3girls4me Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Hi, I would love to hear options for American history for a 1st and 3rd grader. I'm open to everything from a Sonlight type curriculum to BJU or Abeka. If it's the latter, I'd need to know if it would be easy to add in living books to supplement and make it more "alive." Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffeemama Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 At that age, I use the Maestro picture books as a spine. I think there are six in the series; very easy to add activities to. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
countrygal Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Heart of Dakota's Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory My Father's World Adventures Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverMoon Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 (edited) . Edited August 31, 2023 by SilverMoon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ByGrace3 Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 For that age I would use TruthQuest. Definitely the Maestro books...they are great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junie Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 My first and third graders (dd7 and dd8) loved Abeka's 3rd grade history book this year. We used it as a read-aloud. You may want to add more to it, as we got through the book fairly quickly. After this book we have been doing a world geography unit to round out our year of social studies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susie in MS Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 I tried Portraits of American Girlhood when my dd was in 2nd and had to put it away due to the writing assignments being over her head. She did well with it in 4th and we will finish it in 5th. But I could see it working for her back then if I would have dropped the writing. When she was younger she really enjoyed the CLP history readers that are listed in the HOD Beyond Little Hands program mentioned above. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chelli Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Beautiful Feet Early American History 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lea_lpz Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 I tried Portraits of American Girlhood when my dd was in 2nd and had to put it away due to the writing assignments being over her head. She did well with it in 4th and we will finish it in 5th. But I could see it working for her back then if I would have dropped the writing. When she was younger she really enjoyed the CLP history readers that are listed in the HOD Beyond Little Hands program mentioned above. Last year we used MFW Adventures as our spine and added in the AG girls where they fit in. We did Felicity doing some stuff from POAG and then for Kaya we just winged it, getting ideas from the book and web for fun extras. There was no way with Felicity in 2nd she could do all the assignments from POAG in writing and the books had to be done as a read aloud, but now we are doing Caroline (summer between 2-3) and she's doing fantastic! She turned 8 in April and she can read the books by herself (although I still want to hear it, too so we take turns reading a page each). And she is able to write paragraphs on her own now so I think she may be ready. We'll see when we get to Kirstin and Josefina and Addy. Our plan right now- 2nd- US Exploration (Vikings on) to 1812--did Kaya and Felicity and doing Caroline now 3rd- 1800's - Marie-Grace and Cecile, Kirstin, Josefina, Addy, books 1-3 of Little House 4th- late 1860's-1910's- Little House books 4-9, Samantha, Rebecca 5th- 1900's to Modern---Kit, Molly, Julie (semester 1) State Study (semester 2) 6th- California History I think we just want to spend a our first cycle in US history and the do a 6 year chronological history cycle. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 If it was just my daughter or we were back at that stage.....I like Beautiful Feet American History or My Father's World Adventures. I originally was going to say Sonlight, but I don't think that their American history core is for 1st graders. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
three4me Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Another vote for beautiful feet. I did it last year with my first grader and we really loved it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdventuresinHomeschooling Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Both A Beka and BF have a more providential view of history. A Beka is snippets of information the publishers feel are good in a textbook fashion. It is not in depth. It is more of a patriotism book and why America is so great. There are not real books added in, and you would basically have to invent your own supplements to add living history of any kind. BF guides are also providential (meaning God planned everything in history,) but the actual living books stand on their own. You could easily modify and lead the discussion in your own way if you found something you disagreed with. I often just use their book lists. Let me say that I am a Christian and believe God has a hand in our history, but I don't go to the level of a providential view of history. I also am very patriotic. But A Beka is not what I would want for content subjects. It is not a complete picture. It feels very glossy and rose colored. It might be ok for the ages you are considering, but not long term. Just my $.02. I don't know enough about Sonlight or MFW to recommend, but they may also be good considerations. I prefer living books so that you can actually discuss the content versus reading a publisher's conclusions about history. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandylubug Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 We are using Simply Charlotte Mason's lesson plans for that history period this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chelli Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 All of BF's guides and lit packs are being revised to take out the providential stuff. They are moving away from that otherwise I wouldn't be using their guide either. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avazquez24 Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 All of BF's guides and lit packs are being revised to take out the providential stuff. They are moving away from that otherwise I wouldn't be using their guide either. Oh, I did not know that! I had ordered BF for last school year, but ended up returning it after looking at it due to the providential stuff in it. Do you know if they've already been revised? or when they will be? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junie Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Both A Beka and BF have a more providential view of history. A Beka is snippets of information the publishers feel are good in a textbook fashion. It is not in depth. It is more of a patriotism book and why America is so great. There are not real books added in, and you would basically have to invent your own supplements to add living history of any kind. BF guides are also providential (meaning God planned everything in history,) but the actual living books stand on their own. You could easily modify and lead the discussion in your own way if you found something you disagreed with. I often just use their book lists. Let me say that I am a Christian and believe God has a hand in our history, but I don't go to the level of a providential view of history. I also am very patriotic. But A Beka is not what I would want for content subjects. It is not a complete picture. It feels very glossy and rose colored. It might be ok for the ages you are considering, but not long term. Just my $.02. I don't know enough about Sonlight or MFW to recommend, but they may also be good considerations. I prefer living books so that you can actually discuss the content versus reading a publisher's conclusions about history. The Abeka 3rd grade history book is the only Abeka history I have used. This one is set up as a series of biographies. I've looked at a few of their other history books and they did not interest me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katydid Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Oh, I did not know that! I had ordered BF for last school year, but ended up returning it after looking at it due to the providential stuff in it. Do you know if they've already been revised? or when they will be? I'm interested in the answer to this, as well. I've always loved the look of BF, but I can't handle the providential stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Oh, I did not know that! I had ordered BF for last school year, but ended up returning it after looking at it due to the providential stuff in it. Do you know if they've already been revised? or when they will be? I'm interested to know this, as well. I bought the new Early American History Intermediate guide about a month ago and as soon as I opened it, it had the chapter on Providence. I was like, "ohhhhh yeahhhhh...." because I had tried to use the Primary guide many years ago and was turned off by that. Overall, I still think the course has a lot of good stuff in it and would use it now, but I didn't see that they had taken it out. I am not familiar with the rest of the guide, though. First impressions, and all. ;) ETA: I just flipped through the Intermediate guide and it doesn't look overtly Providential, besides that first day. There is an emphasis on virtue, which is good. I would definitely recommend it to a Christian family. They also changed the spine to A Child's First Book of American History, and that I do like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest joshberg Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 All of BF's guides and lit packs are being revised to take out the providential stuff. They are moving away from that otherwise I wouldn't be using their guide either. Hi Chelli, and all! I'm Josh from Beautiful Feet Books! Thanks to many of you for recommending us, we so appreciate it! I did want to chime in and set the record straight in terms of us revising our Study Guides and removing the "providential stuff." BFB began updating and redoing our History Through Literature Study Guides about four years ago. The first one we did, Early American Primary, we updated the book list and removed the title America's Providential History. This title was included in our study as a teacher's resource only. As teacher's only read about twenty pages of this large book we decided it would be best to remove it, but still include it as a recommended title. Removing this allowed us to add a couple new and wonderful literature choices and keep the price the same. We no longer include quotes from APH that lean towards a providential perspective of history, but we do still include Christian principles like how we believe each person is born for a distinct purpose, principles of virtue, and good moral sense. We made the same change to our Early American Intermediate Study Guide. We still believe, and our Guides reflect, that God's hand is a leading force in history. Though we do not advertise this belief as much as we once did in our Study Guides, we do still include Bible verses and things of that nature. As for our other Study Guides, we never included the providential perspective as much as we did in our Early American studies, or at all. And in some cases, like our Geograhpy study, you will not find any faith-based material. As we have revised many of our other programs we have kept those lessons where we have students evaluate and learn principles of character. As always, our Study Guides are there to give you structure and a guide for completing the study. It is up to each to use it how they see fit. Skip lessons, assignments, or books, or add in recommended titles or library finds as much as your student needs. The Guide should be your employee, and you, the boss! Hope that helps! Please feel free to contact us if you ever have any questions about our products. We're here to serve. Best, Josh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 (edited) ... Edited July 11, 2016 by Guest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lisa in the UP of MI Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 We did MFW Adventures when my oldest two kids were in 3rd and 1st grades. The book basket adds so many extra books to read. Next year I'll be using HOD Bigger Hearts for His Glory with my second and third kids who will be in 4th and 2nd grades. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kristin0713 Posted July 2, 2015 Share Posted July 2, 2015 MFW Adventures! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marylandhsmom Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 We also have a 3rd and 1st grader studying American History, and we're using TruthQuest and BF books (many overlap). MFW Adventures in US History is also a great choice. If you wanted to wing it on your own, there's a slim booklist I highly recommend getting: "Turning Back the Pages of Time". I has living books listed by time period and by age group. Awesome little reference! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAtoVA Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 We're using Winterpromise American 1 (for grades 1-3) with lots of supplements (extra trade books, maps, crafts, DVD's, Discovery Education, etc. including the Maestro and D'aulaire books). Other books I really like are The Rainbow Book of American History and the Eggleston history books for young people. I also have the early American Elemental History but it's too basic for us and I wish I hadn't bought it now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs. Y Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 I like Beautiful Feet, but another option would be the very simple booklet/booklist called Turning Back the Pages of Time by Kathryn Keller. Many great titles there by age level. Not overwhelming at all and I haven't come across any yet that my dc and I haven't enjoyed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AspenSong Posted July 7, 2015 Share Posted July 7, 2015 We used Beautiful Feet, though more as a book list, since we aren't Christian and I didn't want to use the questions in the guidebook. We also used Guest Hollow's book list, and now that we are studying the Civil War, I end up just choosing books that look good, either from a book list, Amazon, or our library. (I use Amazon to help find books, then get them from our library.) We're doing a chronological study by simply reading good books (and discussing) and not following any particular guide, and it's working well! I did enjoy using the timeline from Beautiful Feet to go along with Early American History. The other resource that was great was the Liberty Kids DVDs. I've always limited screen time for my kids, but I thought this series was really well done...my kids loved watching it, retention on their part was great, and I enjoyed it, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meg4 Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 We're using Winterpromise American 1 (for grades 1-3) with lots of supplements (extra trade books, maps, crafts, DVD's, Discovery Education, etc. including the Maestro and D'aulaire books). Other books I really like are The Rainbow Book of American History and the Eggleston history books for young people. I also have the early American Elemental History but it's too basic for us and I wish I hadn't bought it now. I was wondering why you thought of the Winterpromise American 1 . Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAtoVA Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 I'm sorry, I don't quite understand the question—are you asking why I thought to use Winterpromise in the first place or what I think of using it (and I am still using it). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meg4 Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 I'm sorry, I don't quite understand the question—are you asking why I thought to use Winterpromise in the first place or what I think of using it (and I am still using it). I'm sorry . I mistyped. I meant what do you think of the program? Do you like it? I have looked at it a lot and have thought of trying it many times..just cannot decide. Sorry did not mean to type why lol. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
umsami Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 I want to say that Sonlight Core D is American History (roughly 4th grade). I think it would be way too advanced for a first grader. For a first grader, I'd probably just look for some readers at that level that talk about famous Americans, etc. I might have them find America on a map, my state, etc. Patriotic songs would be good too. If you want to include Native Americans, I remember having a good history pockets book by Evan Moor I think. There was also a great series of books from the library on the different native American dwellings. There's also a series called "If you lived with the_____" (tribe) You can find a lot of free ideas at Guest Hollow's American History page http://www.guesthollow.com/homeschool/history/americanonline.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAtoVA Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 Meg4, Winterpromise early American history (grades 1-3) has been fine as a basic spine but it's too expensive for what it is imo. The quality of the materials is beautiful (quality of art, printing and paper) but the content is not significantly different, interesting or more in depth than anything else out there. I need to supplement a whole lot to satisfy my DD's interest. I would try to get the guides used if you want to try it—on Ebay, Homeschoolclassifiedsdotcom, used curriculum sales, etc. The other books needed (trade books, etc.) usually can be found in libraries or bought used on Amazon, Ebay, etc. I wouldn't pay the full price charged for trade books on the WP website. Now, I can't say that the WP curricula intended for older students is worth buying or not—I have only used this one program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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