All American History
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I'm not sure how much my love for HISTORY shows, but I have an abundance of love for the subject. Whether it is Biblical, World, United States or even Family history, there is always something you can learn from it. We all know the statement about history repeating itself and some of us have seen it happen in our lifetime while many of us have read about it in the history books. Studying history is a necessity.
Last summer when I was deciding on a history curriculum for this year, I knew I wanted to do a year long American history study. There are several Christian based home school curricula on the market and after I read review on top of review, I decided on All American History. With AAH, you have two volumes; perfect for two years and depending on how you use the books, maybe more. During our homeschooling years, we used both volumes.
Volume 1 The Explorers to the Jacksonians.
Volume 2 The Civil War to the 21st Centrury
Volume 1 The Explorers to the Jacksonians.
Volume 2 The Civil War to the 21st Centrury
There are three books that make up All American History for each volume.
1. The Teacher's Guide ~ In this book you will find everything you need to make this a fun study. Activities based on what is being studied, games, answer keys, master copies of images and the student worksheets, and of course the book lists. These lists has been more valuable than gold to me this year. Because of these lists, we have been able to read some amazing books we probably would have missed without the lists. For each lesson you will also find some incredible information on certain subjects that is a little more detailed than in the reader.
2. The Student Reader ~ The book is not written like many history books ~ facts on top of facts needing to be memorized. The book is more like a story book; and that's a good thing.
There are 32 weeks of lessons in the book with some lessons being a little longer than others; those lessons can be studied longer than a week. This is something that we have done this year. Each lesson is broken down into three sections: the atmosphere, which is the setting of the events that took place; the event, the when, where and how that took place; the impact, a short run-down of major happenings in the chapter.
Within the first two weeks, I realized there was a good bit of bouncing around through the atmosphere and event sections. Because of this there was some confusion with the explorers in those chapters. I did a little more planning to keep this from happening throughout the year by using sticky note flags in these sections to be able to read only the atmosphere and impact of the one person/place at a time. Clear as mud? :)
3. The Student Workbook ~ It's a must! In this consumable book you will find notebooking style worksheets, review pages ( I used these as quizzes) maps, photos of historical people, and flags. There are also some additional, optional worksheets for students to use to help further their studies. I had my binding cut and placed the book in a three ring binder for easy removal.
As I mentioned earlier, the bouncing around and confusion in the atmosphere and event sections; that is the only thing I disliked about the reader but it can be easily remedied if you plan ahead. I love, love, love this curriculum; it is a fantastic, in depth study and put together set of books. You have everything you need at your finger tips. I can't wait for the fall so we can begin working on Volume 2.
For the younger lovers of history there is an All American History, Junior. From what I've read it is not quite as detailed as the regular volumes.
