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We will be starting our Heritage-History Curriculum next week. I am so excited. This is a curriculum full of awesome books that will teach your child history through stories. Conner and I will have a blast reading to each other.
Heritage-History is a wonderful fit for anyone that uses a classical approach, a Charlotte Mason approach, or uses Old Fashioned Education or the Robinson Curriculum. For us, we really like the philosophy behind the Robinson Curriculum which emphasizes self learning and independence. The Robinson Curriculum focuses on reading, writing, and math and not making things too complicated, but encouraging self reliance and self study.
However I have always been attracted to the curriculum that is based on history, particularly learning history in a chronological order. With the Heritage History Curriculum I feel I have found the perfect compliment to the Robinson Curriculum because it takes very much the same type of approach of reading in order to learn, using high quality books, but with a chronological method.
Amazingly enough all of the books can be obtained for free on the Heritage-History site but by purchasing the Curriculum you will have computer copies of all of the books that can be printed, read online, or downloaded into your e-reader, as well as obtaining the Study Guide. I think we may consider investing in an e-reader soon so having the e-reader files is a real plus.
The Study Guide will help so much, especially for those of us that just did not get that great grasp on history that we wish we had (definitely me!). It provides an overview of the history to be learned, major events, and major characters. It gives guidance on using the Curriculum, getting your child reading the books, allowing them to choose what to read, and accountability forms to help keep them reading and learning. The Study Guide can also be obtained separately from the Curriculum just as the books may also purchased separately.
YOUNG READERS CLASSICAL CURRICULUM
We will start next week with the Young Readers Classical Curriculum. This is an excellent introduction to the history of Western civilization and includes over 80 easy-to-read books. This curriculum will give your child background knowledge on American, European, and Ancient History, legends, Bible stories, and literature and prepare them for the rest of the Curriculum sets that can be taught in chronological order.
When I opened up the materials from Heritage-History, I was so pleased to see that it came totally ready to be dropped into a binder. It has a front cover that can immediately be dropped into the front of a clear binder, a piece to drop into the side of the binder (to show what is in the binder even when it is on the shelf), and the pages were already 3-hole punched. I immediately felt organized and ready to go. Now all we have to do is get to READING, READING, READING (I love that part!).
The Study Guide is really helpful too because it provides a listing of major events and major characters within American History, European History, Ancient History, and the Bible Stories. It has a great discussion on how approach of Heritage-History differs from the modern methods of history instruction and how to adapt to the differing interests of boys and girls.
Once we work our way through the YOUNG READERS we plan to move forward with the rest of the Curriculum sets in chronological order:
ANCIENT GREECE
ANCIENT ROME
BRITISH MIDDLE AGES
BRITISH EMPIRE
These curriculum sets go into greater depth of study and are also organized by level of Young Readers, Intermediate, and Advanced. You could easily use them to go through 2 or 3 cycles of history or make selections based on the reading level of your child. The Study Guides are even more helpful, and to me even more essential, as there is more history outlined with major dates, eras, characters, as well as color maps.
I hope this review will encourage you to consider using Heritage-History. The great folks at Heritage-History provided the Curriculum free to me since I was eager to spread the word on how much we love their site and their resources.
I know it will give my son an even greater interest in history and keep him reading too.
Okay, time to get back to the schoolwork!
Homeschooling is in full swing now and I am pleased with the schedule we have created. We really never stopped our schooling through the summer, but this new school year is a little different since I am no longer working and can spend more time with my sweet boy.
We don’t really start school at a set time and we often do our subjects in a different order every day, but we use a check list and we try to get through all of the tasks for each day.
MATH. We continue to use Math Mammoth. I have to say that I have been very pleased with this curriculum, but my son does not love it so much. Math is his least favorite subject and I might need to make a change to help spice things up for him. The worksheets can still be used to supplement another program and I feel it will continue to be useful.
READING. Conner has been working his way through several childrens classics this summer. Once I stopped working we began the practice of reading out loud every other chapter to each other. This way I can monitor his reading progress and he feels like I am helping him by reading every other chapter to him.
CHARACTER. I still have him read a character book silently each week. These are older stories that I have found online and from Christian booksellers with traditional values. I love these books so much.
BIBLE. Right now we are reading “When the King Came” by George Hodges. It is retelling of the gospels and very enjoyable.
HISTORY. I have been reading “A Book of Discovery” by M.B. Synge to Conner each day. We will be finished with this in about another week and will then begin using the Heritage-History curriculum. I will give more details about this curriculum in my next post.
SPELLING. We are using Sequential Spelling, volume 1.
LANGUAGE. We are currently reading through the book “Cultural Literacy” by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.
LATIN. Using Visual Latin and really enjoying it. We are following a schedule of 2 lessons per week and 2 reviews day per week.
KEYBOARDING. Conner is learning the DVORAK keyboard using the Ten Thumbs software program — the same one I learned on when I switched to the DVORAK keyboard.
SCIENCE. We are still using Supercharged Science. The videos of experiments are really great.
MUSIC. I plan to use Discovering Music one day per week when we are not doing Latin, but honestly have not accomplished this yet for September. I will get started in October.
I am pleased with our progress so far and always enjoy the time I have with my sweet guy at home. How is your homeschool year going? I would be curious to know if you follow a schedule or just get the work done throughout the day as it happens?
I am no longer working. This is a huge change for me. I have been working as a medical transcriptionist for the past 3 years, but recently the medical office that the work came from decided to go with an electronic medical records system and thus I am now out of work. I have had a little bit of time to think about these changes and I have decided not to look for any more work right now. I am so happy to be able to focus more on homeschooling my son and taking care of my family. I am still working on building an e-commerce website and how to market it, but I can enjoy that process more now that I have less to do.
I am just so blessed and thankful right now since my husband encouraged me to stop working and have a little more time to rest and do some things that I enjoy. He knows how hard I have been working over the past few years as he went through being laid off and then getting into a brand new line of work as a truck driver. He has been a truck driver now for a full year and it is time for me to lay aside my compulsion to work so much. I need to relax and trust God to keep things good for our family. It will not be easy financially, but I feel so much calmer and my son needs more of my time right now.
With my extra time now I have been spending more time with my son, making plans for our new homeschool year, reading and enjoying library books, and even thinking about picking up some of my crochet projects again. It is amazing to be able to do these things.
I will also be working on my e-commerce site at http://personalsecuritysource.com and my marketing blog at http://annsolomononline.com as I learn more about the online marketing. I would love for you to follow my progress.
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