American history is my absolute favorite subject to teach. I find so much pleasure in re-learning the history of our great country right alongside my children, especially from a Christian perspective. Although we are not studying American History this year, I am looking forward to the time when we will get back to it again!
I was very excited to receive All American History Volume 1 (The Explorers to the Jacksonians{1840}) from Bright Ideas Press to review for the TOS Crew. You may be familiar with Bright Ideas Press. They are the publishers of the Mystery of History, which is a very popular history spine among homeschoolers.
I received for review: All American History Student Reader, Teachers Guide with Answer Key, and a Student Activity Book. This was my first experience with any products from Bright Ideas Press, and let me tell you, I am extremely impressed. The Student Reader is a hardback text of excellent quality which I expect to last me many years, while the Teacher's Guide and Student Activity Book were softback, but also made of very good quality. When it comes to texts, such as this one, especially for something like history that will get a lot of use, durability and good quality is extremely important to me.
All American History Vol. 1 was designed to generally be used by 5th to 8th graders, but can be adapted to fit younger and older students as well. There are instructions on how to do that in the Teacher's Guide. This was important to me, since I combine my children for history. There are also instructions on how to get the most out of each part of this curriculum at the very beginning of this (268 page) Teacher's Guide.
There are 32 lessons, each a week's worth of lessons. There is a lesson plan in the Teacher's Guide that I believe will be very helpful, to cut down on prep time. Also included in the Teacher's Guide are suggested resources for All American History, as well as a reading list for each unit, activity ideas, timeline dates, map work, ideas and instructions for games, and of course an answer key.
The Student Reader itself makes an excellent history spine for your homeschool. It is 443 pages chock full of information. I found it to be very interesting, engaging the reader, and thorough. There are also plenty of illustrations, maps, and photographs to help your child visualize what they are reading.
Included in the the Appendix of the Student Reader are Charter Documents of the United States: The complete Declaration of Independence, and The Constitution.
The Student Activity Book (312 pages 3-hole punched ready for your student's binder) is full of a substantial amount of activities for each lesson. Questions, maps, review, suggestions for further study ideas, unit final reviews, fill in the blanks with information, true and false questions, as well as flags and other images to paste onto the sheets. These are not just worksheets, but varied activities to engage and keep the student interested in the learning at hand, and to reinforce what is learned in the Student Reader.
When we do return to American History, I will definitely be using All American History as our main curriculum. In the meantime, I think I'll check out out other curriculum from Bright Ideas Press as well.
All American History Volume 1 is priced at $68.00 plus taxes and shipping for the complete set: Student Reader, Student Activity Book, and Teacher's Guide. The Student Activity Book is consumable, so if you are teaching more than one, you will need to purchase additional guides. An individual Student Activity Book is $16.95 plus taxes and shipping.
To learn more, please visit the Bright Ideas Press Website. To read what my TOS Crewmates are saying about the products they received, please visit the TOS Crew Page for Bright Ideas Press.
*The author’s review and opinion is entirely her own. This product was provided to the author for free as a member of the 2009-2010 The Old Schoolhouse Magazine Homeschool Crew. No further compensation was received.*
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