Monday, April 2, 2012

History Favorites


History is my favorite subject, so it's not easy to pick a single favorite resource.  The two we are using this year are right at the top of my list though.

For high school history, we've been using Notgrass for a few years now.  Exploring World History and Exploring America are the two full-year high school courses.  I love them because they are worth three full credits - one each in History, Bible and Literature.  And they are very easy to use - just read and do the assignments.  I've also found it very easy to adapt to our needs.  My two oldest have worked through both of these now, and we made a couple of changes.  Most importantly, since Harrison didn't like to read fiction at all, and Spencer isn't particularly interested in literature either nor does he read quickly, I reduced the number of novels assigned from about 13 in each course to 5 or 6.  And then awarded only a half credit for Literature.  I also did not require nearly all the written work suggested in the text, since both boys also did a separate English credit that included some writing.

Exploring America Curriculum Package

Notgrass made available a middle school course in American History as well, and I've been eager to get to it!  I am about 98% sure I will buy it at this year's curriculum fair and Landon and Kennady will be using it next year.  I'm very excited!

What Landon and Kennady are using this year is Around the World in 180 Days.  This is another favorite curriculum of mine because it is so flexible and adaptable.  This is now our third or fourth year using it in some way, and it is different every time.  It's basically a big unit study spine, so the focus can be different from one year to the next.  I dedicated a "Blogging through the Alphabet" post to this resource not that long ago, so instead of repeating myself too much, here is the link to that post -->  A is for... Around the World in 180 Days





Here's another older post I wrote about History/Social Studies Curriculum.  There are so many "extras" to add to a history study, I can't begin to choose favorites.  I will be doing a series of posts later this spring - 5 Days of Living History - so I'll save some of my ideas for that.

Be sure to check back in May for:


Which history curriculum is your favorite? Add to the comments, and visit the TOS Crew Blog Cruise (this link will go live on Tuesday, April 3rd) to get ideas from other homeschoolers. In the meantime, go to the TOS Homeschool Crew blog homepage to see past cruise topics and TOS Crew reviews.

4 comments:

Danielle said...

Oh man...I totally should NOT have read this post! I had finally convinced myself to go with Mystery of History...ugh! ;)

Thank you for visiting my Raising Little Rhodies blog.

...danielle

Blossom Barden (NorthLaurel) said...

I keep meaning to have a look at those Notgrass. Now might be the time!

Beth B. said...

Sherrie Payne was one of the "pioneers" of homeschooling when I lived in Indiana! She taught the beginning homeschooling workshops.

Unknown said...

Oh, no! Did I miss this? I haven't even posted my first review for TOS yet! Yikes!

Anyway, Jake is going to do Around the World next year for 9th grade. He really liked the idea of researching the areas and doing map work and creating a notebook. It should be fun!

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