Philosophy Adventure (Schoolhouse Review)

Product: Philosophy Adventure

Age Range: Grades 6-12

Price:   Ranges from $39.95 for digital download to $89.95 for print book set with resource cd.

 

 

 

  

 

Philosophy Adventure , published by Home School Adventure Co., is a homeschool philosophy curriculum that teaches logic, critical thinking, creative writing,  and public speaking while studying the lives and teachings of 8 Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. The set includes a student reader, a workbook, and a teacher guide.

The program covers 8 philosophers:

1. Thales
2. Pythagoras
3. Xenophanes
4. Heraclitus
5. Parmenides
6. Empedocles
7. Protagoras
8. Democritus

Each of the eight chapters includes about six pages that teach about each philosopher’s life, what was happening in the world around him, what ideas he had about the world, and how he was influenced by others and how his ideas influenced others. Also included in each chapter is one page each devoted to a writing and a speaking concept and assignment. A “Think” page introduces the reader to philosophical ideas and helps him or her relate those ideas to life and to a Biblical worldview.

Accompanying the main text is a student journal that provides space to do the creative writing assignments, critical thinking questions, and other writing instruction. Memory cards are also included to help the student learn important facts about each philosopher. We loved these!

Our Experience:

Emily spent one week on each chapter. The first day, she read the chapter, answered the comprehension questions, and did the mapping activity. Over the next 4 days, she completed the “Think,” “Write,” and “Speak” assignments, studied the review cards, and took the unit test. This was a comfortable pace for her, although the course could be extended to a full semester course by working on the assignments only 2 or 3 days a week.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure that Emily would be excited about ancient Greek philosophers, but she has LOVED using Philosophy Adventure. As the review period is coming to an end, I asked her if she would like to cut back to using it 2 or 3 times a week, but she insisted that she wanted to continue with it every day!

This is a very full course. It includes history, of course, as it teaches about each of the philosophers and the times in which they lived. Students will also learn many of the basic laws and concepts of philosophy, such as:

• The Law of the Excluded Middle
• The Law of Non-Contradiction
• Law of Identity
• Logical Fallacies
• Red Herrings

The worldviews and teachings of each philosopher are compared to those of a Biblical worldview and the philosophy concepts are taught in the context of all natural laws coming from our Creator and the Truth that he created, making this a very Christian philosophy course. This is very important to me, since philosophy can be taught from an atheistic perspective.

The critical thinking questions are excellent for reviewing the text and for helping students to apply the concepts to life. The writing exercises are good, and Emily is especially loving the creative writing exercises, that have the student place himself as an observer of an incident in the life of each philosopher.

During each lesson, the student is working on writing a speech that will be presented at the end of the course. Not only is the student given help with editing skills, and making the speech more interesting, but is practicing using gestures, moving around, and inflection in order to become a better public speaker.

I am impressed with how many subject areas the course includes, all in an integrated manner that engages the student.

The Schoolhouse Crew is reviewing four different products: Philosophy Adventure, Mere Christianity Critical Analysis Journal, Philippians in 28 Weeks, and The Wise Woman. Click on the Crew banner to read about the other products, and use the code: CREW-10 to receive a 10% discount on the downloads of these great books. (Expires May 15, 2014)