God's Design for the Physical World (MB Edition - Download)

When I first received this set in the mail, I was afraid that the concepts would be too difficult for my rising 4th grader. Some of these concepts were ones I didn't learn until middle school or high school! However, as I read through the text with my kids, I saw how each lesson was broken down in order to make them easy to understand, even for kids on the younger end of the age range. Plus, I have the opportunity to challenge my 6th grade daughter!

My son was interested in inventions, so we used that portion of this book. It was excellent as it had short chapter that were packed with great information and hands-on projects.

3rd through 8th graders (and their parents/teachers) will enjoy this all-encompassing curriculum. There is a teacher guide available separately and the level of parent/teacher involvement increases for younger children vs older children.


Each unit of the three sections, Machines & Motion, Heat & Energy, and Inventions & Technology contain 6 units/weeks of subsections. We haven't completed this book yet, but so far, I appreciate the quality of the lessons and the flexibility to use it with older vs younger children, even at the same time if so desired. We haven't gone through Inventions & Technology yet, but having read another review about this book, I believe there is faulty logic based on page 360 as there are some significant pieces of information missing from the Jonas Salk special feature.

This looks fantastic! It’s a perfect balance of short reading lessons, and simple experiments/projects, covering a large range of topics within machines and motion (e.g. kinematics, laws of motion, simple machines), heat and energy (e.g. electricity, light, sound), and inventions and technology (e.g. communications, transportation, military, entertainment). It also has special features of historic people and topics throughout.

It is designed to be used alongside the Teacher’s Guide, which has additional activities and worksheets. Most of the lessons are incomplete without the Teacher’s Guide, so you really want both, even if you are not a worksheet family.

The age range on this is 3rd to 8th, and I’d say this is accurate. It would be a great curriculum to do with multiple ages. With students on the younger end of this spectrum, the parent-teacher will want to be more involved. Older students could work independently, and there are extra assignments to create an additional challenge.

Our family first found this series through God’s Design for Life (the older, AiG version, and more recently, the Life for Beginners course). We’ve enjoyed the series so much; we’ve been looking forward to the others. Master Books has done a great job with these new editions. The curriculum looks great, is easy to use, well organized, clear, concise, and intentional. Compared to “Life,” “Physical World” is slightly more advanced, and project oriented, so a family of kids on the younger side of the suggested grade range may want to go through some of the other God’s Design series first.

I am giving this four-stars because I take issue with the Special Feature on Jonas Salk, which it not accurate of his work on vaccines. This text insinuates Salk tested his 1943 flu vaccine using a control group, and that it was “75% successful” (p. 360). This is false. The text also calls Salk’s 1955 polio vaccine “safe and very effective” (p. 360), which is an opinion that can be proven false (e.g. some doses included cancer cells, and the CDC also reports the Cutter Incident of 250 people getting polio, including paralysis). Historical statistics also show polio was on the decline and nearly eradicated before the vaccine (likely due to changes in sanitation), but spiked after Salk’s vaccine was introduced (only declining in comparison to his first polio vaccine, not to overall trends). Since vaccination is a hot topic, and a religious issue in our day (i.e. aborted fetal cells in vaccines, going against God’s design for our bodies, no religious exemptions in certain states, etc.), this “special” needs some editing and footnotes—or to be removed altogether or replaced.

This is a great Science curriculum. Open and Go! Fun! I Loved it. The kids loved it. The experiments use every day, easy to find materials! I used this with multilevel grades and found it simple and easy to use.IT works great both with individuals one on one or in a group. We are looking forward to using more from this line of science books.

It fits perfectly with what I'm wanting my daughter to learn and then some. She has enjoyed what we have learned so far and can't wait to see what's next.

I am not a fan of science, so I wanted to make sure to find a fun science curriculum for my kids. I wanted one that did some simple experiments with items I could easily find around the house, and one that would not take forever to read. This curriculum is just that! My 4th grader can sit and read this on his own without me. He doesn't get overfilled with too much information, but walks away with a greater knowledge! I love that we can use this again as he gets older by adding the Challenge questions. This is a great science for our family!

This is a thorough curriculum with short, to the point lessons written in an easy to understand format. I appreciate that the book is designed for two different levels - upper elementary and middle school - with plenty of experiments and hands-on learning opportunities. If teaching your child science is intimidating to you, I highly recommend this curriculum.

The Teacher's Guide is an absolute must as a companion.

And - as always with any Master Books course - this book is thoroughly grounded in God's Word.

I always dreaded teaching Physics to my children, I didn't like it when I was in school I thought it to be too difficult. I can honestly say I love this MB version, the writing is so clear and easy to understand. My kids are learning, I am learning and we are enjoying the hands on projects.

Love love love love this book! It has 3 books in one. There are more challenging options for upper grades or for those who need an extra challenge. As with all of Masterbooks curriculum, it stays true to who created all things.