I thought I knew what I would use for history for the remainder of the high school years, but after visiting the convention this past weekend I am wavering. This year Grace has studied a full year of the Middle Ages. We used Famous Men of the Middle Ages as our spine and supplemented with other books and documentaries. Here are the three I am looking to use and would appreciate any input you my readers may have about any of them.
American, British, and World History - This set I already have on my shelf from a review last year. I like them well enough but will definitely need to supplement them some with other books, documentaries, etc.
Exploring World History From the Notgrass Company - I have used the younger version of Notgrass' American History and liked it. The high school package scares me a bit because if you use the whole package including the literature part you are using it 2-3 hours a day. Not sure if Grace is up for that. Of course on the bright side it would meet a history and english credit and I think even a Bible credit.
World Empires, World Missions, World Wars - This is the one that really has me wavering. I talked with someone in depth about it at the convention. Each unit takes 4 weeks to complete and has lots of neat choices for each unit. Plus the Cds of the stories by Diana Waring are amazing.
I guess what it all comes down to is the fact that if I use the first choice I don't have to spend any money. All three years are already on my shelf. That means no purchasing history for three years. On the other hand I find them a little dry and I think Grace would get tired of them. Diana Waring's curriculum would be about 100.00 each year and they do not currently have a high school American History, which means I would have to switch to something else for that in her Junior year. Senior year I believe (because our state requires it) would be government and economics.
So this is a shout out to my readers. Have you used any of these programs and what do you think.
2 comments:
I'm not familiar with any of these choices but I do have a couple of questions. Hopefully they are helpful!b Which of the three options does Grace prefer? Once I've narrowed down programmes to those I'm equally happy with I let my kids pick since they are the one who will have to use them. Is there any reason why you have to use a programme from the same company for the next three years? Reading between the lines I get the feeling that you prefer the Diana Waring programme. If so - and assuming the cost isn't a barrier - why not use that - even if just for one year - and then go with something else in a later year. While there are some advantages to sticking with the same thing for several years there are also some disadvantages in my opinion. I've always gone with what we prefer. Even if I have to find something else the following year at least we've benefited from a great programme for one year. Sorry for the lengthy answer.
We have used Exploring World History from Notgrass and really liked it. If you're not keen on spending as much time on it, you may want to consider doing only some of the writing assignments, and cutting down the number of novels for the Lit portion of the credit. My oldest two boys did not like to read, so instead of having them read all 12 or 13 of the books, we picked five or six of them. They did all the lesson questions, but did not write all the essays suggested. I gave them a full credit for World History, a full credit for Bible, and a half credit for World Lit.
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