Apologia Health and Nutrition provides a complete health curriculum for your homeschool high school students from a Christian worldview.
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One of my struggles as a homeschool mom has been to find a health course for my high school students that is thorough and well-written. I’ve looked at so many, and most are geared toward younger kids or don’t cover the topics that I feel are relevant to high school kids. When it comes to sensitive topics, such as mental, emotional, and reproductive health, many homeschool high school health curricula either just skim the surface or interject the author’s beliefs in a way that I find to be a little intrusive.
You see, what I was looking for was a homeschool high school health curriculum that would thoroughly present the scientific information about all aspects of health from a Christian worldview, while leaving room for us, as a family, to have open discussions about sensitive topics based on our personal values and beliefs.
I was beginning to think such a curriculum did not exist…
However, when I was browsing through Apologia’s website to look at their new Physical Science 3rd Edition, I happened to come across their Health and Nutrition course. I was so blown away!
Apologia Health and Nutrition is exactly what I’ve been looking for all these years!
Published in 2018, this course does an amazing job of covering health and nutrition in a way that is relevant to today’s teens. It addresses timely topics like device and video game addictions, social media comparison traps, and cyberbullying, just to name a few.
The student notebook includes mindful projects that allow students to reflect on their own experiences, thoughts, and feelings in a meaningful way that encourages personal growth.
How is the course set up?
Apologia Health and Nutrition follows the same familiar flow as other homeschool high school Apologia courses. Each of the 15 modules has On Your Own questions interspersed throughout the reading. At the end of the module, there is a study guide for the student to complete before taking the module test.
As with all newer editions of Apologia courses, there is a colorful student notebook in which the student can take notes while reading, answer the On Your Own questions, and complete projects, study guides, and tests.
The study guide and test solutions are available as PDF downloads from the Apologia Book Extras webpage for the course. You can also find a wide range of links to supplemental information for each module on the Apologia Book Extras page.
This course could be completed in one semester if you really wanted to buckle down and get through it, but we are choosing to use to use it for a full high school credit. It covers both health and nutrition and gives plenty of opportunities for projects and supplemental learning, so there is definitely enough content for a full credit.
If I could add one thing…
If I could add one thing to this course, it would be an audiobook of the textbook. Apologia has this option available for many of its courses, but not for Health and Nutrition. Since my son struggles with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and ADHD, he learns better when he can read along with the audio. Most of the time, I read the text aloud to him as he completes the activities in the student notebook. This works okay for him, but he can’t look at the graphics and read along as I’m reading since we only have one copy of the book, so I feel like he might get a little more out of it if he was able to do that.
On the flip side of that, however, since we are covering the material together, it has opened the door to quite a few conversations that might not have happened if he was doing it all on his own. Since this guy is about to graduate, I’m soaking in all the quality time I can get!
How do we personalize it?
One thing that we really like about Apologia Health and Nutrition is that we have the freedom to choose the order in which we complete the modules.
Pro Homeschool Tip: Download the lesson plans into Homeschool Planet and move them around however you like!
Yes, there are some modules that might flow a little better if you do them in sequential order, but if you feel that you have a need to do a module out of order, it works just fine that way as well.
Let me explain…
This course is often taken in the 9th or 10th grade year. As I mentioned earlier, it hasn’t been until now that I have found a health curriculum with which I was satisfied for my homeschool high school students. Therefore, my son is taking this course as a senior.
With his age in mind, there are certain modules that we wanted to cover sooner, rather than later. For example, although we have had plenty of talks about the birds and the bees over the years (please don’t think we’ve waited until our son is a senior to address this topic), we thought it was important for him to complete the module on reproduction (which is the last module in the book) early in the school year.
It allowed us to fill in any gaps in understanding that may have been present and gave him the opportunity to ask any unanswered questions or address any lingering concerns that he had as he nears adulthood. We were happy with the thorough presentation of material and the tasteful, yet complete, graphics of the human anatomy and reproductive processes.
Is this a Christian curriculum?
Yes. All of Apologia’s curricula are presented from a Christian worldview perspective. There are Bible references and quotes from Christian authors, as well as examples and explanations that discuss Christian principles as related to the material.
From what I have encountered, the beliefs that are presented represent the basic tenants of Christianity without delving into denominational doctrines. This doesn’t mean that the authors ignore other worldviews. In fact, I feel like they do a great job of addressing opposing beliefs in a respectful way while explaining the Biblical stance on important topics.
As I mentioned earlier, I appreciate that I can offer my students a homeschool high school health curriculum that aligns with our Christian faith but doesn’t try to take over the role of parenting. We feel it’s important to have the hard conversations with our kids and do our best to make sure they are properly equipped to live in today’s society. Apologia Health and Nutrition is designed in a way that helps us accomplish that goal.
How has my homeschool high school student responded to this course?
My son seems to be really enjoying and appreciating this course. He has opened up during conversations and shown his maturity through thoughtful responses. I’ve even heard him bringing up meaningful things that he has learned with his siblings.
If there is one thing that we can learn from our current world situation, it is that health matters.
We cannot take it for granted. Physical health, mental health, emotional health, social health, and spiritual health all intertwine in a tapestry of well-being.
As homeschool parents, it is more important than ever to be open and honest with our kids about these topics and lead them toward a healthy lifestyle. Apologia Health and Nutrition is a great tool to help us lay that foundation!
Diane Thrower
Thanks for great insight on this course; I wish I had found it sooner! We have used other Apologia curriculum, and honestly it never disappoints. I have friends who will be looking for this curriculum for next fall, and now I have a good resource to point them towards for when they are making their decision.
Melissa F
Thanks, Diane! I wish I would have found it sooner, too!