This year in our homeschool we will be studying Central America. Although we have a great collection of books to read about the topic, I also wanted to find age appropriate videos that show us more about the different countries we’ll be visiting. As much as we adore a literature-based homeschool curriculum, we still love adding on the visual component with online streaming.
I turned to YouTube and found many good picks that I know will enhance our learning. I often turn on YouTube during breakfast or lunch for a special treat. We’ll spread out a blanket and have a carpet picnic while learning more about the world around us. Here are some of the videos we’ll be using for our exploration of the continent of Central America.
This 50 minute video by Expoza Travel is an in depth look at all there is to see and do in Mexico! You may add a few things to your vacation bucket list after you watch this enticing video!
We have always loved watching the Travel With Kids series of videos, and this 30 minute episode follows our favorite traveling family as they explore the beaches, jungle, and culture of Belize.
While this short 3 minute video will require an adult to read to younger children, it was very informative—teaching us all sorts of wonderful snippets about the country. This would be a good one for filling out a note taking sheet as you watch.
This quick 2 minute video takes the viewer through a day in the life of a child living in El Salvador. I find my kids relate well to these types of narratives that help them imagine themselves living in the land we are studying.
This 13 minute video follows a brother and sister pair of high school students as they volunteer in a Students Helping Honduras program. I loved that this combines the culture and people of Honduras with humanitarian service.
This 5-minute video by How Stuff Works not only explains how the canal works but goes into a bit of the history of the canal, including its construction.
This 7-minute video by National Geographic features two young kids who are learning about some of the animals which live in the rainforests of Costa Rica.
This 11 minute video by Most Amazing Top 10 takes the viewer through some pretty interesting facts about Mexico. (Please note that fact #5 is all about crime and drug cartels and as such may not be appropriate for all children. Please preview.)
Another 30 minute video by Travel with Kids focuses on the island of Utila just off the coast of Honduras. The film explores both above and below the water.
We find that videos make a great jumping off point for diving into a new territory or a fun wrap up of a lesson we’ve just covered. If you like this post, you will probably also love these video lists for other continents:
Joanne Rawson is the author of the blog Our Unschooling Journey. Known around the web as Mother of 3, Joanne began her blog when she first started homeschooling her three boys in 2012. She lives in Connecticut with her family and enjoys reading, crafting, and traveling… all of which usually ends up on her blog.
With history’s constant expansion, it’s easy to understand why homeschooling the subject may feel a bit daunting. How can children begin to grasp how it all fits together? There are so many people, cultures, continents, and events!
Timelines come in a variety of formats, but one thing is consistent. Whether it’s vertical or horizontal, there’s a dated line that helps students put information in chronological order.
Students can create history timelines for a variety of reasons:
to study a specific era or region
to see the events of a person’s life
to trace the development of a particular subject—like the evolution of art or progress of scientific discoveries
to compare the histories of multiple countries at the same time
to give context to a person’s life or an event
Homeschool timelines are incredibly versatile. They can be kept in a binder, hung on a wall, or even written on adding machine tape, They come pre-printed (like BookShark’s Timeline Book), or students can make their own. Whatever format you choose, consider these five benefits to making one part of your homeschool history studies.
1. Homeschool Timelines Help Kids Make Connections
A timeline acts as a way to tie history together. As students add people, events, scientific discoveries, and inventions to their timelines, they discover how these smaller puzzle pieces fit together into the bigger picture of history.
Teaching tip: Color code your timelines. For example, you can write people’s names in red, events in blue, etc. Or you can assign specific colors to countries and label anything to do with that area in the same color. Just keep a key for reference.
2. Homeschool Timelines Provide a Way to Organize Learning
Many parents enjoy a chronological approach to studying history, so using a timeline makes perfect sense. But there are also times when you may want to follow a rabbit trail—something your kids are interested in studying or a current event you want to take advantage of, like the Olympics or US Elections.
When you use a timeline like BookShark’s The Timeline Book, students can add to it even when they aren’t studying history sequentially. They will see how their current studies fit into the broader scope of history.
Teaching tip: Have students memorize a few key dates. These can become pegs to hang their learning on. For example, while studying the American Revolution, knowing what happened in 1776 is essential.
3. Homeschool Timelines are the Perfect Review
With a timeline, students have the opportunity to look back over what they have learned and review it. And when you ask questions about their timelines, it can be an informal method of evaluation.
Teaching tip: Have students show off their timelines. When they are sharing it with grandparents, aunt, uncles, etc, they will naturally be telling others about what they learned. You’ve covered narration and review at the same time!
4. Homeschool Timelines Develop a Global Worldview
Students can see what was going on in different parts of the world at the same time. For example, using a timeline when studying inventors and inventions shows students that ideas were often being worked on concurrently, but in different ways.
Thanks to a timeline kids will realize that Christopher Columbus and Leonardo da Vinci were contemporaries.
They will marvel that Socrates, Buddah, and Confucius all lived at around the same time period.
And they may be surprised to learn that while Europe was mired in the Dark Ages, the Islamic Empire and China had a flowering of science and art.
Teaching tip: When working on your timelines, look for overlap. Prompt them to consider,“How did people from around the world contribute to this event, idea, etc.? Does this event remind you of something else in history? While this is happening here, what’s happening elsewhere?”
5. Homeschool Timelines Show Patterns in History
Timelines help students discover patterns in history. You’ve probably heard a variation of George Santayana’s observation, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” By using a timeline, students see certain patterns emerge. Rising tensions, war, times of economic depression, times of prosperity—these tend to cycle in almost every developed nation around the world.
When students look back over their timelines, they can find specific types of events more easily and compare to current events. The 2020 pandemic is the perfect time to look back and see when a disease or illness has had a major impact on society.
Teaching tip: Questions help your student develop critical thinking skills. Instead of simply adding a person or event to the timeline, ask them if they’ve noticed any patterns. Be specific, especially with younger students. For example, “Have you noticed any similarities about events before a war begins?”
Why You’ll Want BookShark’s Timeline
Timelines are such a valuable tool for homeschool history that every BookShark Reading with History curriculum package includes a Timeline Book as part of the required resources. Of course, if you use BookShark more than one year, you don’t need a fresh Timeline Book each year. You can continue placing figures in the same Timeline Book throughout your entire homeschool career. The spiral-bound notebook format is especially practical:
includes pre-printed dates from 5,000 B.C. to the present
constructed of quality, heavy-gauge paper that holds up over time
is in a standard 8 ½ x 11” size so it’s easy to store on the shefl or take with you on the go
includes plenty of space for figures, notes, and drawings
Even if you’ve never used a timeline in the past, it’s never too late to start! And if you get behind in placing your scheduled figures, no worries! Just have a timeline book day when you review what you’ve learned and affix all the figures you’ve covered in the last few months. pics they are interested in and can relate to, ask questions that spark opinions and more questions, and get excited about what will happen next. Your kids will follow suit and you’ll be digging in and having valuable discussions with them before you know it.
This year in our homeschool we will be studying Central America. Although we have a great collection of books to read about the topic, I also wanted to find age appropriate videos that show us more about the different countries we’ll be visiting. As much as we adore a literature-based homeschool curriculum, we still love adding on the visual component with online streaming.
I turned to YouTube and found many good picks that I know will enhance our learning. I often turn on YouTube during breakfast or lunch for a special treat. We’ll spread out a blanket and have a carpet picnic while learning more about the world around us. Here are some of the videos we’ll be using for our exploration of the continent of Central America.
This 50 minute video by Expoza Travel is an in depth look at all there is to see and do in Mexico! You may add a few things to your vacation bucket list after you watch this enticing video!
We have always loved watching the Travel With Kids series of videos,and this 30 minute episode follows our favorite traveling family as they explore the beaches, jungle, and culture of Belize.
While this short 3 minute video will require an adult to read to younger children, it was very informative—teaching us all sorts of wonderful snippets about the country. This would be a good one for filling out a note taking sheet as you watch.
This quick 2 minute video takes the viewer through a day in the life of a child living in El Salvador. I find my kids relate well to these types of narratives that help them imagine themselves living in the land we are studying.
This 13 minute video follows a brother and sister pair of high school students as they volunteer in a Students Helping Honduras program. I loved that this combines the culture and people of Honduras with humanitarian service.
This 5 minute video by How Stuff Works not only explains how the canal works but goes into a bit of the history of the canal, including its construction.
This 7 minute video by National Geographic features two young kids who are learning about some of the animals which live in the rainforests of Costa Rica.
This 11 minute video by Most Amazing Top 10 takes the viewer through some pretty interesting facts about Mexico. (Please note that fact #5 is all about crime and drug cartels and as such may not be appropriate for all children. Please preview.)
Another 30 minute video by Travel with Kids focuses on the island of Utila just off the coast of Honduras. The film explores both above and below the water.
We find that videos make a great jumping off point for diving into a new territory or a fun wrap up of a lesson we’ve just covered. If you like this post, you will probably also love these video lists for other continents:
6 YouTube Videos for Exploring Australia in Your Homeschool dream house, I’ll have wall to wall bookshelves filled with books. There will be homeschooling books, educational books, entertaining books, and more. I’ll put Belle’s library to shame. But until then, I am happy with the space, and the book storage, that I have.
Joanne Rawson is the author of the blog Our Unschooling Journey. Known around the web as Mother of 3, Joanne began her blog when she first started homeschooling her three boys in 2012. She lives in Connecticut with her family and enjoys reading, crafting, and traveling… all of which usually ends up on her blog.
Are you trying to figure out how to assess your child’s learning with Bookshark’s Reading with History? When using this wonderful curriculum, you may feel a little unsure when you reach the end of a topic or when you try to document your child’s learning. But don’t despair. There are many creative ways you can document and assess your child’s learning. And the best part? No tests required.
Assessments of learning need not include tests and book reports, yet this is often the default for measuring history knowledge.
When I was growing up, we generally followed the same schedule for each chapter in our history textbook: Read, take notes, answer end-of-chapter questions, end with a unit test. There was nothing of substance and it led many children, myself included, to dismiss history as boring and irrelevant.
Wrong! History is an incredibly interesting topic, serving as the map of how we got where we are today. It’s a blueprint to remind us not to repeat some aspects of our history as well.
While these changes may be totally unlike your view of traditional education, a curriculum free of textbooks and tests makes room for authentic project-based assessments instead.
My favorite way to choose projects is to chat with my child to see what she might like to do for the project. Here are five standbys for project-based assessments that we turn to often.
1. Keepsake Book
Reading with History is categorized by age range, with literature chosen to cover various topics within certain times in history. Children can read each book and then create their own keepsake history book by making an illustration or writing a piece that represents a memorable moment from that time in history. Continue adding pages with each new topic covered. Let them create and decorate a cover, a title page, and voila!
2. Digital Presentation
Since children typically enjoy using computers, a digital presentation is a wonderful way to present what they learned. Children can include images, text, and even music within this program to create a presentation that displays memorable moments from history.
3. Dioramas
Dioramas are 3-dimensional models, created in miniature, or in large-scale, as you would see in a museum. Children can use shoeboxes and decorate them to represent a scene from a moment in history. For older children, you might want to also include a written component where they describe in more detail what the diorama represents and why it is important.
4. BookShark Lap Books
Lap Book Kits are amazing for compiling the important information covered in the curriculum. I love the simplicity of the papercrafts because it makes learning the focus, which can sometimes get lost in the details of more complicated projects.
5. How Might It Have Been Different?
Imagine if one important component of the time period were missing. How might the world look today?
If, for example, the Egyptians never learned to embalm the dead, how might things be different in that area?
If the Europeans had never made it to the Indies, how might America look today?
Have older children explore this based on what they are learning in history and have them write an informative piece to cover this.
How to Create a Rubric to Evaluate the Project
One of the keys to success with project-based projects is getting your children involved in the evaluation process, for example with a rubric. A rubric is a tool that shows your child what is expected for the project and the corresponding grade for each level of fulfillment.
A clear rubric that you both agree on ahead of time eliminates the arbitrary feeling of subjective grading. Again, it is a great idea to get children involved in this as well, even letting older children make the entire rubric themselves prior to starting the project.
What do you expect to see in the final project? Note, this will look unique based on the project that is chosen. Give points value for this.
A narrowed topic
A certain number of examples to support the topic
A bibliography (for older children)
A certain number of reliable sources
Will you count appearance as part of the grade? If so, give points value for this.
Was the project completed on time? If you follow a more structured schedule this might be included on your rubric. Give points value for this.
Making history fun and relevant is important for helping children make connections and build a solid foundation of knowledge that they can carry forward in their education. Project-based assessments give children the opportunity to get their hands busy and their creative ideas flowing.
About the Author
Resa Brandenburg is a former teacher who is now passionate about unschooling her daughter. She lives with her husband in an old farmhouse by the river in Kentucky. Her favorite thing to do is spend the afternoon with her family, including her grown sons and two grandchildren. Her hobbies include traveling, reading, and quilting.
As a former teacher turned unschooling mom, one of the many things I love about BookShark is the variety of resources which spark interest in topics that might otherwise seem a bit dense for young children.
For example, I recently had the idea to introduce my six-year-old to the wonderful world of ancient Greek and Roman history. I was struggling to come up with a way to make it fun for her and something she’d want to explore for more than just one day. I wasn’t positive I could pull this off, but I wanted her to explore this important and downright cool period in ancient history. So I decided to go for it. My starting point was to look at my BookShark resources and then embellish them with our unique unschooling flair.
The first thing I did was pull out the catapult kit from the Hands-On History kit by BookShark. While the catapult is grouped with the Medieval period in the curriculum, I decided to put it with the Greeks, who invented it. Again this is the beauty of homeschooling and having a number of amazing resources on hand: we can make each learning day whatever we want.
I also knew I wanted to use the novel, Detectives in Togas from BookShark Level B, but I still wanted several fun projects to bring all of it to life for my daughter, who tends to learn more toward creative projects.
What did the ancient Greeks and Roman eat? Lay out a lunch of olives, grapes, cheese, apples or pomegranates, smoked salmon, lentil soup, and fresh baked bread.
What did the ancient Greeks and/or Roman wear? Style a toga and an olive branch headband or a shield and Roman soldier helmet.
What did the Greeks believe in their mythology? We studied the story of Orion and used the telescope to find the constellation in the night sky. Then using a large cardboard box, we fashioned a night sky using holiday lights that we poked through holes. My daughter crawled inside to look up at her own starry night.
How did Greeks fight battles? Build the wooden model from the Hands-On History kit, then measure and compare the distance that various items flew when launched from the working catapult.
How did children write in school? Make a wax tablet using a baking sheet, wax paper, melted wax, and a small dowel or small stick.
How did Romans notate numbers? Finger paint Roman Numerals
Who were important characters from Greek and Roman mythology? Let your child research Greek or Roman gods and goddesses. Then create a costume to represent the mythological deity they choose to dress up as.
Access to Great Literature Spurs Interest
Detectives in Togas by Henry Winterfield from Level B
Time Traveler covering the Roman World from Level B
I love having the books and resources available at all times for my daughter to explore, even when we’re not using them formally for homeschool lessons. When I first started homeschooling, I closed up our school books in the cabinet when we were finished and pulled them out only for school time. This habit really diminished her interest. By keeping the resources available to her, my daughter voluntarily pulled materials out in the evenings to show her dad, or she looked through books while I made dinner.
Letting her have the freedom to explore on her own really increased her interest.
What made this ancient Greece and Rome study work so well for us was taking it slow, having fun, and following her lead. I alternated between reading time and hands-on activities to keep the energy flowing and, most importantly, I offered these activities simply as possibilities and encouraged my daughter to pick the ones that sounded the most interesting to her.
This learning adventure has been amazing fun for my daughter, who loved catapulting various items across the room. She also enjoyed using the telescope to find Orion in the sky, reading about Caius, and dressing up as Gaia for a day. It is such a treat to me to have a secular homeschool curriculum that provides resources for teaching ancient Greek and Roman history to young children.
About the Author
Resa Brandenburg is a former teacher who is now passionate about unschooling her daughter. She lives with her husband in an old farmhouse by the river in Kentucky. Her favorite thing to do is spend the afternoon with her family, including her grown sons and two grandchildren. Her hobbies include traveling, reading, and quilting.
You can bring that knowledge to life even further by supplementing BookShark’s curriculum with hands-on learning experiences and culinary delights. Whether your child is using BookShark Level B for ages 6-8 (1st Grade) or Level 6 for ages 11-13 (6th grade), they’ll enjoy these extra world history activities. For older kids using Level 6, let them take more ownership in the planning (and clean up) of the projects. For younger kids in Level 1, you’ll need to take the lead.
Ancient Greece: Activities
1. Create a LEGO Parthenon
For the LEGO fans in your home, why not create the Greek Parthenon? Find photos online for inspiration, and enhance your building with LEGO minifigures from the time period.
2. Create a Physical Map of Greece
Form self-hardening clay into the mainland of Greece and all the many islands. Do this inside a 9 x 13” glass baking pan or deep sheet pan. After you let it completely dry, pour a pitcher of water dyed blue over the model. You’ll have the beautiful Greek mainland and islands as well as the Aegean Sea. For older students, you can create flags attached to toothpicks and insert them in the land masses to identify each of the islands.
3. Make a Greek Vase
You can make your own vase with papier mache, or you can simply buy a plain terracotta vase from the store. Then all you’ll need is a pencil and a black marker or acrylic paint pen. Search the Internet for actual Greek vase designs as inspiration. Sketch out the design in pencil first, and then go over it with a fine-tipped permanent marker.
4. Star Gaze
Learn the Greek constellations and then go out after dark to locate them in the night sky. Lay down a blanket for comfortable star gazing, use a mobile app to help you begin your search, and bring out some munchies like popcorn.
Ancient Greece: Foods
What better way to learn about a people than eating the foods that they typically ate or are most famous for? For your Greek feast, consider these culinary delights. If cooking really isn’t your thing, look for a local restaurant where you can take a mid-day field trip to try the dishes.
1. Gyros
Cook lamb and make gyros. Simply cook and slice the lamb thinly and place on a pita along with cucumbers and tzatziki. You can buy the tzatziki ready-made or mix up your own with yogurt, cucumbers, garlic, salt, olive oil, and herbs.
2. Greek Salad
Serve a Greek salad with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, and feta cheese. Add a drizzle of olive oil and lemon juice over the whole salad.
3. Make a Greek Salad Skewer
Don’t have time for a full Greek feast? Why not make a Greek hors d’oeuvre? Simply skewer one grape tomato, one slice of cucumber, half of a black olive, and a cube of cheese onto a toothpick. This is a quick snack that will give your kids the taste of Ancient Greece without hours of preparation.
Round out your Greek meal with hummus, goat cheese, and olives. For a fun dessert, you can serve baklava.
Of course, you don’t have to do all of these activities. Choose one or two that fit into your schedule and your child’s interest. Your child will likely remember doing these activities for years to come, and in turn, they’ll remember their study of Ancient Greece.
Historical fiction is a big part of our homeschool. I believe that reading historical fiction greatly enhances both our understanding of history as well as our retention of facts from history.
That being said, you would be surprised how that flame got lit. It started long before I ever had children, long before I ever got married. In high school I had a history teacher who used historical fiction to teach. We would learn about a topic from the textbook, but we also had to read one historical fiction book from each unit. We wrote about these, we listened to each other present theirs, and we learned a ton. In fact, my favorite book to date is one I read that year for history.
Needless to say that my history teacher, and his means of teaching, really stuck with me. I encourage you to consider reading historical fiction as a solid and valuable means of learning history for the following reasons.
Historical Fiction Makes History Matter
When kids can get involved in a story by mentally putting themselves in a historical setting, they glean a whole new perspective on the names and dates on the page. Historical fiction makes history seem relevant and personal.
Historical Fiction Offers Food for Thought
Reading historical fiction gives kids a chance to learn empathy and compassion. It helps them to see the similarities that lie just underneath our differences. When they can sport similarities and difference in historical movements, time periods, and people, it helps them to dig deeper and think about the bigger pictures in their life and times.
Historical Fiction Brings Dates, People, and Facts to Life
Historical fiction makes the facts come alive. It gives the heroes and villains from history varied facets, bringing to life what was once only names and maps, printed in black and white.
Historical Fiction Brings to Light Multiple Perspectives
When reading from a textbook you typically get one perspective with the author’s or editor’s bias. When reading various works of historical fiction pertaining to a person or time period, children get to see multiple perspectives. For instance, when we were learning about the Titanic we stumbled upon a book called Ghosts of the Titanic. It was told from their perspective of those sent out to clear the bodies from the water, as opposed to from the side of someone on that voyage. This is a side we had never seen or even knew existed. Reading that book offered us a chance to see the situation from a different point of view.
For these reasons I encourage you to consider a literature-rich curriculum or at least to to include historical fiction in your plans for history. Even if you just include a book here or there as a supplement to your history studies, it could very well be the thing that lights a fire of interest, or open up a new perspective for your child.
About Our Author
Heidi Ciravola has been married to her husband for over seventeen years. Together they have three children with whom they began their homeschooling journey with in 2006 when their oldest was beginning second grade. Heidi is a mother, taxi service, and homeschool parent by day and an avid reader and homeschool blogger whenever there is time left over. You can visit Heidi at her blog Starts at Eight where she blogs about homeschool products and unit studies, homeschool organization and general tips, and homeschooling high school, as well as many book reviews, lists, and unit studies.
I often wish we were wealthy enough to travel the world. I’d love to expose my children to all the wonders of the world and have them learn firsthand about what makes each culture unique. Unfortunately, we do not have the means to travel extensively, and so we have taken to travelling the globe from our home using these twelve winning methods.
1. Cooking Traditional Foods
With the internet, it is so easy to find authentic recipes from all around the world. A few times we’ve had to make small substitutions to recipes when ingredients aren’t found locally, but cooking up cuisine from each country we have studied has helped us feel like we’re there. Cooking and eating are also a great way to get Dad involved in our homeschool lessons in the evenings.
Don’t be afraid to move a small table outside and pretend you’re at a Parisian cafe or eat in the living room gathered around the coffee table when studying Japan.
Watching travel videos, historical movies, and documentaries is a wonderful way to learn more about a region or culture. Movies allow us to see the landscape, the people, and their culture in a way that reading can’t always provide. When I combine the visual of film with the background of a book, we get the best of both worlds, and my children have a robust understanding of the world without ever packing a suitcase.
4. Crafting
Art is as much a part of any culture as food! A great way to learn about native arts and crafts is to recreate them. We have found so many wonderful tutorials online:
making African Kente cloth
trying Aboriginal dot painting
sketching Japanese manga
The act of making reproductions or designing something in the style of art you are studying cements the learning and provides a fresh facet to your geography studies.
5. Map Making
Yes, you can trace outlines on paper. But we’ve also made topographical maps and landforms out of cookie dough, cake, salt dough, and even brownie batter. We’ve drawn maps with rivers, capital cities, and other features we’re interested in. Three-dimensional maps are a great way to focus on each region. You can bet your kids will remember geographic features after they molded them in frosting or dough!
6. Listening to Music
Music is an important part of each culture, too, and listening to music from around the world is so easy with the help of the internet and YouTube videos. You can always take it one step further and make your own instruments or learn how to play an instrument.
7. Learning a Foreign Language
While we have never committed ourselves to fully learning a new language, we do enjoy listening to snippets of foreign languages or reading books that teach us words in the language of a foreign country. When studying Japan and China, we tried our hand at drawing some characters. Copying names, letters, and sentences written in a foreign language is a great way to get a feel for what street signs and environmental print would be like.
8. Designing a Travel Brochure
Assign your children the task of creating a travel brochure for your area of study. They can look up facts, add beautiful pictures, describe tourist attractions, and highlight all the special features of each country. The brochure can be on a sheet of paper, a posterboard, or even a digital presentation.
9. Taking Virtual Field Trips
Many museums, galleries, and historical sites have online webcams and virtual field trips that can give you a panoramic view of locations you can only dream of visiting in real life. Do some internet searches of specific locales or subscribe to an online virtual field trip service such as Field Trip Zoom.
10. Postal Exchanges
We have participated in a few cultural and postcard exchanges and had gobs of fun learning about other regions. We sent a letter and box of goodies to a family and received one in return filled with wonderful trinkets, snacks, and drinks from another country. If you Google cultural exchange box, postcard exchange, and flat travelers, you will find groups that link families from across the globe in these kinds of educational, snail-mail activities.
11. Attending Festivals
Many cities have cultural festivals, and they are a great way to feel like you are visiting a foreign country. You can usually get a firsthand look at the food, music, art, and dance from a culture. Encourage your children to ask questions! Most festival hosts and vendors are thrilled to educate inquisitive youngsters.
12. Hosting a Geography Fair
Our local homeschool groups hosts a geography fair where each child reports on a country, complete with food and crafts for the kids to try out. The kids get passports and stamp their way around the room, reading the display boards, looking at the displays, and trying new foods and crafts. If your homeschool group doesn’t offer a fair, it is simple enough to invite a few friends over for a culture night. Pick a country or continent, try new foods, have your kids report on what they’ve learned, and make some homeschool memories.
About Our Author
Joanne Rawson is the author of the blog Our Unschooling Journey. Known around the web as Mother of 3, Joanne began her blog when she first started homeschooling her three boys in 2012. She lives in Connecticut with her family and enjoys reading, crafting, and travelling… all of which usually ends up on her blog.
It’s here, it’s actually here!! High School Curriculum! We are so excited about World History & Literature and U.S. History & Literature levels. Today’s podcast is for all your questions about books in the levels, how it differs from other levels, why you should consider BookShark’s High School curriculum and more. Janna and her guest Amy R., BookShark’s Curriculum Editor and Designer, discuss the ins and outs of BookShark’s High School Curricula.
Janna 00:00 Welcome to Homeschool Your Way. I’m your host, Janna Koch, and BookShark’s Community Manager. Today’s episode is long-awaited, we are on the verge of releasing not one, but two high school levels here at BookShark. Today I am joined by Amy Ratliff, she is BookShark’s curriculum designer, we’re going to be talking about the two new levels, which are actually kind of four because we have History & Literature for the World and then History & Literature for the U.S. both at the high school levels. But I’m jumping ahead of myself. Let me bring in Amy. Hi, Amy.
Amy 00:36 Hello, everybody.
Janna 00:39 I know that people are so excited to see your face and to hear your voice and all the information that you’re going to be sharing about what BookShark has been busy doing these last few years working on these anticipated levels of high school. Before we get too excited, I bet you are. For those of you who have been familiar with BookShark or been around, Amy was immersed in our science for several years as we were updating our levels A through F. And now she has had the refreshing pleasure of being in history for several years. Amy, why don’t you just quickly give some background about who you are and how you got involved in homeschooling?
Amy 01:26 I mean, it’s true. I’m a nerd every time I get involved in a different project here, that’s my new favorite subject. And I’m just like, okay, science, science is the best now I’m like history, the best. Like I was reading some of the books that we provided. And I’m like, this is really good stuff like stuff I didn’t necessarily learn in high school, or maybe I did and then I forgot. And I’m just getting entranced in all these books again. So yeah, I work on different subjects here. For years, it’s been science. And recently it’s been the high school levels here. So I do editing, I do writing, and I test science experiments. I read books, I find new books, I write discussion questions, I create maps and all of the above. I work with different writers who helped us create the program, I work with different illustrators to create the program, and some of my other teammates who are helping me proof and read and come up with ideas and stuff. I’ve been here for, I think, five years at this point. And, that’s a little bit about me.
Janna 02:40 And a unique thing about Amy is she was homeschooled, like me. So it’s neat to see these next generations getting involved in what’s coming out for the coming generations. Because I know when you had a very different experience than I did, your mom was very creative in designing the curriculum for you and letting you do that. That student-led even before it was a thing, and I was more by the book. And I just did what I was given and didn’t venture outside of those parameters and homeschool. And so coming from different perspectives, and yet being both so passionate about getting new material out to the next generations.
Amy 03:23 Yeah, my mom would pick books up at different homeschool conventions, or used book sales or something and made her stuff. And so I remember, like if I had an interest in something, she would create a unit study for me. And then we’d go on often we do that. So I’m and then I went to college, and I became a teacher for a while. And now I’m here at book shark. And so I and I think I mean, I like creating this curriculum and just thinking about all the conversations that you guys get to have with your kids based off of the different books, because I know that I love these books, and I hope that you guys do too.
Janna 03:59 So really, you’re getting paid for what your mom did for free.
Amy 04:03 Yes, absolutely. Thanks, Mom.
Janna 04:06 Thanks, Mom. All right. So lay it on us what is coming out for high school, and 2023-2024
Amy 04:19 Yes, we have World History, World Literature, U.S. History, and U.S. Literature, all for a high school level. We’ve been working on this for quite some time. And we’re really, really excited that it’s that both levels, not just one but both are coming out this year. If you’ve been with book shark for a while, then you might know that for a few months and 2020, we released a World program. And as soon as we released it, the spine of the program went out of print and so we had to take the entire program away. And it was so sad for everybody here and all of you.
So we’re really excited that we revamped it with a different spine. And this World History program, I guess one difference is that this also covers ancient history. So this one covers all of World History, whereas the one released in 2020, was just Modern World History. So now we do cover all of World History. The reason for that being is that we know that different states have different high school requirements. And some states want ancient, some states want the world. So we made a program that covered enough ancient and modern, that we believe that people in all States of America could use it and fulfill the requirements.
Janna 05:40 What’s interesting, Amy is that as a parent that’s been using the program for seven years. Now, if you look at our different levels, we have an Intro to World cultures. And then we have Year One of two years of Intro to World History, then the second year, we have American History, year one, American History, year two, we have Eastern Hemisphere, then we start with World History One, World History Two, American History, and now we’re starting again with World History. So what is the distinction for parents who maybe have already done World History, Levels G and H using Story of the Worlds; Volumes 1-4? When that question is posed to us, what is our stance? Why are we making World History at a high school level?
Amy 06:27 Yeah, so the overall goal for the scope and sequence of BookShark is to hit the main social studies topics three times throughout your journey, Kindergarten through High School. So you’re going to touch on different, like different culture studies three times throughout your entire BookShark career, we will touch on World History, three times you’ll touch on American History, three times. So that’s always been the goal is to have like a younger elementary, then a late elementary, middle school touch, and then another high school touch. So these new programs, I mean, we’ve had Levels I and J out for a while where we talk about American History and the History of Science. And those have kind of like those are like high-level middle school to high school. And so I know that a lot of high schoolers have been using those. But now that we have this high school, those are going to be the high school programs. And because I’ve read these, I can tell you like these are more difficult texts. They’re more mature texts, there’s a lot more spread of information. The US history book in particular, for me, I was reading it, and I was like, this is more like an AP history book. This is not what I read in high school. This is more in-depth and more analytical, I think, of people’s beliefs throughout American history, rather than just facts of like when this thing happened, and why and like, where and who was involved, it gives you more of a glimpse into the people’s mindsets and beliefs and why one thing led to another. So yeah, it’s just definitely it’s the next step, it goes deeper. We’ve never shied away from dark subjects. And we believe that exposing kids to some of the real-world trials, at younger ages, develops a sense of compassion, and wanting to help people. So while we’ve already introduced the topics of like the Holocaust, and genocide, and helping those less fortunate than you, in lower grades/levels, these high school levels, they dive right in quite a lot. So I think that it’ll expand the high schooler’s minds and will let them see a deeper view of the world. And hopefully, they really, really get into it.
Janna 09:09 I think something that I have heard said, and I think it applies very appropriately here is that when we’re introducing these topics, these timelines, these historical figures, in the elementary ages, we’re creating hooks. And as they age up, what we’re able to hang on that hook can get weightier and weightier. Right. So we are giving them space to be able to have a framework for what we’re talking about. I don’t know about you, but I barely remember second grade. I remember my teacher and maybe some of my friends, right? But I do know that as I progressed through school when I was reintroduced to a topic that I had already learned about when we delve deeper, I was able to immerse myself even more because I had context. I have a hook and a place in my mind that goes Oh, that’s right. This is happening here. This is why it’s happening. So when people are asking, ‘Well if I’ve already done one, why would I do another?’ Well, the point is that you can dive deeper to look more critically at the surroundings of what’s going on. And it isn’t a story so much anymore like it is in the younger levels. Now, we’re talking about real people, with real consequences that now affect the things around us even today.
Amy 10:31 Yeah, and I think one of the tools that we have that all your BookShark users are quite familiar with is the timeline book. And the reason that you can reuse the timeline book is to kind of support what you just said, Janna. I’m going to keep on using this year after year. And I’m going to write this new historical figure or event. And I’m going to see that last year or two years ago, or three years ago, I also wrote this other event, and I kind of remember it a little bit, but it was years ago, but now I have that connection. And you’re starting to build a web of knowledge and interconnect everything. And that’s important.
Janna 11:13 That is really like the exciting part of education because the more you know, the more in my case, an opinion I may have about this situation. But the more I’m passionate about talking about it because the details do start to click and fall in line. And so now I am more aware of the why. And like I said, the consequences and how it all fits together. You know, I knew as a kid, the shot that was heard around the world, right? And I knew the phrase, and I knew the location. But it wasn’t until I was in high school and college that I started to understand the implications of what that phrase meant. And so I think that is what we are doing, as we build on these levels and go deeper and in wider or, you know, have places to go within the same timeline. Because the fact the matter is history, it doesn’t change. We all know, you know, from where whence we began. And so as we repeat it in the sense of learning, when we add more context is how it becomes you know like that web is a great picture of how it works. So let’s jump into World History for high school. What will it include?
Amy 12:30 Okay, World History. So I guess a little background. So when we create our programs, we usually find the spine for history. So the main book, and then we surround it with all different sorts of literature to integrate with the spine and to build upon it. So this book right here, The Decay from the Dawn of Civilization to Present-Day History, is the spine of our new World History program. And so it does go from you know, like the ancient Mesopotamia to Modern day. And that includes different contemporary issues like social media and global population, recent presidents, recent wars, and stuff like that. So this book is a little bit more encyclopedic. It has two-page spreads on each different culture or nation or topic. Sometimes it has little biographies of different people throughout the entire history of the world. So there’s a lot in this book, it’s huge. So yeah, this is the spine, and then we surround it again, with all the different books that help support it. So when you are reading, sorry, I have my booklist here. So you can read, you’re going to read a book about Ancient Egypt, you will read The Art of War. When you’re learning about Ancient China, you will read the Iliad. There’s a book about Genghis Khan and how he really kind of created a lot of modernism in the world, which you never really think but he kind of issued he, he was very transformative to world cultures. You read about the family Romanov. You read about Winston Churchill, and Cry the Beloved Country with apartheid in South Africa. So there’s I think, I guess I didn’t count but there are at least a dozen different books that you read alongside that, that help you delve into and see. I mean, one of the big things that I like about our literature books is it’s easy to read the spine and see people are just like flat characters and say, oh, yeah, this person did this and they did that. And then they died. Whereas when you read the literature, you get to know their thoughts, and their emotions like to become a 3d character. And then you see the world through their eyes. And then history comes to life. And you don’t forget that feeling.
Janna 15:20 It also demonstrates and shows the implications of like, if a person in history makes a decision they’re passionate about, right, that’s their platform, knowing their background, their history, what their lens that they’re looking through, really helps understand why they have that platform and why they’re so passionate about something. And then, on this side of history, we get to see the implications of the choices that they made and the impacts that they had. And now we’re living that out, I think it’s so important to be able to tie that all together, otherwise, you are just getting facts and figures. And it is sterile, without the literature pieces to bring it alive.
Amy 16:06 Yeah, I mean, one of the books that I didn’t mention is called China’s Long March. And it took me a while of reading to realize that the mouth that they were referred to, it’s about this, this army that’s marching through China, and they’re trying to get to this place for military reasons. And it took me a while to realize that the now they’re talking about that was like, held in pretty high honor was like Mao Zedong and that most of us don’t think he’s a very good guy. And I was like, Oh, well, this is a very different perspective of him that I never thought I’d had before. And it’s just a different light and sees him as a logical, like a very strategic leader in why he got to the place that he did later in life.
Janna 16:50 It’s important to be able to make those connections because otherwise, we can villainize and not to, not to say shouldn’t or should, but we can villainize characters, people throughout history, through our lens, and not having the context and their perspective of what’s going on. I had heard it said that we couldn’t judge another culture or time period by our own standards and values, we have to judge it by theirs. And if we aren’t immersed in theirs, we can’t judge it properly. And maybe judges the wrong word. Maybe more evaluate it.
Amy 17:25 Analyze analyzed, maybe, yeah, yeah. So that’s, that’s World History. So U.S. History is going to be similar. And that we have this book is called The Land of Hope. This is the spine that earlier I was mentioning it gives me more of an AP History feel. So the author just goes through lots of the whys and what people believed, about specific people and also just the culture in general, like, what did the culture of the colonists believe that made them think that they could come here and settle in this crazy country? You know? And then rebel against England? Why? How did that happen? What were the threads that led to that? So The Land of Hope is the spine for U.S. History. And that’s surrounded by books about like the Mayflower. You get to read a little bit of the Constitution. You read about Thomas Jefferson’s fight against the Tripoli Pirates, then the Civil War. Then we have The Grapes of Wrath, which is about The Depression. And Esperanza Rising, which is a newer book that I think is also about the Depression, Finding Langston, where you get to learn about Langston Hughes. And so, again, it goes all the way from early, early America to pretty, pretty modern. I think this book actually even has stuff about Obama and Trump in it. So it’s, it’s a very recent spine for us.
Janna 19:01 I’m so glad to hear it’s refreshing to know that we are finding good spines, good literature that we can build off of that is more modern so that it can address the things that our students are currently going through, or at least their parents have gone through as opposed to only looking back to things that maybe their grandparents had gone through. Although my kids love to call me a Boomer, which I am not. So not a boomer, they get they just think it’s so funny when they say it. So another unique perspective to these two levels that are coming out that may be a little bit different than what we’ve had in the past, and I’ll have you speak to this specifically, are the sources, what type of sources are we going to be linking to these programs?
Amy 19:47 Yeah, so this is different from other guides that we’ve carried, and I’m pretty excited about it. So in addition to the spine and the literature that you read, I think every week has at least one or two primary resources that you read. And these can either be just a couple of paragraphs that we print into our guide to a couple of pages long. And these are different excerpts from like the Egyptian Book of the Dead, you know, you’re reading about the pharaohs, and you don’t really understand their religion, but then you go and you read, like, it’s like a set of 40 prayers or something, I think they would say, and you just read that and you see what they did and what they believed and what they prayed, you know, every day back then. Then there are other ones. Let’s see my favorite, Martin Luther King speeches, there is the Hammurabi code, there are FDR speeches, there are letters from Columbus to Queen Isabella, there are just all sorts of Primary Resources, written by the people that you are studying that are also printed in our guide. And it goes back to our earlier point of you have to know what the people at that time were thinking and how they viewed the world. And so reading things that they actually wrote and recorded, is very, it’s like really key to understanding why they did what they did.
Janna 21:19 I think that is very unique to this, these two levels than we’ve ever done before. But I think, pretty unique to any history program that I’ve been involved with personally, that we would make sure that there are primary resources so that we aren’t just saying, somebody’s telling us a story of what they learned about Columbus, or X, Y, and Z, we’re reading what they actually penned personally. So it makes it so much more impactful because A, our brains don’t have to decipher, is this true? Is this someone else’s bent? Is this how it was perceived? I think that having those primary resources is going to make this program stand out in the homeschool curriculum.
Amy 22:05 I hope so! I didn’t get primary resources when I was in high school, and I went to a very good public high school. So I like that. I think, as you said, it adds a completely different dimension to this program as well.
Janna 22:22 Alright, so do you have anything else to say about the histories before we move on to the literature?
Amy 22:27 Sure. So a couple of other things about these histories. So along the lines of the prime or the primary resources, we also have many research reports throughout the year for history. I don’t know about you, but I remember doing lots of term papers when I was in high school for my social studies classes. So some of them are shorter, some of them are longer some of them, we let the student pick whatever research they want to do within the timeframe that they’re studying. Right. Then other ones we say, well, like this is something that we really want our students to know more about. So go do research and do a report on it. So the type and the length vary throughout the year, sometimes it’s written, sometimes it can be oral, sometimes it could be a slideshow, whatever. So those are both in World and U.S. History. Another thing is that World History specifically comes with current events. So that’s another thing that we think is very important for high schoolers to begin practicing is to look at current news sources, know what’s going on in the world be able to have a short conversation about it with their parents, or teachers or some other trusted adult. And we also scheduled those throughout the year of go watch the news. And then tell somebody what you learned, you know, or go read like three different articles online and read and tell and explain that to your parents or ask questions if you don’t understand part of it. So that’s part of world history as well.
Janna 24:09 And if you want to see what is available, our website will be updated as this podcast comes out. So make sure to go to www.bookshark.com. And you can look at the different history levels that we have. You want to specifically look for World History High School and U.S. High School.
Amy 24:29 Yeah, and for those of you listening right now, World is coming out in April 2023. And the U.S. will be coming out this summer of 2023. So it’s a couple of months behind World, but it is nearing its final stages. So that’s very exciting.
Janna 24:49 Now one thing I love about BookShark and will continue to be passionate about is that we couple literature not only in history, but other types of literature that fall in line with what you’re learning about in history, we call it integration. So let’s get into how world literature is integrated into our world history.
Amy 25:14 Yep, so our literature programs. So they involve a little bit more fiction, but they’re often tied to history as well. So like, for example, if you’re reading about the French Revolution in World History, you’re also reading A Tale of Two Cities in World Literature, which does happen around the French Revolution. Now, it’s not like a real story, obviously, but you, it’s an important piece of classical literature. And it functions well to accompany your study of the French Revolution. So stuff like that? I don’t know, do you want to hear some of the titles?
Janna 26:02 I would love to hear some of the titles, Amy.
Amy 26:05 Okay. So part of our World Literature program. So similar to our history, it kind of goes chronologically and to clarify it, you could do World Literature by itself, it can be standalone. You don’t have to do History to do the Literature program. But I do think they complement each other so well that you will get the most out of our program if you use both the History and Literature at the same time. Like the Tale of Two Cities, you can read that whenever. But it works well if you know about the French Revolution. So similarly, our literature kind of is chronological. So we start with some pretty early texts, like you’re reading about the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is Mesopotamia a long, long, long time ago. Then you read about Siddhartha, which is also a long, long time ago in India. Then you’re reading about like, Oedipus in Julius Caesar, Rome, but both are no more fictional stories about people who lived in those times. We have Beowulf, A Tale of Two Cities, then we also get into the modern times, which, you know, a lot happens in the 20th century. So we have like All Quiet on the Western Front about World War One, Things Fall Apart about this African tribe that gets split up and colonists and stuff, Night about Jewish programs in World War Two. And then we also get into some dystopian literature, we have both 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 in here,
Janna 27:50 Now you’re speaking my language because that is my wheelhouse. I love dystopian literature. And I wasn’t exposed to it until college. So and the other one that we have in our World History, we talked about Cry the Beloved Country, I mean, these were things that I didn’t even get exposed to until I was way out of high school, and picking the classes that I wanted to take, you know, in my last two years, so it’s exciting to me to be able to introduce these to my daughter at a younger age, but then still be just as passionate about it, and be able to talk about it with her because I do so much love these types of this type of literature.
Amy 28:30 Me too. And I guess, if you’re an adult listening to this, and you don’t have a high school student, but you want to learn more about history and literature, you will find everything in here fascinating. Because, yeah, I didn’t read most of these in high school. And now I’m reading them as an adult. And I think, I mean, maybe, yeah, maybe education is wasted on the young. I don’t know, but I learned so much more as an adult than I did back when as a teenager. So I’m loving it myself.
Janna 29:00 So what are some of the language arts supplements that are going to be included in these packages?
Amy 29:06 Yes, and that brings up another good point for you BookShark customers, you families, you know that we have labeled all of our levels A, B, C, up to J. For these new high school levels, we are not giving them a specific letter name or number name, we’re just calling them High School World and High School U.S. because we want you to be able to use them in whatever order is best for you. And we want to do that because we know a lot of schools just school districts have more strict standards around when you do what in high school levels. So we want to make sure that you guys have the flexibility you need to do whatever you need to do to record and report properly. So I say all this because our language arts supplements, those do go by grades you know we have a ninth-grade vocabulary and 10th-grade vocabulary, so we allow you to mix and match the LA supplements, with your high school program in whatever order you’re going to go with it. So we also give it we give you the options, the options between two different vocabulary programs, we have Wordly Wise, which most of you know and love. And I also love, we are also introducing vocabulary from Classical Roots. This came about because students benefit from studying more classical root words in preparation for taking some standardized tests, and stuff. So if you are, so if you know the word photo is a root word for light, then you know, photography, and photosynthesis both have something to do with light. And so that is very helpful. So anyways, sorry, I have a soft spot for Classical Roots. That’s what I studied in high school. So I get very excited about it. So those are the two vocabulary options. And then you also have a set of Analogies books which is also important to begin preparing. Analogies, like comparing one thing to another thing, those connections are also really important for standardized tests later in high school. So just getting into that and those are also optionally offered with our program.
Janna 31:26 So you went through and told us a few of the titles from World Literature, what about the U.S.?
Amy 31:31U.S. Literature, okay, and US literature. So we do have the Winter People about Native Americans as the Bostonians are coming in. We have the Tempest, we have the Scarlet Letter, The Crucible, and Kidnapped Prince, which is about an African named Acuano, who gets kidnapped unfortunately, and sold into slavery and he gets passed around. And this is a real-life story where he writes his journal about it all later. And that gets published into a book, so it’s a pretty cool story, although sad. We have Huckleberry Finn, My Antonia, Echo by Pam Eunos Ryan, The Woods Day Wars, and Fever 1973. So a lot of also just really good pictures of glimpses into the minds of the characters at different points in American history,
Janna 32:29 I think now would be a great time to point out that there may be some books that you or your children have read in younger years. And as you are deep diving back into these levels of history, it might be brought up again, it’s if we reuse it, we think it’s a great book. But as you were just saying earlier that when you reread these things either as an adult, a young adult, or an older adult, you really have a different perspective, you have different hooks to be hanging the story and the context on so don’t be afraid if you have look at some of these things. And you go oh, we already read that, because the questions that are going to be asked, as you’re maybe rereading through some of this literature are going to be very different from when you read it the first time. So for example, one of the books that I have actually already read twice because I’ve done level F with my older and my youngest is Seven Daughters For Seven Sons. It’s a phenomenal book, and I am finding out, I will back up, I’ve always said I don’t like to reread books, I have a pretty good memory, I don’t care to reminisce about something, and I want to do the new the next thing I want to add more. But as I’m aging, I’m seeing the value in rereading the books because of this very concept. As I’m going back through the story, my mood could be different, my mindset is different, you know, just how I’m connecting with the story is different. And so as you reread that book or your student does, because you still can use it as a read-aloud, you can use our program however you choose. And however it works in your family, your student is going to be reading it possibly through their voice with their connotations and their context. And so it’s different than when you read it out loud to them years ago. Now they’re processing it in their way with their context. And I think there’s so much value in that. So I just want to encourage families not to shy away from things if they’ve already read the books because we’re prompting, asking questions, and putting a program together that’s going to be very unique to their experience before when they read the book before.
Amy 34:45 Yeah, and definitely within the context like you. If it’s been years since you’ve read it you know a lot more about the word in that world now, especially if you first read it when you were nine and now you’re 15 you’re gonna have a completely different perspective on it.
Janna 35:01 So what else can we be expecting in this language arts program, Amy?
Amy 35:05 Similarly to our other language arts programs, in addition to reading the fantastic literature that we give you all year long, we give you a series of creative expressions, which is just what we call our different writing assignments. Every week, you have a different writing assignment with instructions and a rubric for easy grading. So, every week is going to be different. But in general, there are four large types of writing that we focus on. And we cycle through those types throughout the year. So we have to practice writing, informative writing, like just how to do something. We practice writing narratives, we practice doing research reports, and we practice writing argumentative essays. And so obviously, none of those are just single-week assignments. But there’s, there’ll be like a few weeks surrounding each topic. And you go through those four topics, I think it’s three times throughout the year, three, three cycles throughout the year. So and that happens in both World and U.S. Literature. And then yeah, again, I mentioned just like elsewhere, we have those rubrics at the end of the week. Sometimes that part of the rubric will be grayed out. And that means that your student probably hasn’t learned how to do that little bit yet. But you see, like, that’s going to be where you’re going. You grade them on the white ones, and the gray ones you read, and you think maybe they’ll need to work on that one later because my kid’s grammar does not work very well. So that’s there for both parents and students. It’s both the parent and the student guide. The parents are the ones grading, but students need to know what they’re going to be graded on. So that’s where I put the rubrics in both codes.
Janna 36:57 And then what’s the final piece of our program with literature? Right.
Amy 37:03 The other thing is, we do schedule poetry throughout the year. So each of our levels comes with its own poetry book, in which you read at least two or three poems, I believe every week. We’ve also added one additional type of book to our US Literature, which is the Elements of Style. And so I use that back in high school, I know of just different, making sure that you know how to cite things, well, that the paragraph structure is fine. And the sentence structure is fine with the noun-verb adjectives. So we also include that book and the US Literature package.
Janna 37:45 Maybe all of this is slightly overwhelming, but very exciting that these are coming out. You know, some may wonder why we decided to release two in the same year. But I think your explanation of the fact that people do things in different orders and different states in different schools if you are tied to them requires different things. So I think that satisfies that kind of itch to know well, why would you do it this way.
Another nice option that we have provided in our lower levels that will be extended into the high school is our virtual add-on. And so the virtual seat will be customization as you’re ordering your package. And if you’re unfamiliar with that, we do have a YouTube channel about BookShark Virtual that you can get yourself familiarized with the process, and what it actually provides you but in a nutshell, it does provide a space online where your student is going to be doing their assessments instead of paper to pencil. They’ll be doing it online or uploading their work so that it’s a great keeper of the record. It does have automatic scoring, if it’s an objective question, if it’s subjective, then you or a teacher, depending on how you use our program would have to go in and score it. But it’s a great add-on for independence, all of the schedules are there. I’m a user of the virtual option with my daughter, she’s 13. And I get a ding on my cell phone every time she turns in an assignment. So as I’m busy working, I know that she is busy doing her school and don’t have to feel like at the end of the night, I have to go track everything down and see where she’s at. So definitely a bonus for parents who feel like they want their child to be a more independent student, but also they are just as busy. And it’s just a way for them to be able to keep records and have things stored in one centralized place. It does make homeschooling super simple. Not easy. We both know it’s not easy, but it simplifies the record-keeping and the scoring. So that will be available on these four levels of high school that we’re releasing.
Amy, thank you so much for taking the time to walk us through what these levels are and the thought processes behind how they got put together. We are so excited to see your passion that the person who’s actually working with the curriculum is just as excited about it as the parents who receive it. And we hope that all of that excitement is going to translate to the students who start doing it. So, thank you so much for your dedication to furthering the education of homeschooled students around the world.
Amy 40:17 Thanks for having me, Janna, and yeah, if you guys liked this program, please email us because I want to share the excitement with you.
Janna 40:25 We love positive feedback. Thank you, guys, so much for taking the time to listen. Until next time, Bye-Bye.
On social media or while talking to other homeschool moms, new homeschoolers often ask how much time they should expect their school days to take, or what subjects they should cover. Inevitably, some more experienced parents advise them to simply make sure they cover the basics of language arts and math, or tell them they don’t need to do school more than a few hours a morning during the elementary years.
Although there’s nothing wrong with thinking through a schedule—what you will cover each day and how long it might take—there’s a danger when we seek the opinions of others who may not share our view of homeschooling. We can end up with a focus on doing the minimum required instead of nurturing the natural wonder and curiosity of childhood. We begin to view school as the things we have to do instead of the privilege of inspiring a love of learning.
Thomas Berry, twentieth century cultural historian said, “Our children should be properly introduced to the world in which they live.” There’s a lot of wisdom in that statement.
The Elementary Years Are for Exploration and Discovery
When we see learning as an adventure, we can inspire our children to view it in the same way. Instead of trying to figure out the minimum of what we can do, we need to ask how we can open up the world for our children.
“Teaching is not about answering questions but about raising questions—opening doors for them in places that they could not imagine.”—Yawar Baig
Young children are naturally curious. If you don’t believe that, spend time with them and count the number of times they ask why! Their questions aren’t easy to answer either. Consider one of the most common questions, “Why is the sky blue?” How do you explain the science in a way a young child can understand?
As homeschoolers, we want to encourage that curiosity, and learning history and science during the elementary years is all about exploration and discovery.
The times, people, and places that can only be visited through books open up a world bigger than the one they know. It captures their imaginations and answers so many of those burning why questions.
History and Science Strengthen Core Subjects
Traditional education models often separate subjects into neat little boxes. It’s the way most of us who attended public or private school grew up learning. We went to English and math and science classes—often moving from one classroom to the next. The early elementary years weren’t much different except we may have stayed in the same room.
With a literature-based approach like BookShark’s, subjects aren’t taught in isolation from one another but as a connected set of skills and knowledge.
Students read about history using living books. They learn language arts skills through copywork and dictation taken from those same books. They write about what they are learning—strengthening their writing skills while assimilating their knowledge of history.
BookShark Science includes a collection of real books, not textbooks, with hands-on experiments and activities. Students use math skills such as measuring and reading charts and graphs.
As students study and practice the skills of core subjects alongside the knowledge they encounter in history and science, they learn and remember. Our brains are designed to make connections.
“As we learn something new, cells that send and receive information about the task become more and more efficient. It takes less effort for them to signal the next cell about what’s going on. In a sense, the neurons become wired together.” —Alison Stevens, Learning Rewires the Brain
History and Science Prepare Students for Future Studies
Extensive exposure to science and history will help them understand those subjects in a deeper, more complex way as they mature because they have been exposed to more concepts and scientific vocabulary.
BookShark History: The Story
Consider the etymology of the word history: “relation of incidents” (true or false), from Old French estoire, estorie “story; chronicle, history” (12c., Modern French histoire), from Latin historia “narrative of past events, account, tale, story”…
History is about story.
From the beginning of time, people passed down their history through stories. We remember stories better than a list of facts because story connects us and captures our imaginations. That’s why BookShark’s use of historical fiction and biographies fascinates elementary age children.
BookShark Science: The Spiral Approach
With BookShark science your children will learn about scientific ideas in a way that engages their curiosity in the elementary years through living books and hands-on experiments. Because BookShark uses a spiral approach, students encounter topics multiple times at more and more complex levels. Students can then build on that foundation in middle and high school years.
Your Elementary Students Need History and Science
Yes, need. Need means we require (something) because it is essential or very important.
When we see the elementary years through the lens of only what we have to study, we do a disservice to our children.
Although the core subjects of language arts and math lay a foundation of skills students use throughout their studies, history and science study speaks to the essence of who children are—curious individuals who are waiting to explore and discover the world around them. The study of history and science will strengthen core subjects as they are practiced and applied, and students will be well prepared for higher level learning.
