homeschooling

“This one was really good!” ~ Seahawk

We were blessed once again to get to review an audio drama from Heirloom Audio Productions. This time it was In the Reign of Terror, a story that takes place during the French Revolution. Because I didn’t actually listen to the CD (I’m more of a visual person), I’m going to turn the review of the actual audio production over to Seahawk…

From Seahawk:

When the story starts, the main character (Harry) is a young kid. He is headed to France to live with noble family so that he can learn more about French culture. As he’s living with them, the heat starts building in Paris over the French Revolution. Chaos breaks loose. Harry and the family he’s staying with find themselves victims of the revolution. Their family is split up, and many of them end up imprisoned or worse. Harry is trying to get the family reunited and safe from all over France.

I think that this gives a very accurate depiction of what the French Revolution was like if you were a nobleman. I enjoyed this one very much, and I think they just keep getting better and better.

Back to Mom:

In addition to the physical CDs, we also received a membership to the Live the Adventure Club website, a new thing from Heirloom Audio. The site has so much to offer! There is a forum where you can connect with other members over all sorts of things (homeschool, the audio dramas, family life, and more). Live the Adventure Club is also where you’ll find the study guides for all of Heirloom’s productions. In the past, they’ve been available as a download with purchase of the CD, but now they live on the new website. (You can still download them from there.) Also under the “Education” tab is a whole series of lectures giving a biblical perspective on the U.S. Constitution. I haven’t had a chance to go over that yet, but I can imagine it would make a great government/civics course for a middle or high schooler. Also on the Adventure site, you can stream mp3s of any of the audio dramas you’ve purchased. This would be good if you’re somewhere with internet access but no CD player (it’s not available to download).

Before I wrap up, I want to talk about the study guide itself for a few minutes. It starts as any study guide should – with biographies of the important players (in this case, G.A. Henty, the author of the story, as well as important French Revolution figures Robespierre and Marie Antoinette). From there, it moves on to specific things from each track of the CD: comprehension questions, critical thinking questions, and vocabulary. Sprinkled throughout are some paintings from the time period and “Expand Your Learning” boxes, which include extra information that’s more about the time period than the audio drama itself. For example, one of these is all about French fashion at the time. As you near the end of the study guide, there are several pages that are meant to be done after listening to the whole production. These are the spiritual learning pages, and they’re mostly a guide for a parent (or pastor) to work through with the student(s). They offer specific points that can be learned from the audio drama and have an outline with Scripture references to back them all up. The study guide closes with a brief timeline (all written out with tons of information) about the French Revolution.

I’m very glad I was able to request this for Seahawk to review. He’s listened to several Heirloom productions in the past (see our reviews for Beric the Briton and The Cat of Bubastes; he also has In Freedom’s Cause), and he always loves them. I’m glad to have something that keeps him busy and engaged that I don’t have to worry about. I know that there will be nothing questionable in an Heirloom Audio Productions drama. (Some of the content can be a bit intense, especially for the under-6 crowd, but intense is not the same as questionable.) I love that he’s learning bits of history through these dramas, as well as developing a taste for older literature. Maybe someday he’ll feel inclined to read a Henty novel. Probably not, but a mom can dream!

Blessings,

Preschool and Kindergarten is a magical time for children. They’re excited to learn, and there’s so much to teach them. The main things they need at this age are letters and letter sounds (to prepare for reading) and basic counting and patterns, shapes and colors (math). Small Fry and I have been working on all of these things together over the past couple of months, and today I want to focus on a product that helps make letter learning fun – the Bible ABC Curriculum Notebook from The Crafty Classroom.

As an early 5 (his birthday was about two weeks ago), Small Fry is just beginning to learn to read. We’ve been working on things for a few months now, and he’s getting a bit more maturity each day. To this end, I’m working with him frequently (not every day, but often), and having lots of options keeps things interesting for both of us.

The Bible ABC Curriculum Notebook is a PDF that contains over 650 pages (!) of printable activities for your preschooler. It’s designed to be kind of a combination letters and Bible curriculum; the way it’s set up, you introduce one letter per week (in alphabetical order), and each letter corresponds with lots of Biblical vocabulary (C is for Commandments) as well as teaching young children the attributes of God. The first 8 pages offers a general overview of what’s included and a sample schedule for the different activities. The following 649 pages are all the different printable pages (and a specific guide for the week), and the final page gives options for further study with your preschooler when you’ve finished this pack.

While this would be really good to use as an introduction to the different letters for your child, we already had a reading/phonics program that Small Fry is doing really well with, so I opted instead to use these printouts as a supplement to that. Instead of printing out the entire 658 page PDF and putting it in a binder (even though we have an “INKvestment” high yield printer, that would be pretty extreme in terms of paper and ink), I looked at the PDF at the beginning of each week (roughly – I’m not pushing him too hard yet since he’s not quite Kindergarten age until this fall) and printed out just the pages that I thought Small Fry would enjoy that also went with the letter of the week from his other reading program. This allowed us to have some fun with the worksheets without getting overwhelmed.

Using just the pages we wanted made this a really great thing for us. We didn’t feel a lot of pressure by the program, and I didn’t feel overwhelmed by all the printouts. We used just a few of them here and there, and it was a really nice way to reinforce what he was already learning. For a kid who really likes worksheets, this was great! Some of his favorite pages were:

Overall, we’ve really enjoyed having this to work with his other letter program. I like that he’s enjoying the learning process (and that I can give him a couple of pages to work on while I need to do something else for a few minutes and he works his brain during those times), and he likes having fun “coloring pages.” Overall, this is a definite win, and something we’ll keep using for the next few months as he pushes on in his journey to learn to read.

Members of the Homeschool Review Crew are reviewing lots of different things from The Crafty Classroom this week, including a non-Bible version of the ABC pack, the Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook, and for the older crowd, the USA Activity Bundle and How to Write a Paragraph curriculum. Click the banner below for more information on all of those.

Blessings,

Not unlike a lot of parents (homeschooling and otherwise), science is not a subject I love. I never have. Despite the fact that I took several advanced level science classes in high school (forever ago!), I never felt like I really got it. My grades would suggest otherwise, but that’s beside the point. When it comes time to teach your kids, your own confidence matters much more than the grades you earned years and years ago. For this reason, I wanted to give Fascinating Education a try with Seahawk.

When I was in school, biology came before chemistry, but with Fascinating Education, it’s the opposite. Besides that, Seahawk has already had loads of earth and life science classes (I like those better than physical sciences, so I tend to gravitate toward them when I feel like we’ve been avoiding science for too long). For these two reasons, I asked for us to review Fascinating Chemistry.

About Fascinating Education

Fascinating Education was developed by Dr. Sheldon Margulies, a retired neurologist. His background in neurology means he really understands how the brain works, and using this knowledge he developed a system of teaching science that really works. The system consists of video lessons, which are narrated with lots of images including charts and graphs, as well as a downloadable version of the narration for students who are more visual. Accompanying each video lesson is a test to make sure students grasped the information from the lesson. Fascinating Chemistry also has some labs available (though we haven’t gotten to those yet in our time with the program).

Our Experience with Fascinating Education

Seahawk used this curriculum pretty much all on his own. Outside of logging him in and telling him what to expect, it was completely hands-off on my end. I got the video set up for him on the iPad and left him to it.

Because this was Seahawk’s very first exposure to chemistry, he didn’t do so hot the first time through the test. This wasn’t surprising or upsetting to me at all, although I did have to ask others who had used the program before what to do from there. Obviously I couldn’t have him move on, but it seemed counter intuitive to just have him watch the video again and again and again, expecting him to eventually to pass the test. This is where the downloadable narration comes in. Even though Seahawk is an audio learner, I printed out the narration packet for the first lesson so that he could study it before watching the video again and attempting the test. Thus far, he’s still working on the first lesson – despite regular work over the past few weeks. It’s a lot of information there, and this is just the first lesson! I can totally see how (regardless of our limited exposure) this is a high school level chemistry course.

What we think of Fascinating Education

Our (Seahawk’s and mine) opinions on this curriculum differ a bit.

He doesn’t love it – which makes sense, considering he’s been working on the same lesson for a very long time. He doesn’t hate it either, though. He does well with the video lesson; he just needs to learn to focus himself in order to absorb the information better. This would be a great curriculum to learn note-taking with. If he could figure out how to watch the videos and write down pertinent information rather than just watch and listen, I think he’d do a lot better at it.

My opinion is that this is a really good, solid product for older kids. They need to learn to work independently – this teaches them that. They need to learn science (beyond the “fun” stuff of space and life) – this takes care of that, too. With this review posting, we’re not required to keep using the program, but I’m going to have Seahawk continue doing so anyway, even if that makes me a bit unpopular with him. He needs this program, and for more than just the science aspect. He needs to practice being an independent learner who can figure things out on his own, and Fascinating Education is a good tool for that. (I’m always there to help him through things, of course, but like it or not he’s getting older. The most important thing I can teach him at this point is to take charge of his own life, which right now means his education. I set the expectations, and it’s his job to follow through with them.)

Final Musings

Fascinating Education offers Biology and Physics courses as well as the Chemistry one. Members of the Homeschool Review Crew are writing about various levels this week. Make sure to click the banner below for more information on all three levels.

Blessings,

 

 

For the past few weeks, Seahawk (13 years old) has been working on his first real foray into upper-level math: Pre-Algebra. To do this, we asked to review UnLock Pre-Algebra from UnLock Math. This program has been an absolute blessing to us! Let me tell you more about it.

UnLock Math was created by Alesia and Matthew Blackwood. Both were homeschooled as children, and Alesia went on to become a school teacher, holding certification from Georgia Professional Standards Commission to teach upper level mathematics (grades 7-12). She and Matthew met in 2001 and married in 2002, and as they started having children they decided they wanted to work together, doing their own business. They recognized a need for quality math curriculum in the homeschool community, so they worked to develop a revolutionary complete, online math curriculum that does everything for you (the teacher/parent): it teaches using entertaining videos; it offers quizzes and tests; and it self-grades. The only thing you as the parent need to do is make sure your child logs on (the site is 100% free from ads and other distractions) regularly, and check in on their progress periodically. The program does absolutely everything else.

As I said, we’ve been using this with Seahawk. As he’s finishing up 7th grade, looking forward to 8th grade this fall, he’s the same age that I was when I did these maths, so I decided it was time to have him step up and start working on more advanced concepts. I know he’s bright enough to manage, so I eagerly requested this review. For us, it’s become his core math curriculum. Each school day (4-5 days per week), he’s working on one lesson, using my iPad. The program would also work on a computer, of course, but we only have one computer available for school stuff, and since math doesn’t require a real keyboard like, say, typing does, math happens on the iPad. I love that it works there! It’s great to have the computer free for my other son to do different lessons while his older brother is working on math.

The lessons each have five parts. First is the “Math Warm Up,” which is a short online worksheet designed to get the student in math mode. Next is the teaching video, which is Alesia explaining a bite-sized math nugget. So far, the videos have been about 7-10 minutes long. I’m not sure if they’ll stay that short throughout the entire program, but I can imagine that they’ll get longer as new and more advanced topics are introduced (so far, the program has been mostly review but with new vocabulary for the concepts for Seahawk). After the video is a worksheet to practice the concepts taught in the video. Then comes the “Challenge,” which is a single difficult problem based on things the student should already know. The final element is Reference Notes, which is a downloadable PDF that shows what a student might have taken notes on during the lesson, if he’s a note-taking type. We haven’t used this section very much because Seahawk is very much an auditory learner; seeing the information written out wouldn’t help him much. The lesson page has all of these elements on it, and there’s a path showing students which order they need to work in. This makes it really easy for kids to do the program completely independently, especially since it’s older kids that the curriculum is geared toward.

The icon for each lesson is a padlock, and when the lesson has been completed, it opens up – it UnLocks. This gives the student a clear visual representation of how much they’ve completed and how much they still have to go. It also serves as an easy reminder of where they need to pick up at the beginning of the new day. In addition to the lock icons, there’s a large chart on the same page as the lesson list, and this tells the student how far into the program they are and what their average grade is. At the time of this posting, Seahawk has completed 9% of the class with an average score of 89%.

I’ve talked to my son at a few different points during this review period to ask him what he thinks of UnLock Math, and he’s told me that it’s his absolute favorite math program by far. He’s even gone so far as to say that he “really likes it.” He never balks when I tell him it’s time to do his math lesson, and he never asks to be done early. He (usually) does all four parts of the lesson without a fight – and for a strong-minded 13-year-old, that’s really saying something.

UnLock Math is adding more upper-level math, too. They currently have Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and their newest offering is Geometry. Members of the Homeschool Review Crew are reviewing all of those levels. They’re also in the process of developing Pre-Calculus (coming in 2018) and Calculus (coming in 2019). This is exciting news for parents of high schoolers who want to homeschool those upper grades but are afraid of what that means in terms of getting a good enough math education.

Based on the hands-off nature of the program (from me), and the fact that my student loves it, I can definitely recommend this program, especially if you have multiple children who need your attention. This gives you a few minutes each day where you can focus on another kid while not wasting the time of your older child. Win-win!

Blessings,

 

 

A little over a year ago, we had the opportunity to read and review our first YWAM Publishing biography (we chose C.S. Lewis to go along with our study of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). It was okay, but we didn’t love it. Because of that experience, I was unsure about whether to request another book from them or not. Before I totally wrote it off, though, I went through a couple of the options being offered. For reasons I couldn’t place my finger on at the time, the story of Jacob DeShazer really spoke to me. I wanted to read his story, and I wanted my kids to hear it, so I requested the book, which is part of the Christian Heroes: Then and Now series. In addition to the biography, Christian Heroes – Jacob DeShazer, we also received a digital copy of the corresponding study guide (you can’t access this page without a YWAM account, but there is a generic page with the list of all the different study guides.).

About the Book

Based on the brief summary on the website, I knew that Jacob DeShazer was a soldier in WWII who was a POW in a Japanese prison for over three years. I learned that after the war ended, he was released and later became a missionary to Japan – ministering to the very culture that had imprisoned him. What I didn’t know was that when he wasn’t in Japan, he called the Willamette Valley in Oregon home – the very place where we live! I even learned that there were some people in our church who knew Mr. DeShazer personally. (He died at age 95 in 2008, so the people we know who knew him are very old and don’t always come to church so we weren’t able to talk to them, unfortunately.)

The biography opens during Jacob’s (Jake, in the book) childhood. He grew up with a mother, stepfather, and 8 siblings in rural central Oregon, on a farm. He abandoned the family’s Christian faith as a young adult, and in an attempt to get away from his parents, he took several odd jobs during his early 20s. By his mid- to late-twenties, WWII started, America entered the battle, and he decided to enlist in the Air Force to fight for the cause. Before very long, we’re following Jake through boot camp and his early assignments in California. While there, a group of men were brought in to talk to the boss and invited to join a top secret mission. Even the boss didn’t know enough to tell them what to expect outside of “it will be very dangerous.” The men were given the opportunity to accept or reject the invitation, no questions asked and no penalty for rejecting, and every single one of them accepted it. Clear up until they were on the aircraft carrier USS Hornet in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the mission was kept secret. They eventually learned that they would be bombing Japan in retaliation of the Pearl Harbor attack in what later became known as the Doolittle Raid. When his plane crashed in Japanese-controlled China (instead of free China, where they were supposed to land) after the bombing, Jake and his crewmates were captured, imprisoned, and held for 40 months. During those 40 months (near the end), the men were given three books to share (even though they had separate cells – most of the time they were kept in solitary confinement). One of these was a Bible. Reading the Bible, Jake realized the truth behind his parents’ religion and became a Christian. His faith kept him going as his life continued to get worse.

When the war ended and Jake was released, he knew that God was telling him that he was to be a missionary – to Japan. I don’t know about you, but I know that I’d have a very hard time with this. It would be incredibly easy to be vindictive and have a “they don’t deserve salvation” attitude after going through the hardships of a prison camp (which are reasonably detailed in the book; I didn’t really mention them here). But Jake didn’t have this attitude. He knew that everyone – even the prison guards and others in Japan – deserved salvation just as much as he did. So upon returning to America, he got his discharge from the military and went to Seattle Pacific College to train for missions work in the Free Methodist Church. College is where he met Florence, who would become his wife. Florence knew that God was calling her to be a missionary, too, but she didn’t know to where. Meeting and marrying Jake made that decision for her. Upon graduation, the two of them started their family (they ended up with 5 children, 4 of whom were born in Japan – the oldest was a year and a half old when the went) and missionary work in Japan.

Our Experience

Because I was the one who chose this book (I didn’t confer with the boys at all on our choice), I decided I wanted to read it aloud to them. Munchkin likes to read, but mostly just the stuff he chooses to read. Seahawk is a fine reader, but he doesn’t like to read. He’d never pick up a book out of his own free will. And I didn’t want to miss this book. So reading it aloud was the best option for us.

While I would have loved to have made this book a full-blown unit study, it arrived during the time we were dealing with some personal stuff surrounding our old house and moving, so it just wasn’t going to work out this time around. We did, however, use the Bible verse memorization and reading comprehension pages in the study guide. In addition to reading the book and using the questions in the study guide, we supplemented our reading by learning more about the type of plane that Jake flew (a B25 Mitchell bomber) and about the Doolittle Raid itself. We found a newsreel on YouTube about the Raid and watched that. We talked extensively about what it would be like to have been in Jake’s shoes and how we would have reacted the the situations in which he found himself. Despite not using the study guide extensively, I still feel that we had a very rich experience reading this book.

Parts of the study guide that we didn’t utilize include essay/research prompts (compare Jacob before and after his conversion, learn about the GI Bill, talk about the history of Christianity in Japan, etc); creative writing (write a haiku, write journal entries from Jake’s point of view, etc); hands on activities (make an illustrated timeline, build a model B25 bomber, learn Morse code, etc); audio visual (make a website about Jacob De Shazer, etc); arts and crafts (illustrate Jake’s life using Manga techniques, create origami, etc); language (learn a few phrases in Japanese); and much, much more. With the proper preparation and materials, it would be really easy to use the study guide and biography together to make an amazing unit study.

Our first time reading a YWAM Publishing book, as I mentioned before, was “just okay.” Our second one could not have been better. I literally had a difficult time reading the last few pages to the boys because I felt like I knew Jake by the end, and reading about his dementia and death were devastating. I cried. I cannot recommend this book enough, and I truly hope more people will read it and learn the story of how one man – Jacob De Shazer – was able to forgive his enemies.

Blessings,

For the past few weeks, my boys (the older two) have been learning to type using The Typing Coach Online Typing Course. This program works in a very methodical way, teaching students to type just a few letters at a time. The Typing Coach teaches the home row first, then the top row, and finally the bottom row and numbers. Each row is taught independently before being combined, and the course emphasizes absolute mastery before moving on.

The Typing Coach is very easily adaptable to individual students because it’s “work at your own pace.” The goal is one lesson per week, but it’s definitely not set in stone; we had to move slower in order for the boys to get the mastery that the course requires in order to move on.

There are a few things you need to do the course. One is a reliable internet connection to listen to the audio portions and download the typing practice sheets. The other is a computer with a word processor (I hope that’s obvious, but just in case…). The goal is that by the end of the course, students will be able to type a minimum of 10 words per minute with no more than one mistake per minute.

How It Works

 Once you’ve downloaded the practice sheets, you need to either print it out or have it available some other way for students to look at while they’re typing. (Having it in a different portion on the same screen isn’t ideal.) Our printer is currently out of ink, so I put the document on my iPad and the boys used iBooks to read it and type. Then, log in to your account and find the lesson you need. The very first one is all about posture; then you move on to actually typing. For each lesson, there’s an audio to listen to. The audio works in tandem (and sometimes separately) with the downloaded document. There are a lot of different components to the audio lessons:

• Making sure you’re sitting properly and the keyboard is positioned correctly to your body.
• Beginning to type what you see on the document.
• Typing letters from dictation.
• Turning off (or hiding) the monitor and typing from the document again.

(There might be other parts that I’ve missed, but this is what I remember based on when the boys did these lessons.)

The student can practice, using the downloaded practice sheet, as many days as is needed to master the assigned keys. When they feel confident, there’s a slightly different website to go to to take a test. On the testing website, students enter their name and a parent’s email address (or your own, if you’re taking the course as an adult). They enter the amount of time allowed for the test and choose the test they’re taking from a drop down menu. After you click “start,” a new screen opens up with a box in it. The time starts when the first key is typed in the box. At the end of the time, a report is automatically sent to the email address specified before the test began. If the student passed (no more than one mistake per minute), then they can move on to the next lesson. If they don’t, they should practice for another day or two and then try again.

How We Used It

The two older boys used the program pretty much as I described in the previous section. The boys would use my laptop (with the “print outs” on the iPad next to them) and follow the audio for the lesson they were on. After a few days of working on the lesson, they attempted the test. If they passed, they could move on. If not, they went back to the practice sheets for a few days before trying again. To date, they’re both still working on the home row, but we went through a bit of time right after we moved where we didn’t have reliable internet access, so we were unable to start the program as soon as I wanted. Additionally, the emphasis on mastery is such that just one week on a lesson hasn’t been enough for them. Now that things are settled down (mostly), they’re doing a lesson or having a 20-minute practice each school day. After two or three days of doing the lesson with the audio, they decided that they prefer to do the audio in the beginning, but just type when they’re gearing up for the test. Just yesterday, they both attempted a test and got 2 mistakes over 1 minute. While not terrible, this is too many for The Typing Coach, so they’ll spend today and tomorrow practicing before attempting the test again to (hopefully) be able to move on to the top row.

Our Thoughts on the Program

My boys love this! Even though they’re not making progress very fast, they are by no means getting discouraged. Every time he finishes a lesson or practice session, Munchkin tells me, “I love typing!” Seahawk hasn’t said anything quite so exuberant, but I can tell that he’s enjoying it as well. Just in a 13-year-old, too cool for school kind of way.

Finally

The Typing Coach Online Typing Course retails for $17 per year per student. If this fits into your homeschool budget, I highly recommend giving it a try. If your student is really motivated, they should be touch-typing by the end of the first quarter.

Blessings,

Over the past few weeks, Munchkin has been reading a new book from Peggy Consolver – Author. It’s called Shepherd, Potter, Spy–and the Star Namer, and it’s written in one of my personal favorite genres: biblical historical fiction. I’ve read quite a few books in this genre over the years, and when I saw this one come up for review, I immediately thought of my son. He and I looked at the website and book synopsis together, and he decided that he really wanted to read this book, so we requested it for review.

The book tells the story of Keshub, a 13-year-old shepherd boy who wonders whether he’ll ever be good enough for his father. Set over the backdrop of the Old Testament battle of the Promised Land, this book provides a lot of action, intrigue, and adventure – perfect for a pre-teen or teen boy (or girl) to read about!

Here’s what Munchkin has to say about the book:

Shepherd, Potter, Spy–and the Star Namer is an interesting book. Chapter 6 was my favorite. It’s called “The Son of a King,” and it tells about how Keshub meets someone from the land of his enemies, who turns the prince of that area. The two become friends. I like this chapter because it was the most intriguing to me. I liked how Keshub turned a bad situation (the invading army and palace coming to town) into a new friendship by being kind and tricking the prince into being nice back which led to the friendship.

I also liked how the story of Keshub was laid over the top of the true biblical account of the battle of Jericho. It was interesting to compare the novel to the Bible.

Even though I liked most of this book, there were some things that I found difficult to understand. I think it would be better suited for someone a few years older than me.

In addition to the novel itself, Mrs. Consolver has created a study guide titled Digging Deeper into HIStory to go along with it. This would bring the novel reading to a whole new level, especially if you did it with a group of teens – it would make a great book club selection or youth group unit study. The study guide is available for $2.99 (Kindle) or $12.99 (paperback) and includes questions covering things like map work, reading comprehension, and historical compare/contrast.

Generally speaking, even though Munchkin found the book to be a bit advanced for him, I’m glad he had the opportunity to read it. It gave him a new perspective on the events in Joshua 9-10, and I think he’s a bit better for it. At his own request, we’re going to hang onto this book and he’ll read it again when he’s a couple of years older. We both hope it’s even better for him then than it was this time around.

Make sure to click the banner below for more reviews from Homeschool Review Crew members on this book.

Blessings,

 

 

In homeschool circles, there are a few curriculum companies that show up again and again as “the best.” Memoria Press is one of those. I’ve reviewed products from them a few times (I’ll link to my past reviews at the end of this one), and have always been very impressed with the items we’ve received/used. This time, the (older) boys and I have been working through The Story of the Thirteen Colonies & The Great Republic Set ($48). As you might be able to guess from the title (of both the curriculum and this post), this is an American history curriculum. Memoria Press also included the supplemental 200 Questions About American History Set ($27.90).

Each of these sets is fairly involved, so I think it will make more sense (at least to me) to take a moment to discuss what is in each of them before I move on to how we used them in our homeschool.

The Story of the Thirteen Colonies & The Great Republic came with three books: a textbook, which feels more like a novel in its size and page count; a consumable student workbook; and a teacher version of the workbook, which looks just like the student book except the answers are filled in and there are reproducible tests in the back. The student workbook is much more than “just” a workbook, though. It includes a wide variety of appendices with such amazing resources as the complete text of the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, lots of maps, and tons of other great stuff that I (unfortunately) can’t remember offhand. (I can’t refer to our copy of the book, either, because it’s packed for moving.) I do remember pointing out a lot of this stuff to Seahawk, who was the main beneficiary of this book, though. It will make a fantastic resource for years to come.

The 200 Questions About American History Set includes two books: a student workbook and a teacher manual; and a set of flashcards. The flashcard set is like four sets in one, and I separated them into recloseable zipper baggies for ease of use. These four sets are: 150 Drill Questions (question on one side, answer on the other), 30 Dates and Events (date on one side, event on the other), 20 Notable Quotes (quote on one side, speaker on the other), and 44 U.S. Presidents (president number and years of presidency on one side, name on the other). The student workbook is rather thin, but it covers a lot of history in those few pages. It is basically a workbook version of the flashcards, which is nice if you want a consolidated place for your student to write down the answers to the questions as they learn them. It would also serve as a great tool for review as they get older. The teacher book is just like I described above, in the 13 Colonies set.

How We Used It

Normally in a curriculum like this, I would read everything aloud to the boys and they would answer the questions. The teacher’s guide suggested having students do at least of of the out-loud reading themselves, though. Because my kids don’t do enough of that (or any of that, really), I decided to go with the suggestion of the writers. Each chapter in the textbook, which is really a compilation of two books written by H.A. Guerber, is quite short (less than 2 pages) so this wasn’t a hardship for my boys.

We covered one lesson per week, working 3 days per week, and with as much great information as there is in each lesson, this was a good pace for us. We’d start on Monday by reading the chapters for the week’s lesson from the textbook. Most of the lessons covered 3 chapters, so that was perfect – we each read one aloud. After doing the reading, we went over the vocabulary and answered half of the comprehension questions from the workbook.

On Wednesday, we’d finish the comprehension questions. I liked taking a break between the reading and the questions because this helped to assure that the boys were retaining what we read. If we’d answered all of the questions within moments of doing the reading, it would be easy to forget what they’d read quickly.

On Fridays, we did the enrichment section of the workbook. This was sometimes short, sometimes a bit longer, and includes activities such as finding places on the map (related to the reading done), adding a date or dates to the timeline (I had each boy do their own using some of Will’s comic strip-sized art paper), and a writing assignment. The writing assignments were quite interesting, and I’m pretty sure the boys enjoyed them too. An example of one that they seemed to especially enjoy is (and this is not an exact quote): You were a founder of the colony of Roanoke. After some time away, you’ve come back and discovered the entire civilization missing. Write a journal entry describing what you see and how you feel upon your return. I didn’t give the boys a certain amount of time to write; I just let them write until they were done. Some of the assignments took longer than others, but all were quite interesting.

Seahawk did the workbook because he’s more firmly in the age range for this product, which Memoria Press pegs as “middle school years.” I didn’t want Munchkin to miss out on the information, though, so he sat with us (and read a chapter a week out loud) and chipped in with answers when he knew them. He also made his own timeline and did the writing assignments.

The 200 Questions About American History Set, being a supplement, was just that for us. I looked at the workbook each week, and we answered the questions that were relevant to the section we read. We haven’t done much with the flashcards yet, but we might use them more once we’re settled in our new house.

My Opinion

I really like teaching this product. The curriculum goes perfectly with the text, and there’s enough “extra” stuff (like the writing I mentioned above) to keep it from feeling dry and boring. There are also lots of pictures in the textbook to illustrate times and concepts. Having the teacher book and the student books match so closely is really helpful in guiding your children to getting the correct answer – or even expanding their already correct answer to make it more detailed and relevant. Overall, this product is a definite winner for teaching American history thoroughly!

As mentioned previously, I’ve reviewed for Memoria Press before. Check out what I thought of their 5th Grade Literature set and the history curriculum Famous Men of Rome.

Blessings,

 

 

Other members of the Homeschool Review Crew are writing about Memoria Press this week, too. Some are reviewing the same sets that I am, and others are talking about learning Greek or teaching The Iliad and The Odyssey with their older students. Click the banner below for more information.