So, a few months ago I contacted Notgrass about their America the Beautiful curriculum and if they'd be willing to give me a copy to review. They did! And I'm very excited to be giving you a review on this material! I did NOT receive any money to review this curriculum and this is my honest opinion of the materials and how we use them.* This curriculum is meant to be done as a lesson a day and we've been doing a lesson a week as we plan on using this curriculum next school year. Come September we'll begin doing a lesson a day and using the curriculum as it is intended. *
Items I received to review:
- America the Beautiful Volume 1 and 2
- Timeline of America the Beautiful
- Maps of America the Beautiful
- We the People book
- Answer key
- One Student Workbook (I bought another one for under $12 for Peanut)
- Lesson Review book
I did not purchase, nor receive, the literature package that consists of ten assigned titles to read throughout the school year. To purchase those books through Notgrass the cost is around $60 and we may purchase those when Peanut goes through this curriculum again for her 6th grade year. This is a middle school level curriculum that I'm using for both girls who in September will be in 6th and 3rd grades.
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| Map work. |
At the end of each reading for the lessons in the main America the Beautiful books it will tell you what to do with that lesson. Which map section to do, what lesson in the workbook, any reading in the We the People book, any writing that can be done with the lesson, Bible lessons, etc. This curriculum on it's own can be used to cover not only History but also Bible and Language Arts. Currently we're just using it for History, but I can see easily how it can be used for all three subjects.
This curriculum is well laid out and easy to follow. Each week there is a family project to work on that is linked to that weeks lessons. So, you do five lessons and on that fifth lesson there's a project to work on (you can do the project any time during that week) so you may want to schedule a little extra time to work on the project one of the days a week.
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| ECJ helping Peanut with a word search in the Student Workbook. |
My girls are absolutely loving this approach to History! They enjoy each reading, discuss all of the pictures in the book, haven't had issues completing the map work or student workbook assignments, and they're actually retaining the information that's coming at them! ECJ even listens in when I'm reading out loud to the girls and sometimes pipes up with a question or observation that the girls haven't come up with. Being that he's in 9th grade this year and still drawn in to each lesson I think that this material is really engaging.
We're just now reaching the first family project in the book because we've only been doing a lesson a week and the girls are looking forward to making an Iroquoian Longhouse. In the back of the main book you'll find each family activity and the supplies needed for each. From looking over several of the projects we've determined that it's rather easy to get the supplies and that it wouldn't cost much to do each project. You can always chose not to do the projects (or certain parts of each lesson like the language arts part or biblical part).
I would definitely recommend this curriculum to anyone who was looking into a complete history curriculum for their children. The cost is rather high when you first look at it, but when you think that you can use these books over and over again, only have to re-purchase the student workbooks for around $12 for each child who goes through this curriculum, AND you can cover three subjects with just this group of books you really are coming out very well financially. In a family like ours where you have at least a couple children are going to go through the curriculum (either at the same time or separately) the cost is outweighed by the benefit of using this.
All in all I think that this is a great curriculum and I feel honored to be able to give it a review!
