I received this product through The Melanated Gold Review Squad in exchange for my honest review.
Let me start off by saying we are not a Unit Study homeschooling family. Aside from the occasional Reading and Writing Response component of our home studies, most of our subjects are usually separate and not related to one another. So, I was a little skeptical when I received a couple copies of Adventure Series and Dr. Bonyfide to review with my kids.
However, even before we finished reading The Adventures Series Book 1, I can definitely see the appeal of unit studies and immediately saw the rabbit trail parents and children can potentially make just from using this one resource. For my review, however, we will be focusing on The Circulatory System: Adventure 3 of Anatomy Adventures Series.
What Is Know Yourself?
Know Yourself uses Science via a comic book storyline, activities, and projects to engage with kids and encourage them to know more about themselves body-wise and the world around them. My impression is that Know Yourself wants children to become attuned to how their body works and really become aware, not only of mental health, but also of their physical health through, exercise, and better eating habits while building their self-confidence.
The Workbooks
The Adventure Series: 12 System of the Body Workbooks, are set up similarly. Its begins with the Comic Book Style – Adventure Story and then its sectioned into 4 parts. All parts are related to the specific book’s topics.
- History with Activites
- Science with Activities
- Culinary (Hello! Cooking Opportunity)
- Extended Resources (Suggested Book to further enchance the topic)
And you ask, “What’s the Adventure Story?” Well, it follows a diverse group of skate-board loving kids called the “Loops Crew”. On Adventure 3, “they get to the heart of the matter…. with the Circulatory System! Travel to China and meet the mighty warrior monk Tianyaun, who knew that mastering the mindsets the foundation for building a strong body.” – Know Yourself
In total, the workbook is about 110 pages long, however, you should note the story-telling portion of the workbook is about 10 pages long.
Our Experience
We really enjoyed reading The Circulatory System: Adventure 3 as a family. The main storyline was engaging, one of the characters, called Hank reminded my kids of Zordon from Power Rangers, but in a cat version. HA! The workbooks are visually appealing and not overcrowded with too many texts, even the size of the fonts was easy on the eyes. The characters look like every-day looking kids and are relatable, the learning opportunities created fun discussions and the various art/craft options were not complicated.
This might be considered a bonus but based on the two Adventure Books (1 & 3), there is a secondary storyline, found at the back of the workbooks, about the Loops Crew wanting a new Skate Park, receiving guidance from a Skateboarding Legend named K-Dub, and how they go about getting it. It’s pretty cool. We kind of get to know these characters outside of their Science Adventures and peek into their ‘personal kid life’. It would be interesting to know what happens next.
Rabbit Trail turned into Fun Fact: K-Dub, real name Keith Williams, is an actual real-life teacher, community activist, skateboarder who founded a Skate Park for kids in Oakland, CA.
How We Will Use it?
A cool feature within The Know Yourself series is the “Learning Calendar’. Not only does it list a supply list for all the activities, but it breaks down each of the four parts, that was mentioned above, into hours. So you really get a nice overview of subjects and time needed to complete one workbook.
We already have a main science curriculum that we use in our daily learning, however, Know Yourself Adventure Books can really fill in on those non-structure days for us like Fridays and/ or Weekends OR most importantly on those inevitable days when you need to bring in fresh quality materials to reinspire everyone again.
Final Thoughts
This is a consumable workbook, but we are not using it as one because I have multiple kids and they like re-reading and flipping through the pages. There are FREE coloring pages on the site, but what really could enhance these workbooks is if Know Yourself could include a PDF link with printable activities and/or images from the workbooks to add to your science notebooks.
Further, there are a few great graphics that could be transformed and become fill-ins and/or coloring pages; especially useful with multi-age kids family-style learning including a toddler who wants to do everything like their older siblings and is not satisfied unless they have the SAME EXACT printout like everyone else does.
This is a great jumping-off resource to hit multiple subjects with the kids. Just using Book 3, not only did we practice our reading but, we were also exposed to Geography (China), People Study (Shaolin Monks), Human Body Science (The Circulatory System), History (The Silk Road), Art (Calligraphy and Coloring Pages), Writing Response Opportunities and Cooking, which you know covers math and snack #1.
If you are interested in purchasing a book, please use code: Q3HOMESCHOOL10 at checkout for a discount on your purchase. Please consider clicking here to use my affiliate link to purchase directly from the publisher.
I hope this review was helpful. Please be sure to click on the banner to check out what the other members of the Melanated Gold Review Squad thought about Know Yourself.
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