Homeschooling: History Curriculum

It's that time again, when as a Teacher, I have to start thinking about what books, programs and curriculum we will incorporate into our second year of homeschooling.  Last year, I used the Core Knowledge Book:  "What Your Sixth Grader Needs To Know", written by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.  I included many lessons and homework using this excellent source.  I highly recommend their products to use for new homeschoolers.

I'm going to continue to incorporate  some of our school district's curriculum for 7th grade. Our school district is currently using Adventure Tales of America in addition to a world geography book. My child enjoys cartoons once in awhile, but I'm not sure if we will enjoy using this book for most of the year. What I do like, is the downloadable PDF files, FREE, which you can print one page at a time or pay a small fee for the complete download which you can print all or select pages. As a complete program, it has a downloadable Teacher's Guide and Student Activities Book too.

In addition, I am currently reviewing two History "hands-on" curriculum, and giving this approach a try.  This method claims to have students fully grasps the materials much better and supposedly more fun too.

 

Difference in Opinions

One of the homeschooling group I belong to are fighting amongst themselves.  They apparently had a policy of avoiding controversial, religious, and political OT (off topic) issues which caused one or two people to complain to the moderator(s).  However,  the moderator tried to enforce the "rule" but she herself is guilty of breaking the "rule".  So, the obnoxious email exchange between the moderator and the individual mom, occurred and really caused quite a stir, (and quite entertaining), since it was a "joke".  It's stupid in my opinion. This is the second occurrence of the same homeschooling parents openly, publicly complain against one individual.

As homeschoolers are a  minority in a society that still cannot understand our choice to homeschool, I announced my opinion that this was a waste of everyone's time; that the perpetrator who was offended should have just "voiced" her opinion directly to that parent, rather than getting the moderator(s) involved with the whole homeschooling group.  It's too bad there's all this negative energy over there.