Friendly Chemistry

Friendly Chemistry is Dr. Joey Hajda's high school chemistry course, now in its fourth edition, and the program that established the Hajda line. It earned its audience by solving a specific problem, that a typical high school chemistry textbook loses roughly one-third of homeschool students somewhere between stoichiometry and gas laws, through a combination of conversational prose, physical manipulatives, and a card game called the Molar Express that teenagers actually play.

Last updated: 2026-04-24 · Every Homeschool Editorial Team

At a glance

Method	Subject-specialist (narrative high school chemistry with manipulatives)
Worldview	Christian-ecumenical (faith-neutral content; publisher operates from Christian perspective)
Grades	9-12
Formats	Print text, workbook, teacher edition, manipulative set, optional lab kit, video course
Cost tier	Standard
Parent intensity	3 (video and manipulatives reduce instructor load)
ESA-common	Varies by state
Accredited	No (materials only)
Established	First edition mid-2000s; now in fourth edition
Website	friendlychemistry.com

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	4	Full college-prep chemistry scope including stoichiometry, gas laws, solutions, acid-base
Ease of teaching	4	Manipulatives and video substantially reduce parent instruction load
Content quality	4	Clear exposition; analogies land; Molar Express game reinforces vocabulary
Flexibility	5	Print or video; modular lab; works for individual student or small co-op
Value for money	4	Reasonable complete-program pricing; lab kit optional
Worldview scope	4	Faith-neutral content; used across worldviews without modification
Visual/design	3	Workmanlike interior; manipulative set well-designed for function
Support resources	3	Teacher edition, annotated solutions, video option; smaller community than Apologia

Who the publisher is

Dr. Joey Hajda holds a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree and a master's in secondary and higher education curriculum and instruction, and has taught chemistry and biology at middle school, high school, and community college levels for more than two decades. His wife Lisa Hajda is co-author on the Friendly line. The Hajdas are homeschool parents of a large family who began writing Friendly Chemistry out of their own classroom and home experience with students who bounced off traditional chemistry textbooks.

Friendly Chemistry launched in the mid-2000s and has moved through four editions as of April 2026. The fourth edition includes an expanded manipulative booklet, cutouts that disassemble into hands-on learning tools for teaching chemistry vocabulary, structures, ions, compounds, formulas, reactions, and equations, and the Molar Express card game for reinforcing molecular concepts. The publisher operates on a small-family-business scale, with Dr. Hajda directly involved in editing, video instruction, and customer correspondence. Products are sold through the publisher site, Rainbow Resource, Amazon, and specialty homeschool retailers.

Like Friendly Biology, Friendly Chemistry is not positioned as an apologetics-heavy or young-earth-focused Christian science program. The publisher's Christian perspective is disclosed but the chemistry content itself is standard college-prep chemistry. A Catholic family, a Jewish family, a secular family, and an evangelical family can each use Friendly Chemistry without encountering content that assumes a specific theological posture. This positions Friendly Chemistry differently in the Christian-homeschool-science market than Apologia, which integrates worldview more explicitly throughout, and more similarly to Berean Builders in its worldview-light approach.

The core pedagogy

Friendly Chemistry teaches a full-year college-preparatory high school chemistry course across approximately thirty chapters. The course covers atomic structure, the periodic table, chemical bonding, chemical reactions, stoichiometry, gas laws, solutions, acids and bases, oxidation and reduction, equilibrium, thermochemistry, and organic chemistry basics. The scope matches what a college-prep high school chemistry course covers; the delivery does not.

Delivery is the distinctive thing. The text itself reads conversationally. Dr. Hajda explains the mole concept, Avogadro's number, molar mass, and stoichiometric ratios in language close to how a tutor would speak to a student, and is paired with a physical manipulative set that students assemble themselves from the booklet. When a lesson introduces ionic bonding, the student has physical cards representing sodium and chlorine ions and can arrange them into a sodium-chloride lattice on the table. When a lesson introduces balancing equations, the student uses cards representing atoms and physically rearranges them to satisfy conservation. The abstraction becomes concrete, then re-abstracts into symbolic notation.

Signature mechanics: (1) Conversational prose. Same design register as Friendly Biology. The book speaks to the student directly. (2) Physical manipulatives. The fourth-edition manipulative booklet disassembles into cards, tokens, and scale diagrams for hands-on work. (3) The Molar Express card game. A signature feature, a deck-based game that reinforces molecular weight, gas laws, and stoichiometric reasoning through play. Students report retaining the content because they played the game, and families running Friendly Chemistry in a co-op use the game as a group activity. (4) Video option. Dr. Hajda teaches the course on camera in a family-license video version, providing an alternative primary-instruction path for parents who do not want to teach chemistry themselves. (5) Modular labs. The lab manual can be run in full or in part; an optional lab kit provides materials for families who want the full lab experience; families running without the kit can complete most labs with accessible materials.

A day in the life

A tenth grader using Friendly Chemistry in print mode opens the book at chapter nine, a chapter on stoichiometry, on a Monday morning. Forty-five minutes of reading, with the manipulative booklet open alongside. The chapter introduces mole ratios in a chemical equation; the student uses the atom-cards from the manipulative set to physically demonstrate a reaction, counting cards to balance the equation. Tuesday's work is end-of-chapter practice problems (another forty-five minutes), with the answer key for self-checking. Wednesday and Thursday run the corresponding lab from the lab manual, say, a limiting-reagent lab using baking soda and vinegar with measured masses, with the parent supervising. Friday is review, including a Molar Express game with a sibling or co-op group.

A student using the video version opens the same chapter on Monday, watches Dr. Hajda teach the chapter on camera for thirty to forty-five minutes with the manipulatives assembled alongside, then proceeds through the weekly rhythm of practice, lab, and review. The video version changes primary instruction but keeps the manipulative-and-game structure that is the course's differentiator. Total weekly time runs four to six hours, consistent with a full-credit high school chemistry course.

What they do exceptionally well

Accessibility for students who fear chemistry. Friendly Chemistry's defining success is with students who walked into chemistry expecting to struggle and walked out with a meaningful credit. The conversational prose, the physical manipulatives, and the game-based reinforcement convert abstract chemistry concepts into concrete experiences. Parents who tried a traditional chemistry textbook first and found their student demoralized frequently cite Friendly Chemistry as the recovery curriculum.

The Molar Express and manipulative set. Hands-on learning in chemistry is rare. Most high school chemistry courses consist of textbook reading, worked examples, problem sets, and lab work that is often demonstration rather than genuine exploration. Friendly Chemistry's physical manipulatives let students handle the concepts, atoms as cards, bonds as connections, equations as rearrangements. The Molar Express game further reinforces through play. The combination produces retention that traditional chemistry often does not.

Video as instructor substitute. The family-license video, with Dr. Hajda on camera, lets families without chemistry-competent parents run the course effectively. This solves one of the hardest problems in homeschool high school science: what does a family do when the parents cannot teach chemistry themselves? Friendly Chemistry's answer is a competent instructor on video delivering the same course the print version covers.

Full college-prep scope. Despite the friendly register, Friendly Chemistry does not compromise on content. Students completing the course have covered stoichiometry, gas laws, solutions chemistry, acid-base equilibria, oxidation-reduction, thermochemistry, and organic basics, the full scope of a strong college-prep high school chemistry course. Graduates going into college general chemistry have consistently reported adequate preparation. This matters: curricula that solve the access problem sometimes sacrifice rigor to do so. Friendly Chemistry does not.

What they do poorly

Not AP-track. Friendly Chemistry is a standard college-prep chemistry course, not an AP Chemistry course. A student intending to sit the AP Chemistry exam will need substantial additional preparation, the College Board AP Chemistry framework covers electrochemistry, reaction kinetics, and equilibrium at depth that exceeds Friendly Chemistry's treatment, and the AP lab component is far heavier than Friendly's lab manual. Families aiming at AP should use Friendly as a foundation and supplement with AP-specific materials or route the student through Pennsylvania Homeschoolers AP or a dual-enrollment general chemistry course.

Lab kit dependency at upper depth. The full lab experience in Friendly Chemistry assumes access to specific materials. Families running the course without the publisher's optional lab kit or an equivalent kit from Home Science Tools will run a truncated lab experience. The course tolerates this (most labs are optional in the sense that credit can be awarded without the full set), but families serious about lab experience should budget for the kit.

Visual production. The text is workmanlike, the manipulatives are functional, the lab manual is serviceable. None of this is lavish. Next to a Pearson or Holt full-color chemistry textbook, Friendly Chemistry looks plainer. This is a deliberate publisher choice, keeping production values modest keeps pricing accessible, but families expecting a visually polished textbook experience will find Friendly plainer than the mainstream.

Small support community. Friendly Chemistry's community of users is smaller than Apologia's or BJU's. Online forum activity, YouTube supplementation, and third-party teacher resources are thinner. Families who rely on online community support for troubleshooting difficult chapters will find less of it. Questions go to Dr. Hajda or to Rainbow Resource, which is responsive but smaller-scale than the publisher-support operations of larger Christian-science publishers.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick Friendly Chemistry if: you have a student who has struggled with traditional textbook chemistry or is likely to; you want physical manipulatives and game-based learning integrated into the chemistry sequence; you want the option to convert to video instruction via the family-license video; you value a faith-neutral chemistry program that does not require worldview filtering; you are running chemistry without specialized lab facilities and need a program that tolerates modest lab resources.

• Skip Friendly Chemistry if: you want AP Chemistry or competitive STEM-track preparation; you want a full-color, lavishly produced textbook; you want a heavily apologetics-integrated Christian science program (for that, look at Apologia); you want a strong online community and extensive third-party resources; you want a textbook-only program without manipulatives or games.

Cost honest assessment

Friendly Chemistry pricing as of April 2026 covers several components sold separately. The student text retails at approximately $50-$55 through retail channels. The student workbook runs approximately $25-$35. The teacher edition and annotated solutions manual each run approximately $25-$45. The manipulative set adds approximately $15-$25. A complete print package (student text, workbook, teacher edition, solutions, manipulatives) runs roughly $150-$200 without the optional lab kit. The video version through Rainbow Resource or the publisher raises this into the $200-$350 range depending on bundle.

Compared to Apologia Exploring Creation with Chemistry (approximately $90-$125 for the student text and solutions, plus $100-$200 for the lab kit), BJU Press Chemistry (roughly $130-$180 for core materials), and Miller/Levine/Pearson Chemistry (secular textbook at $100+ for the student text), Friendly Chemistry's print-only pricing is competitive and its video pricing is premium-but-reasonable for what amounts to personal chemistry instruction from a qualified teacher.

A realistic all-in for one student running Friendly Chemistry as a print-and-manipulative course without video runs $150-$220. Adding the family-license video brings the range to $250-$400 depending on retailer and bundle.

ESA eligibility notes

Friendly Chemistry's faith-neutral content and availability through multiple approved retailers (Rainbow Resource, Amazon Business, Christianbook) generally simplifies ESA eligibility. State programs covering high school science curriculum. Arizona's ClassWallet, Florida's MyScholarShop, Utah Fits All, West Virginia's Hope Scholarship, typically permit Friendly Chemistry purchases routed through provisioned retailers. The video-course component is typically reimbursable under "online courses" or "educational software" categories on most programs. Families should verify the specific bundle purchased matches state marketplace categorization; some programs classify lab kits separately from curriculum and may handle the reimbursement differently.

Alternatives

• Apologia Exploring Creation with Chemistry, a family would pick Apologia over Friendly Chemistry for a more textbook-structured Christian chemistry course with stronger worldview integration and a larger user community, though with higher parent-teaching load.
• Berean Builders Discovering Design with Chemistry, a family would pick Berean Builders over Friendly for Dr. Jay Wile's more quantitatively rigorous chemistry sequence, grounded in historical-science philosophy and accessible to AP-track students with supplementation.
• Oak Meadow High School Chemistry, a family would pick Oak Meadow over Friendly Chemistry for a fully secular, Waldorf-influenced chemistry course with a different pedagogical philosophy emphasizing student observation and independent inquiry.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed the Friendly Chemistry publisher site, Amazon catalog listings for the student text, workbook, teacher edition, annotated solutions manual, and manipulative set, and the Rainbow Resource catalog listing for the video course in April 2026. Cross-referenced against Cathy Duffy's published review of Friendly Chemistry and additional Amazon listings for the fourth-edition materials. Pricing retrieved in April 2026.