Around the World ~ the social studies (Virtual Curriculum Fair)

This is the third week in the Virtual Curriculum Fair. I didn’t post last week, but that’s okay – last week was math, and we just use circa-2002 math textbooks. It’s not exciting, but it’s very effective.

This week is all about the social studies – geography, history, world cultures, and even life sciences like biology. I’m going to focus primarily on geography and history.

We’ve used a few different geography studies in our school, and I think our favorite was probably Drawing Around the World from Brookdale House. They have a US series and a Europe series; we used the Europe series. It’s a curriculum that focuses on teaching kids to learn the locations and shapes of the countries (or states, in the case of the US study) by having them draw the country onto a map each day. It was quite effective – and fun, for our art-loving family.

For history, we’re currently working through a World War II unit study. It’s based on the Who’s Who in WWII? curriculum found on SchoolhouseTeachers.com, which focuses primarily on the leaders of the different countries during the war. In conjunction with this, they’ll each be doing a big research project and presentation on one of the major leaders from the time period (they choose their leader later this week, so more on that project later), and Will is watching Band of Brothers with them.

Another history product we enjoyed in the past include Famous Men of Rome from Memoria Press for history. This study takes  you through the major leaders of ancient Rome with a textbook and workbook.

Moving Beyond the Page are positively amazing unit studies that cover reading/literature along with a corresponding science or social studies supplement. They’re expensive, but totally worth it if you can afford them. If it weren’t for the price tag, they would hands-down be our core curriculum.

Apologia ReviewFor worldview curriculum, we absolutely adore What on Earth Can I Do? by Apologia Educational Ministries. This comes with a hefty textbook, coloring book for younger children, junior notebook, and regular notebook. Also from Apologia, the iWitness book series is a really good place to go to help instill a Christian worldview in your children. For a more fun approach to the importance of missions, the Brinkman Adventures is a wonderful audio drama series. We reviewed seasons Two and Three of those.

While not quite as expanse as our language arts curriculum (that’s something I need to work on – subjects other than English, grammar, and math), our social studies products are just as good.

What do you use for social studies in your homeschool?

Blessings,

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One Comment

  1. We’ve used a lot of the same materials, but mostly short-term, and then I forgot how good they were! Fun being reminded of some of those choices! I really LOVED Biblical Archeology! Such valuable content for apologetics!

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