Has anyone used the Heritage History e-book study guides?

[Tardis Girl]

I love the e-book selections through Heritage History, and am wondering if anyone has used the corresponding study guides for the various CD volumes. I am particularly considering the Young Readers collection. Do you think it's worth it? How do you use it? Are the "core" selections like a "spine" for the year (do you pick one, or read all)? I was hoping for some essay questions/topics or something -- lol, a girl can dream! -- but it doesn't look like it has that.

 

I do have the Yesterday's Classics collection (on sale), and I notice there is a LOT of crossover between that and HH's Young Readers... although YC has quite a lot of nature, science, etc. in addition to history. But if the study guide is worth it, then I think I'd buy the HH Young Readers collection as a whole.

 

I would love to put together a more comprehensive history curriculum (and other subjects) using resources like this. I'd love to hear from others moving in that direction. Thanks!

[arborite]

We are using the Ancient Rome study guide, and just bought Ancient Greece for when we turn to that period. We also have the CDs, which contain nicely formatted versions of out-of-copyright history and historical fiction books (e.g., Children's Plutarch, Story of Rome). We have loaded these books onto DS's kindle.

 

The study guides have some nice maps and summaries of key dates but are otherwise pretty thin. They reinforce our other materials, but they would not stand alone as a curriculum. The HH website is a great resource for choosing readings from the CD that supplement the study of a given period or character.

[Tardis Girl]

Thanks for your reply, arborite. I see your son is 12yo... so do you use one Ancient Rome book from HH as a "core" or "spine" book and then add in other HH books? Or are you using a more structured curriculum and then HH for supplemental reading? I do really like the way HH's books are formatted for the Kindle, in fact that's part of why I'd like to do more with the e-books in our studies.

 

I do have "All Through the Ages" still as well.... I wonder how similar some of those overview pages are compared to HH's study guides....

 

I guess the problem is that I just feel a little overwhelmed at the sheer number of e-books (not to mention resources already sitting on my shelves from so many years of hs-ing). And for the most part, they're all pretty good. It's like there's just too many choices for me, lol. So my solution? Look for another book -- a study guide -- to help me pull it all together and make sense of my jumbled thoughts. ;) Oh, and I bought the TimeQuest maps, so I should be set on maps as well... if I actually use them. <sigh>

[kiwik]

You seem to have the same problem as me - I have the knowledge quest ancients maps, sotw1, chow plus a bunch of other stuff I have collected but my kids are too young and just want to listen to stories. I wonder if ds5.5 would like the young readers stuff. Do your kids like it? I have 2 sons nearly 6 and nearly 4 and I am thinking a couple of years of stories would be the easiest to fit in at this point (afterschooling only).

[arborite]

I find the HH ebooks to be kinda dry as a spine. They are free because they are old, and the old language, even in a kids' book, is stilted. And there are no pictures to liven it up in the kindle versions! So I assign these books in very measured doses.

 

MP Famous Men has been our spine. It has pictures, it's digestible, it chronological. It gets him engaged with a character and period. Then I add on other readings.

 

We did a week on Cicero, for example. We read the Famous Men of Rome chapter on Cicero and watched a movie about him. On the HH website, they have a "Characters" search function. I searched for Cicero and out spit the chapters of the HH ebooks that were about Cicero. I assigned a couple of those, including one by Plutarch (cool!). We also read "The Lock," a very fun book. Rinse and repeat for each chapter of FM. He puts keys dates on his timeline as he reads.

 

Now that we are almost done with Famous Men, and so have a foundation, I have started added readings from more traditional "history books," including some of the HH books Since he "knows" just about all the characters from FM & other readings, he can now handle this somewhat drier presentation. We have K12, and he liked it fine. But he loves the Oxford University Press book is. He has read ahead of his assignments in that book!

[Tardis Girl]

kiwik, my kids do like the Yesterday's Classics (YC) and HH books, but the 4yo just listens to what he wants to (which isn't very much). He actually pays the most attention to D'Aulaire's Greek Myths (which isn't part of either collection), but probably because his sisters love those stories so much. YC has much more than history, so that might be a good fit for your ages.

 

But if looking at history, the first one that popped into my mind is Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans (assuming you are from the US, lol). However, I think this book is best suited as a first history that a child can read to himself (or read out loud to or with you, but not as a read aloud). But the nice thing with both YC and HH is that all of their "books" are online so you can just read them there to preview and perhaps find a good match for your 5.5yos.

 

arborite, thank you for sharing more about what you guys do! What is the full title of that Oxford University Press book?

[arborite]

This is the OUP book. It is part of a series on ancient history. They also have a medieval history series that we plan to use next year.