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Homeschool Curriculum Reviews
Homeschool Curriculum Reviews
As a veteran homeschooling mom, I have discovered many helpful tools along the way. With Homeschool Curriculum Reviews my goal is to let you know about products that will make your homeschooling journey smoother and more rewarding.
I know as parents we are all looking for ways to improve the education of our children and engage their minds. I am always looking for practical homeschool resources to make the learning process fun and interesting.
Since we are still homeschooling after fourteen years (three of our homeschooled students have graduated and our youngest child is still homeschooling and is in high school), I am continuing to find great materials and homeschool courses that I am excited about.
That is what I will be focusing on here.
When we were just getting started on our homeschool journey and attending our first homeschool convention, I was overwhelmed by all the choices. Not unlike most of you, our life was hectic, I was brand new to teaching, three of our children were coming out of public school and I needed to learn all of this information fast and make the best use of my time.
Sound familiar?
So I spent my “free time” online, subscribing to email newsletters and devouring articles and catalogs trying to learn from others who had gone before me. It took me awhile to become comfortable making curriculum choices.
I made a lot of mistakes! Eventually, though, I became a fairly confident, much more relaxed, eclectic homeschooler.
Now as part of my local community support group and homeschool co-op, I am the “go to” person for curriculum advice. Whether it is early childhood educational studies, math curriculum, history curriculum, books our family enjoyed, unit studies or study skills for high school and college, my fellow homeschoolers always want to know what curriculum I like and what has worked for our children.
Of course that is not too say that they always end up choosing the curriculum I like for their families. Each family has its own special needs when it comes to academic choices – that is the beauty of homeschooling. So I hope you will glean what you can from the products I recommend, and in the end make the choice that fits your family.
Be encouraged ~ you can do this!
Curriculum We Love:
Sonlight Home School Curriculum
HISTORY CURRICULUM: EXPLORING WORLD HISTORY
Integrative and faith-based, Exploring World History presents a God-oriented view of history that combines biblical studies, word history and English (literature & composition). Two textbooks contain history lessons that are generally followed by studying grammar points, completing writing assignments, reading assignments in In Their Words as well as the required reading, and Bible study questions. Moving from creation all the way to the 21st century, your students will have a comprehensive overview of the events, concepts and culture of humanity. 2 Student Texts and Reading Book In Their Words, 1095 pages total, softcover.
History Curriculum: The Mystery of History
The Mystery of History series is everything a family needs for teaching history with a strong Biblical worldview. Multi-age activities, book and video lists, memory helps, timeline suggestions, quizzes, and map work included. Chronological, Classical, Complete. This series has blessed many thousands of families and is truly a unique and remarkable product. The author, Linda Lacour Hobar, is beloved by her fans (students AND teachers alike) and writes from a humble and earnest desire to make Christ known. She weaves Biblical history so beautifully into secular world history that for they can easily be rightly seen as one story—not two.
The Mystery of History Volume 1 is written from a Christian, young-earth, perspective, teaching children to see God’s hand throughout history…and how the Gospel of Jesus is the mystery behind all of history! Written in a conversational style, many lessons are presented in the form of mini-biographies, integrating fascinating stories with the events of the time. Covering creation to the resurrection, students will learn about famous biblical characters, ancient peoples, and well-known men such as Aesop, Buddha, Pythagoras, Confucius, Emperor Asoka, Herodotus, Caesar, Hannibal, and Herod.
Arranged by quarters and weeks, each quarter begins with an “Around the World” summary of events to introduce the time period; lessons progress chronologically with each week having 3 lessons, a pretest, review, and exercise or quiz. The 108 lessons will take a year to complete if you follow a traditional 36 week school year.
Activities are broken down by age group and reinforce the material just learned through fun ideas that engage all learning styles; they’re based upon the classical grammar/logic/rhetoric stages. Review exercises cover the timeline and map work exercises; quizzes are cumulative reviews that go over material from the very beginning of the course; the semester-long tests are similar (though longer), covering materials from 2 quarters (one major time period). Quarter-end worksheets help students synthesize what they’ve learned and keep everyone straight! Suggested Schedules for different age groups are included, as well as plenty of reproducibles. Line-listed answers included. 636 pages, activity pages reproducible, softcover, three-hole-punched and perforated pages. Grades 4-8, but adaptable for the family.
This second edition features the following updates & improvements:
COMPLEMENT THE MYSTERY OF HISTORY
Tired of Planning it all Yourself?! Looking for a Language Arts (and more!) program to complement The Mystery of History Vol 1? Wish it could be Bible-based, PRACTICAL, AFFORDABLE, and FUN? Well, you’ve found it! “Illuminations – Lighting Your Path Toward Excellence” is here.
AND MAPPING SKILLS TO COMPLEMENT YOUR STUDY
Geography and map skills add richness to any lesson. Whether it’s history, literature, science, current events or Bible, maps play an integral role in thoroughly understanding the topic at hand. With WonderMaps’ made-to-order geography materials at your fingertips, there’s no more skipping map studies due to a lack of preparation time and resources!
WONDER MAPS
