What's the best choice for Classical History for a Christian perspective???

[TandLMommy28]

First of all, I am developing a love-hate relationship with this forum because the more i read, and the more I learn... the less I feel like I really know! :) I have changed my mind so many times...

 

I just... am so lost. I think A Beka does a fab job of doing history from a Christian perspective but it doesn't follow the Classical pattern and that is important to me.

 

I'm not interested in a full curriculum, I like what we are doing in science and math and writing/grammar.

 

I was going to go with SOTW but it's not very Christian as far as I can tell?

 

Then I was looking at Tapestry of Grace but the price is steep. What exactly are you getting for that price??? And it looks like it's history, lit and Bible all in one, is that right? I had Bible and Lit picked out but I'm not committed yet so that would be OK.

 

Any others i am missing? I thank you all in advance for the information that will likely keep me up researching all night long!

[SilverMoon]

.

Edited July 12, 2022 by SilverMoon

[bry's-gal]

:lurk5:

[twoxcell]

What about Mystery of History? I haven't used it, but was thinking about it.

[seekhim4ever]

I have used TOG for 3 years and enjoy the Christian and classical perspective! Year one goes through much of the Old Testament. I cannot tell you how much I learned! It can be costly but I am learning how to shave some of the costs and improvise in efficient ways. It is a top-notch guide for the dialectic and rhetoric students but I have found it a bit lacking (no science, not sure I would use their writing program for the youngers) with the lower and upper grammar stages. The younger student just don't need all that history...yet it does provide wonderful suggested resources.

[cbollin]

I've been happy with My Father's World for classical and Christian together. They don't start Story of the World until volume 2. But SOTW is just one book in the whole package to provide history. It's another one of these programs that is more than just history, but has Bible, science, art/music.

One of my friends uses and loves Tapestry. Tapestry manual overwhelms me, but works great for her.

 

-crystal

[t-hat]

If your kids were a little older, I would say Mystery of History definitely - so maybe for the future?? I have heard vol. 1 is very useable with younger ages, though.

After feeling the need to do everything with my oldest when he was younger, I have found that for my youngers I am going to go light on history til at least 2nd grade and focus more on fun science topics that let them explore and discover and lots of good reading (along with the basic skills). But I am sure it all depends on the kids. I know my rising Ker (and 2nd grader) will not retain much history, but will love the animal and nature topics we are going to explore next year.

[JMDRAD]

Mystery of History may be a good fit for you. I owned the book at one time but then I decided to do Sonlight instead. MOH is very Christian and is chronological. It weaves in Bible history with world history very nicely starting with Creation. She lists in each chapter ways to use this book with young, middle and older grades. There are projects and ideas as well as a list of extra books to read for further study. It really is a great curriculum but I needed a day by day schedule laid out for me, that I why I went with Sonlight.

 

Sonlight is Christian but uses secular books that address evolution, the cave men, etc. Most of those chapters are not scheduled for reading though and there are interested notes on how to handle those topics if you wish to discuss them. I've seen others on the Sonlight forums complain about the lack of clothing in the illustrated Usborne Book of World History that Sonlight uses as a spine.

[TandLMommy28]

Thanks for all the ideas! I am going to go look up the Mystery one, I never even heard of that one! I downloaded the sample weeks of Tapestry and kinda think I love it but it's SO expensive. But history is a priority so I think I may need to suck it up and pay it! I just saw that units can be purchases separately and that good be good... But I need to look up the other suggestions, too!

 

Starting a good foundation in history from day one is super important to me because I am one of those statistics from public school... my history consisted of nothing but ancient Egypt pretty much every year with one year of state history in Elem. In junior high I did a year of nothing but Anne Frank (seriously, a whole year) and a year of "government." In high school we got MORE ancient Egypt, and then European history (but never got as far as the settlements in America) and then psychology and sociology... So yeah, you can see there are MAJOR gaps in my history background. And this was in the AP/Honors program! I am going to be learning along with my daughter and I'm super excited about it.

[Oney Jones]

Mystery of History. Definitely. The lessons are short and the activities for the younger students are hands on and memorable. You could do the mapping activities on one larger map and save the time line and memorization for the next time you do MOH 1. If you start now while they are young, you could easily go through MOH (all volumes) twice during their school years and do the time line and memorization when they are older students.

 

Also, if you get the audio to go along with the text, you'll appreciate the background music that enhances the author's reading. It builds excitement for the dramatization of the text.

[Ali in OR]

Another option to Tapestry of Grace--Biblioplan. It is a reading schedule with a fantastic book list (many titles you would recognize from Sonlight, VP, ToG). The schedule itself is less than $30. The total cost depends on how many books you use from the library vs. buy for your home library. I probably spend the same as a Sonlight core, but I get a lot more books for my money. As we begin our second cycle, I looked at ToG again, but couldn't justify the expense and we are back to Biblioplan. Biblioplan is history only, very heavy on reading, and has timeline, mapwork, and writing prompts on the one-page-per-week schedule. Very easy to implement. There are readers in 3 different age categories plus a family read-aloud. You have a choice of spines all scheduled out for you. We used SOTW. The original authors put together Biblioplan after SWB originally published WTM, so it follows her 4 year history cycle plan. The new owners have added some other products--maps, coloring pages, and cool history pages. That's all relatively new and we haven't used them. It doesn't try to do everything that ToG does, but I think the program does do history very well. It is our favorite subject here.

 

http://www.biblioplan.net/

[elegantlion]

Another issue to consider is the theology of the publisher. Just because a curriculum is labeled as "Christian" does not mean that it will particularly follow your core beliefs. Not to throw a wrench into your research (or maybe egg you on :D), but it became another layer of information I used when researching history choices.

[momof3treasures]

MFW, MOH, or Biblioplan:) I use MFW and it is very biblical. I also own MOH which would be great for just history and Biblioplan is good if you want to add in more literature.

[blessedmom3]

We love MOH 1 with kids 7 , 6 and 5. There is a MOH yahoo group where they have files with schedules , extra literature , timelines , etc . I do MOH with a lot of books from sonlight core 1 , the schedule is on MOH yahoo group.

[cheryl h]

As almost strictly A beka users until we discovered TWTM, we also went looking for something like what you're looking for. We landed on Mystery of History and look forward to doing that next year, though because of the kids' ages, we are going straight to vol.2, and hit vol.1 in the next rotation. That being said, I do like a good year of US History in there somewhere. My older 2 dc did A beka for 4th grade(which is US History), and I feel it is really well done for that age group. So, we are keeping it to do again for the twins, and the older 2 will do an upper level US History somewhere in the rhetoric stage(high school). It looks to me like MOH has something for all the ages I need, and I love it when we can do SOMETHING together.