How Do We Know the Bible Is True - a Creation Conversations review

Written by Ken Ham (President of Answers in Genesis) and Bodie Hodge, How Do We Know the Bible Is True? is a book that I believe all pastors should have in their church libraries, and all Christians should keep on their shelves at home. This book is relevant to today's issues; it answers questions that many new Christians may not know, and it helps defend the faith.

The book tackles many topics, including my favorites (but not limited to):
- Is the Old Testament reliable? This chapter discusses how historical records were kept back in Biblical days.
- Is the New Testament reliable? This chapter explains why that it IS reliable.
- Is Genesis a Derivation from Ancient Myths? Is it all just hearsay or legends passed down?
- What about the Factual Claims in the DaVinci Code? I love this chapter!
- Polygamy in the Light of Scripture
- Laminin and the Cross - fascinating chapter!!
- How Were People Saved Before Jesus Died on the Cross?

This is a book that can easily be shared with a teen class at church or even included in a homeschool curriculum for older students. It would also be perfect for a church Bible study or a book discussion. Or if you're like me and you enjoy reading Apologia and Hermeneutics, you'll enjoy this one as well. :)

Already Compromised - a Creation Conversations review

Already Compromised is a book by Ken Ham, founder and president of Answers in Genesis a website in defense of Creationism. This book that I was given for review (in Kindle format) is about the compromise that has taken place in Christian colleges and universities. This is a big topic of debate in a lot of Christian homes as parents prepare to send their children off to an institute where they feel their children will get a good, Godly experience in learning.

I do not have experience from having learned in a Christian college, unfortunately. The college I went to was a small, private work-study college that was a nice alternative to a Christian education. So while I cannot speak from experience, I can speak as a Christian mom and former secular student.

This book focuses on some research that Ken Ham, Greg Hall, Britt Beemer and America's Research Group undertook. Three hundred twelve people were surveyed for this research: presidents, vice presidents, religious department heads, and science department heads of Christian universities and colleges. The results that they found were sometimes disappointing, but not too shocking. The results revealed that many of our Christian institutions of learning do not teach Biblical foundations. Many teach that creationism is a theory, and that evolution is true. Other questions that were asked included topics (but not limited to) on whether the Bible is literally true; whether the flood of Noah was worldwide, regional or local; and if God created the world in six, literal 24 hour days. It was astounding to see how large the range of yes/no answers were among presidents, vice presidents, religious dept. heads, and science department heads. You would think they'd all agree, but no! But what I found was astounding was that the greatest area of trouble (especially where ideas such as evolution and the Bible being literally true were discussed) was not among those in the science department (where one would suspect that they'd tend to believe in evolution as opposed to creation), but instead the problem was prevalent among those in the department of religion! How disappointing.

I discussed the statistics with my husband and sons. My eleven year old was disgusted by some of the findings. When I read to them about the percentage of those who did not believe in a literal six-day, 24 hour creation, my son sighed. His response was: "I've got the answer to this problem. 'Put down your textbooks, and open your Bible.'"

How profound, coming from a child. You don't expect to hear such wisdom coming from a child, but they reveal how they understand more than we think they do. But he is right; too many times nowadays we're relying on man's words and man's ideas that we find in a textbook, and we don't spend enough time learning from God's own Word. If more of these colleges and universities would make the Bible their main textbook, maybe we wouldn't be wading through the Great Compromise.

I suggest that all Christian parents read this book. If you're considering sending your child to a Christian institute, you will find a link in Ken's book which will give you a list of the colleges and universities that he found to be founded on the Truth.





I received Already Compromised as a complimentary gift in exchange for review from New Leaf Publishing Group.

Switched on Schoolhouse Review

Last year, I was able to get a great deal on the Switched on Schoolhouse curriculum for my 5th grade son. Daniel was getting a bit overwhelmed with all of the textbooks, and I was overwhelmed with all of the paperwork involved with using the textbooks. Going to a computer-based curriculum was tempting, and the reviews I'd read praising SOS really encouraged me to give it a try. It was going to be a huge leap for us, because I'd never used any computer-based curriculum for my son. However, the ability to nix the books, paper tests and quizzes, averaging grades, etc. was quite tempting, so I gave up my traditionalist ways and forked out the dough.

There were good results and there were bad results.

Let me go through the disciplines one by one, and I'll tell you what I liked/disliked about each one.

Bible
Let me say that I absolutely loved the Bible curriculum. I was a little worried, because we're a KJV family, and I was a little concerned that the curriculum wouldn't allow that option. I was relieved to find that I could select for all verses to show KJV. The lessons were really good for my son. There were video clips, links to online maps, and games. He thoroughly loved the Bible lessons, and his grades in Bible were always good. I attribute that to how well my son enjoyed the lessons. He looked forward to his daily Bible lesson.

History/GeographyThis curriculum was satisfactory. Once again, there were video clips in some lessons, links to maps and resources. History is one of Daniel's favorite subjects, and the curriculum was challenging for him.

Language ArtsThe language arts curriculum encompasses reading, language, writing and spelling. I found this discipline to be fairly satisfactory, but somewhat limited. Some of the lessons were a bit choppy, and confusion reared its ugly head from time to time. There were some lessons that required my interception because my son didn't understand after reading the lesson. But all in all, I felt Language was satisfactory.

MathThe math curriculum is what I really just didn't like. With almost each new lesson, I'd have to step in and demonstrate for my son. In fact, it was so bad at one point during the school year that I told my husband that I'd just rather teach math myself! Some of the math lessons were severely limited. Detail wasn't always there. And the example problems were so easy that the problems he had to work in the lesson were confusing and frustrating for him. The problems he had to do were a lot harder than the example problem.

ScienceScience has always had a love/hate relationship with Daniel, so I didn't know exactly how this year would turn out with SOS. Right off the bat though there were projects that required a microscope. This was a problem for us, because we didn't have a microscope and the local university didn't have any for us to borrow. I ended up spending almost $200 for a microscope for the science projects. There were other projects that would've required us to fork out some more money, but we chose to skip those and pursue lessons from outside sources that weren't as costly. The lessons themselves were pretty good. I don't have any beef with the lessons.

Other AreasLet me cover some other areas that don't involve the disciplines.

Links
Many of the links in the lessons themselves arrive at a dead end--i.e. a 404 error. This was a disappointment to my son sometimes when he was looking forward to learning more about a topic.

Programmed GradingThe curriculum automatically grades the lessons for you. However, if a child doesn't spell something quite right or maybe a word isn't capitalized, a response may be marked incorrect. I had to make sure I went over each problem for each lesson/quiz/test and read each response to make sure his answers weren't incorrectly marked wrong.

BugsAt one point during the school year, I received a database error, and I was not able to access the curriculum at all. It had worked just fine the day before, there were no new updates that I had missed, and it just made no sense to have that problem. I had to scour the internet for several hours to figure out what the problem was. I downloaded a "fix" from the AOP website that fixed the problem, but I was worried that maybe I'd have the problem again. This was a big worry for me, because the curriculum is NOT cheap. If I had some kind of error that kept the curriculum from being used at all, this was not a good selling point for me to purchase their curriculum in the future!

Other necessities requiredI've found that requiring my son to keep a notebook of vocabulary words and basic notes was a must. Reading the lessons wasn't enough to ingrain in him what he needed to know. There is an option in the curriculum that you can print off the lessons, but when you consider how much money would be spent in ink and paper, it becomes a little frustrating. He had a notebook for each subject so that he could take notes and write vocab. words. When he didn't take notes, his grades showed it.

What I loved about SOSIn spite of all of the cons that I've listed, there were things that I truly enjoyed about SOS. I had purchased a laptop specifically for the use of SOS, and it was a wonderful thing! Having SOS on the laptop meant that I had more freedom with schooling my children. I was able to make visits to family and bring the schoolwork with us, and we didn't have a ten-pound backpack full of textbooks to lug around. I will miss that next year once I have to lug all of those books when we visit family.

I loved the administrative tools. I didn't have to do any averaging; I could just input some dates, and his grades popped right up on the screen. Simple!

My son loved the games that accompanied the lessons. My youngest son would often watch him play the spelling bee game.

I think I would give SOS a 3/5 stars. I can see how other families would really like it, but it was a no-go for us. I wouldn't mind using the Bible curriculum in the future; that was a big hit. But as far as Language, Math, and Science go, I prefer to teach that because with SOS I was having to intercede anyway.

My son sent me a little message in the program saying that he was glad to go back to textbooks next year, that SOS was just too confusing. That pretty much made up my mind completely that SOS is not for us.

For sixth grade, we'll be going back to ABEKA and Bob Jones. And that's ok with me. :)


I was not paid to give a review for SoS. My opinion is my own.

The Earth: Its Structure & Its Changes - a Creation Conversations Review

The Earth: Its Structure & Its Changes is a wonderful resource book that will enhance any homeschooler's (or science-loving parent) lessons. Geared for 3rd-6th graders, this book is chock full of information and experiments to enrich the readings.

Each "lesson" is divided into Investigations, which are about 4 pages in length. Included in each Investigation includes a project, readings, and questions to help children "dig a little deeper" in their knowledge of science.

In this series, the following themes are covered (but not limited to): composition of the earth; earthquakes; volcanoes; folding and faulting; mapping a mountain; crystals; minerals; rocks; physical and chemical weathering; caves, sinkholes, and geysers; glaciers.

The projects call for mainly items that you have around your house, except maybe for the rocks' lessons.

Overall, I recommend this book. If you're a homeschooling parent, this would be a great enrichment tool. Also, there are other books similar to this, such as "Forces & Motion," "Matter," and "Energy." If you're a parent of a school student, this also would be a great reinforcement for what's learned in school.


I received The Earth: Its Structure & Its Changes as a complimentary gift in exchange for review from Creation Conversations.

Passport to the World - a Creation Conversations review

Passport to the World is a book on culture and language written by Craig Froman. The book is an excellent resource for homeschooling families or for any family, for that matter. Each country (one listed for each letter of the alphabet) includes a description of their population size, literacy percentage, number of internet users, their spot on the map, fun facts about the country, and how to pronounce "goodbye", "hello", "peace", and "thank you" in each specific language. Inside the book is a "passport" for children to put stickers in after they've read about each country listed inside the book. It's a full-color book that kids will thoroughly enjoy. The book also begins with a story about how languages began--from the story of Babel.

My children and I thoroughly have enjoyed this book. They've read it from cover to cover twice now, and I'm sure that it will remain on our shelf for years to come. I highly recommend this one!


I received Passport to the World as a complimentary gift in exchange for review from Creation Conversations.

When you see this image, it represents books that I highly recommend!