Alpha Omega Health Quest Lifepac: A Good Investment for Homeschoolers

The Alpha Omega Publications Lifepac Health Quest is designed roughly for grades 5 to 7, although more advanced youngsters or more patient teachers can use this successfully for slightly younger children too.

For the testing of quality, this lifepac was used by a 10 year old and a 13 year old. The younger child has some minor learning disabilities and is not an advanced reader so to apply it to her level, I had to spend more time reading with her and going over the important points. The older child was mostly self taught by reading, answering the questions, and taking the tests. About a 10 minute oral review was provided the day before testing.

The kit includes five workbooks, teacher's guide (answer key plus helpful hints), and a poster to track their progress. The system and the poster are based on an Olympic Pentathlon theme with 5 spots, one for each workbook. The younger child loved placing the stickers on the poster as she progressed through. My 13 year old son didn't care for the poster or sticker. He felt they were for younger children like his sister. Decide whether or not you use it based on your children's personalities and age.

Workbook one focuses on physical health, including a brief overview of anatomy and different systems, how sicknesses affect the body, how the body builds itself and how it grows and develops. Keep in mind, that Alpha Omega's curriculum have a biblical view. Life is taught as beginning at conception. Scripture is required to memorized and is tested. These questions, of course, can be ignored for those who do not wish the religious view of creationalism (God created man as opposed to man evolving from apes.)

The second workbook focuses on mental health and addresses emotional disorders. social health (an interesting concept) and the all important personal hygiene. You'll also find information on pimples and other traumatic occurences of the pre-teen years.

Workbook three moves on to nutrition beginning with the basics of nutrients and how the body uses them. From there it moves to the food groups, to physical fitness and good eating habits. While some may disagree, I feel that physical fitness as a part of nutrition (as opposed to the physical health section) is a good place to discuss the benefits of exercise.

Next is injury and disease, including safety, natural disasters, emergency care, and disease prevention. It includes a section on kitchen safety -- such as what to do in case of a grease fire. Overall, the applications are very practical and necessary for future independent living.

Lastly, and for some children most importantly, is the workbook titled Stewardship. Here is the discussion about the environment and health, the use of drugs, alcohol, and smoking. Sometimes, as parents, we find this topics difficult to broach. This helps ease the discomfort parents, and the children, feel about such a discussion. This one workbook is worth the price of the entire lifepac. (Visit aop.com for pricing.)

My 13 year old learned a lot; my 10 year old is yet to be seen. But I plan on at least revisiting that last workbook again with both children, probably several times, over the coming years.....