My favorite part about homeschooling is just how rich our history and literature studies are. My love of these two subjects comes from my parents. They read aloud to me from before I can remember and dad would tell me stories of the people from history. Knowing I wanted these two subjects at the heart of all we learned, I chose a curriculum which focused on this. It has a Charlotte Mason feeling and I love almost everything about it! The one exception was the elementary world history book. Although a classic within the homeschool community, it does not have what I consider a Christian worldview. I used it twice before with Rose and Beth. My husband would hear me correcting some of the language (such as savages or negro) and questioned me as to why I used it. I told him I hadn't yet found a comprehensive replacement. I wanted something Christian, readable for a 3rd grader, and covering the span of Creation to modern-day, but had not yet found a good substitution.
Rather than the older text Grace has been using the World's Story this year for her history spine. This is intended to be used for middle school, but we use the text portion only have have found it to be thoroughly wonderful for 3rd grade! Grace is a bit advanced in her reading level, so she reads much of the text on her own, but the conversational nature of this text would make this an ideal read-aloud for Charlotte Mason homeschoolers. Living books are at the core of this methodology and this text fits right into our way of learning.
This text covers what is the modern age from European exploration to present day. That is a lot to cover in a year, but I'm very pleased with how it is laid out. It is full of beautiful pictures, artwork, maps, diagrams, and illustrations to help children see a full breadth of history, why it matters to us, and how it fits into God's plan. I appreciate the thoughtful way history is presented. Not everything is positive, but those topics which are harder to deal with are not dealt with so deeply as to trouble younger students.
There are wonderful questions in the student book to help guide your student with narration, a wonderful practice which helps children learn how to summarize what they have read. The teacher guide has a layout of what to complete each day for a year. In addition it also includes activity pages, review sheets, research work pages, and... answer keys! Yay! Answer keys really do make homeschooling multiple ages at the same time so much easier. I appreciate that the worksheets are brief, but with high quality, thoughtful questions. There is no busy work here!
If you are looking for a readable world history text that will engage your kids, this is a great choice! Elementary students will gain much from the text and your middle schoolers will thrive with the added learning materials.
Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the New Book Review Crew at NLPG in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.
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