Today’s blog will be a short one as I have had some lengthy ones and have more coming. Per the title, we are covering our history topics!
Our main curriculum will be Curiosity Chronicles, Medieval. This non-eurocentric comprehensive curriculum has been awesome! We are wrapping up ancient history and just love the audio and ebook and the activities are engaging and fun, but not taking so much prep from me. We pair it with the Schoolnest History Timeline notebook. You can see it all here!
We will also spend lots of time exploring Africa with books, videos and cultural digging! It baffles me how the stereotype of this vast continent continues to prevail.
Lastly, my little fact-spitter will love just learning random geography facts, so he can do that too!
That’s it! You can find the links to everything here.
Do you ever wonder why eclectic homeschoolers are called eclectic? Honestly I don’t have the exact answer but I know I am an eclectic homeschooler because it takes a minute to find things that really work for our family and no two children are at the same.
With that, since the beginning of our year and my last curriculum updates what you can find here, I’ve made some changes to history and spelling for James.
If you recall in this video I already changed our spelling from Spelling You See to a spelling curriculum that I found via Pinterest that was free. With this free curriculum we used manipulatives that we had at home to help him practice spelling words solely from recitation. While the recitation part was improving, I could tell the cognitive function ofused spelling was not increasing across other areas. So, I went back to the drawing board. Thankfully, use curriculum sales are my jam and I was able to find all about spelling, the complete set, for a total of seven dollars. I couldn’t beat that if I tried so I took it as a sign that we could just give it a shot.
Well, this shot changed our entire lives and frankly, I am in love. All about spelling is wet we needed in James’ spelling has improved monumentally in just 10 lessons. Because I am loved by the Most High, I was also able to find a brand new copy of level 2 for a great price locally and grabbed it so we are all set there.
Now, for history, I said at thetime that I was researching I couldn’t find a non-Eurocentric curriculum program that was age-appropriate for James. So, I settled with Story of The World. Well, it wasn’t inaccurate or grossly racist but it wasn’t fun or engaging. Honestly, because of my traditional school upbringing I honestly thought that’s what history was. That is until I found Curiousity Chronicles. This curriculum includes an audiobook that’s so engaging and fun and the activities are crazy easy to implement while letting the child learn and have fun.
We are studying ancient history now and will soon go into the medieval period. I’ll be using the same curriculum because they are not only accurate and not grossly racist but they are also non- Eurocentric and focus on so many other great ethnic cultures and traditions in their history curriculums.
I rounded both of these out by grabbing two of these notebooks from The School Nest. I’m not sure why she doesn’t have all of the pictures on her website but that’s her business thankfully a friend sent me a full video flipped through and I was sold. For $10 each I am able to have a history timeline that will last us for years any spelling notebook that’s going to do the exact same without having tons of loose papers all around my house that I have to clean up and keep up with.
If you follow me on Instagram, a week or so ago I shared with you that I had a surprise coming up. Well, here it is! Monica from GooseGooseDuck reached out to me kindly asked for my review, I was happy to do as I am always on the hunt for quality resources that share, explore and teach our history accurately. While this product was gifted to me, the reviews are my own opinions.
Price: $$
I was gifted the Don Lemmons learning pack which retails for $29.99. There is a bundle available for $99 that combines 4 different packs.
What’s included?
The short- so so much! The detailed breakdown: each pack comes with a bio, interactive activities, and lots of extension-learning opportunities in the areas of stem, literacy, creative arts, and math. The 36-page full-color pack is full of hands-on, interactive fun!
What I Love
What I really enjoyed, besides learning about an African American I was not familiar with was, the multiple ways to infuse this lesson and African American History into the day and align it with other teachings. This is the way to “teach” our history. Not just by facts recitation but through experiences and consistent alignments in your life.
Another thing I love about this- just about everything is included. The lessons are broken down by day, provide a list of materials and directions for the instructor and teaching prompts for the student. If you’re new here, you should now nothing delights my heart like thoroughness, and GooseGooseDuck hit the nail on the head.
They were so thorough that they reached out to the remaining descendants of Lemmons for information, context and to make sure they would be pleased.
The graphics from the depictions of Lemmons, stock graphics and graphics in other packs are all very accurate depictions and very ethnically inclusive.
I could go on and on but I’ll leave you with this, one pack includes all of the above for multiple age/grade levels and lets the instructor do as much or as little as they like. You can easily see the care and attention to so many details.
Between me and you, GooseGooseDuck has a hit in my book! You can learn more about them here and purchase a pack for you and your family here.
