4 hours ago
History is one of my favorite homeschool subjects. It was not always so - as a homeschool student, I didn’t hate history, but I didn’t particularly enjoy it either. The curriculum we used when I was a student was thorough, but a little dry, and the real joy of history came to me more through experiences. We went on field trips to historic reenactments of pioneer times, we went to museums and historical sites on vacations, and I enjoyed reading historical fiction. My mom provided a wide range of history-related experiences for us, which made it all more real to me.
But I came to love history the most when my dad explained different historical events to me - the big picture of what happened, what these events and people meant, why they were important. There are cultural contexts and political atmospheres and real-life impacts of history that textbooks have a hard time conveying, and my dad gave all that to me when he told me the story of some historical event. He made me love history.
Because of those experiences of mine with dry history curriculum and real experiences and stories, I really wanted to take care not to suck the joy out of history for my kids. When I choose history curriculum, I try to make sure the text is written in an engaging way, and I re-tell certain aspects of history to my kids to help them understand the significance, as my dad did for me.
The three history curricula we’ve tried have been Beautiful Feet Books (Early American History primary set, K-1st grade), Master Books (America’s Story, 3-6th grade), and Notgrass History (Star-Spangled Story, 1-3rd grade), and Generations Providential History For Children collection (Taking Asia For Jesus, 3-5th grade). We also briefly used Story Of The World with our co-op, and I have opinions about it, but we didn’t use it long enough for me to write about it here.
Beautiful Feet Books
I initially was drawn to Beautiful Feet Books because it used living books to teach history, through picture books and chapter books. I got their Primary American History set about seven years ago, and we have very much enjoyed alot of the books that came with that set.
However, I am not confident in recommending them at this time, at least not for their Early American History set. The last time I looked at their website they had released a 2nd edition of the primary curriculum and changed many of the read-aloud books (there were some great ones that have been removed), de-emphasizing the founding fathers and emphasizing more minor historical figures, and including at least one controversial pick about Christopher Columbus.
My personal thoughts on teaching historical controversies (like Columbus) are this: my kids will be introduced to the Christopher Columbus controversy at some point, but I don’t think 1st grade is an appropriate time to do it. Kids at that age need heroes, and I think they need to be presented with the good and admirable aspects of history so they have some grounding before things are muddied up for them. If you don’t want to present Columbus as a hero to your kids, that’s fine, but no need to drag them into darker aspects of history at such a young age.
For that reason, I am more hesitant to recommend Beautiful Feet Books these days. I still look at their site for potential read-aloud ideas, but I do a little more research on the titles first.
Our Star-Spangled Story is the history curriculum I chose for my 2nd grader last year, as kind of a transition history curriculum from historical picture books to more of a textbook style. We unfortunately did not get very far into it because I tried to do too many history curricula at once last year, but we probably got one lesson done a week. What I enjoyed most about Notgrass was the way they included more obscure, but still interesting historical details, while still presenting the big picture and covering all the big historical names and events as well. The curriculum also comes with a great timeline book, and a book of songs from each period in American history, and my kids loved hearing the stories behind the songs! On top of that, each unit includes a fun and easy craft project, and my kids loved it when we did those! I am planning on using this more proactively this upcoming year with my 3rd grader and 1st grader, and I think we are going to really enjoy it!
Our main history curriculum starting in 3rd or 4th grade is the America’s Story series from Master Books. There are three levels covering America’s Story, and then the curriculum goes on to The World’s Story from there (we haven’t use World’s Story yet). I love this curriculum! The text is written in an engaging way (think “living book” style), and each chapter comes with a variety of worksheets with short answer questions, a drawing activity, vocabulary words, and map practice. Students are also encouraged to create a prayer book, praying for different aspects of the country that may relate to what they learned in history that week. There are also timeline pages included in the student’s book.
It’s alot of activities to choose from, so we often don’t get to them all. Usually my kids read the week’s chapter on Monday and/or Tuesday, and then do at least one worksheet each day the rest of the week, and ideally adding a note to their historical timeline (although we did fall behind on the timeline, I’ll be honest). I think alot of information is sticking for them because it’s presented in such an interesting way. My oldest will be starting on America’s Story 3 this year, and my 4th grader will be starting on America’s Story 2 (I started her on it a year early because she was so anxious to learn more). My 4th grader does get more out of it when I read the chapters aloud to her, and she enjoys history more when I am there to add my two cents. My 6th grader is old enough to do most of the work himself, and I just check over everything when he is done and talk about it with him.
Generations Providential History For Children
A really fun addition that we did as a family this year was Taking Asia For Jesus from Generations. This curriculum series is an overview of world history and geography, but it focuses specifically on Christian history and missions efforts in different areas of the world. We read so many inspiring missionary stories this year because of this curriculum! The end of each chapter also prompts us to pray for the country we just learned about, and it was so sweet to hear each of my kids praying for the people of different countries to come to know the Lord. There is a student workbook with additional geography and writing activities, but this year we just read the book aloud together and enjoyed the stories. I thought it was a great and gentle way to introduce a big-picture view of the what God is doing in the whole world through history. My oldest specifically said this was his favorite subject last year! We will try Taking Africa For Jesus this fall, and I bought the PDF of the student workbook this time so my older kids can get a little more geography practice.
My main goals for history (at these ages, it will shift as they grow) is that my kids will get a big-picture view of different historical periods, have a general knowledge of important names and events in American history and Christian history, have some experiences that will bring those things to life for them, be able to recognize how God is working through the flow of history. And finally, overall to just enjoy history! I hope we are well on our way to that.
About a month ago, I told Derek that I thought we needed to give our balcony a little facelift. We have a small balcony porch off of our master bedroom, and it's a nice place to sit and read my Bible in the morning, but I've had a vision of turning it into a summer outdoor living and movie night space. I wanted lights for ambience, and a TV mounted on the wall so we can enjoy the summer evening air while watching our shows at night.
We picked up a few things from the store, and he really has turned it into the exact sort of oasis I was envisioning. We are still working on the TV situation, but we've already enjoyed a movie night outside, and I happen to be sitting on the balcony right now, enjoying the mountain breeze as I type this post.
(The balcony in progress.)
Every morning for the last month or so I've been trying to start my day with some sort of workout. I recently realized I needed to put a little more effort into getting in shape for a variety of different reasons, and the summer is a good time to make a new workout routine a habit. Now, as we are approaching the start of the school year, I'm thinking I need to start setting my alarm earlier to see if a first-thing workout is something I can manage during the school year, or if I'll have to go back to squeezing it into the afternoon (which didn't always work that well for me, but I suppose it would still be better than nothing).
So my summer days have typically been going something like this - one of the kids wakes me up with a latte made by Derek (I know, I'm a lucky lady!), I drag myself out of bed, wash my face (etc.), and start a workout at home or head to the gym. After sweating it out, I freshen up, then I might spend some time cleaning up toys or dishes before working on a project around the house. I remind the kids to do their summer chore assignments sometime in the morning, and we have been reading a chapter of Narnia every day during lunch (or sometimes picture books on a special topic, such as sharks for Shark Week). Either in the morning or the afternoon I make time for myself to read, because summer is my most productive reading season since we are on a break from school. If I'm not reading, I'm probably baking something, or taking the kids to the library or park. Around 4, I start thinking about dinner (I need to learn to plan ahead more), and then we eat around 5:30. We might watch a show together as a family before bed (lately that would be either Alone or Shark Tank, or possibly a movie on weekends), and then we get the kids to bed around 8. Then Derek and I might watch another movie, perhaps on this lovely balcony.
This routine has been really restful, especially over the last few weeks. A part of me is dreading having to give up the summer relaxation, but a part of me is looking forward to the different rhythms that the school year brings. I can tell the kids are getting a little restless, though certain children-who-shall-not-be-named would like to put off the start of school as long as possible.
In an effort to fit in some extra summer fun over the last couple weeks, we've done some porch camping and a backyard campfire, gone swimming twice, and fishing once. Fishing was particularly lovely - the only time we could go was in the evening, and the softly lit sky reflecting on the water was so pretty and immediately relaxing. Stargazing is on the list of things to do over the next few nights, and I'm hoping to visit an aquarium or amusement park for a last hurrah of summer break. And of course I'm going to squeeze in as much personal reading time as I can before we jump back into the school year.
Today I spent time fighting with my printer, getting workbooks ready for some of our subjects. I have yet to map out a plan for how we will implement all the curricula I have, so that will be on my to-do list next week. I did, however, organize our school room and purge our curriculum cabinet before filling it with our new books, and it is always exciting seeing everything lined up, ready to go. I am most excited about incorporating the artist study portfolios from Simply Charlotte Mason into our morning time this year. I am not particularly strong in the area of art study, so it's something I think we will all enjoy learning together! We are starting the year with the Vermeer portfolio, and I think it will be wonderful to learn more artists and art pieces by name.
In between getting ready for the school year, the other goal I have for this next week is to finish my summer stack of books. Right now I am reading Persuasion by Jane Austen, and Two Truths And A Lie by Megan Mitchell Moore, and enjoying both of them quite a bit! The other books in the stack include Tears Of The Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith (part of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series), First Impressions by Charles Lovett (more Jane Austen connections), and The Bodyguard by Katherine Center (pure chic-lit fluff, and I hope it's good).
Today I filled the the kiddie pool in preparation for tomorrow, so the kids can play water games, and I can cool my feet while I sit in the hot sun with my beach hat and read on the porch. Maybe I'll even throw in a limeade for me and grape pop for the kids, and we'll make a whole summer thing of it.
Who says summer is over already? Not me.
(What does a sunflower picture have to do with math? I don't know, symmetry or something. I didn't have time to take a better picture.)
This year it became clear that we need to do something different for homeschool math.
Overall, I have been really satisfied with our math curriculum, Rightstart Math, up to this point. When my oldest was in kindergarten, a friend told me she was using Rightstart Math with her kindergartener because it included lots of games to help the kids retain the information. I knew that would be something we would enjoy, and when I did a little research on Rightstart I was very impressed. I could see that it would be a really thorough program, present the information in a variety of ways and help the student apply it through alot of manipulative use.
I also liked that it was a spiral program as opposed to mastery - meaning that instead of being stuck on the same type of math concept for weeks on end, it presents a math topic for a week or two, then moves on and circles back through the concepts, from different angles, throughout the year. I knew that would keep things a little more interesting for my kids and we wouldn’t get so bogged down in one concept, trying to “master” it before we could move on. The program would keep things moving, and I could rest assured we would come back to difficult concepts for more practice and review throughout the year.
In addition to all that, when I looked at how Rightstart emphasized teaching the student how to do math in their heads, it matched up with how I myself think about numbers. It was a perfect fit!
We have really enjoyed using Rightstart ever since 1st grade, and my kids haven’t struggled with grasping the math concepts. My kids have done really well with it, and can all do some pretty large math problems in their heads, which I think is a skill that will serve them well in life.
However, something shifted this past year, and we got to the point where it was taking one of my kids an excessively long time to finish math lessons. My child understood how to do the problems, and mostly got them right every time. However, Rightstart itself becomes much more intense as you get to higher levels. The worksheets become more complicated and require alot more abstract thinking. Though time expectations for math lessons obviously increase the older kids get, we really started to get bogged down in the complicated worksheets, and it was beginning to lead to alot of frustration on both my part and my child's.
When I started hearing "I hate math" on a daily basis, and it started to become something we both dreaded, I knew something probably needed to change. My main goal with my kids and math has always been to not push them ahead too fast - I never wanted them to get to the point where they either got frustrated and felt like they weren’t “good” at math, or ended up hating it. There is a certain level of struggle and frustration that comes with math anyway, and I don’t want to add into that unnecessarily.
Righstart is a pretty rigorous math program, and unfortunately I think we have fallen into that category of pushing too hard on math right now. So for this upcoming year, not all my kids will be doing Rightstart. I read once that around 4th-6th grade, alot of math programs end up merely repeating the same concepts in different ways, waiting until the kids’ brains catch up and grow enough to understand the more abstract concepts of algebra. So if there is a time to try something different for math, I think right now is it, before we start getting into higher math in the middle school years.
We decided to start with Teaching Textbooks for math this year, after doing their free trial for the last couple of weeks of school this past spring. It is a computer-based math program that has a tutorial for new concepts, practice problems, and periodic speed drills and review. My main thought on this is that even though it’s an “easier” program in some ways, a less intense program is actually what we need for math right now. I like how Teaching Textbooks doesn’t take all afternoon to complete. As my kids get older, other subjects are going to start to become more involved, and we don’t need to be getting so bogged down in math at this stage.
I also really like that Teaching Textbooks has built in speed drills and multiple practice problems, presented in an engaging and more lighthearted way. We are looking forward to getting through math a little quicker this year, and I think that will give us more time to grow in other areas. We may very well go back to Rightstart in the future, but for now, a less involved program is what we need! I think it will be great for us during this season.
Some of my children will continue with Rightstart Math, because I do think it provides such a great foundation of teaching kids mental math, which is something I think will serve them all well. But part of homeschooling is to know when to push ahead and when to ease up, and this is an easing up year for us. I’m looking forward to a hopefully more joy-filled homeschool year, in math and in general!
What do you use for math? Do you (and your kids) like it?
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