Lots of History Choices!

When I was a child, I enjoyed history, but it wasn’t until I was teaching my own children, that I started to LOVE it. We have always studied history using “real books” –biographies, historical fiction, and interesting core texts with lots of pictures and a conversational writing style. We’ve used several literature based history curriculums over the years.

We used Sonlight for many years. I love their book selections. I love the integration of the readers and history books. The schedule makes it very easy to use without a lot of extra prep time. But…I tended to add a lot of extra books and activities from other sources, so I didn’t follow the schedule very well.

Right now, we’re using Diana Waring’s materials (Ancient Civilizations and the Bible, Romans to Revolutionaries, and World Empires, World Missions, and World Wars). We actually use the original editions—I’ve barely looked at the new editions. The flexible format fits me better. I plan my own schedule with books we own and books from the library, adding in her wonderful What in the World’s Going on Here? recordings and her many writing assignments and hands-on activities. We make a large notebook of all the maps, writing assignments, and drawing that record what we’ve learned.

Knowledge Quest’s Map Trek is a great supplement of historical maps to complement any curriculum. Emily enjoys labeling the maps and and we both appreciate the completed maps with the “answers!”

I recently discovered Truth Quest, which I like as well. It is very simple to implement, consisting of great introductory commentaries that view history through a Christian lens, book lists and essay assignments. The focus of the program is reading great books and discussion. I’ll be posting a review of Truth Quest soon.

So, my favorite history resource? Anything that includes lots of great books and some writing and hands-on activities!