexible and easy to adapt to your schedule, working through a couple of short sections just two days a week. The text is very well written, with a conversational style. This plus the excellent illustrations and variety of approaches mentioned above keep interest levels high for many different ages and learning styles. I really appreciate that I can include nearly all my kids in it, especially with the addition of the coloring book to help little ones focus and get the main idea of each lesson. The notebooking journal is beautifully done, and the audio CD saves my voice from adding another read-aloud to the schedule.

Sample pages:

Volume 3 in the series is Who Is My Neighbor and Why Does He Need Me?, and Volume 4, due out this year, will be titled What On Earth Can I Do? I highly recommend the entire series! The texts retail for $39, the notebooking journal for $24.00, the coloring book is $8.00, and the MP3 audio CD is $19.00 (the extras are currently only available for the first two volumes). I highly recommend at least the journal, and also the coloring book if younger children will be participating. The CD isn't a necessity, but is definitely nice to have!

Check the crew blog to see what others think of Who Am I?