Heritage History is a classical curriculum designed to provide easy access to classic history stories for children. The curriculum focuses on Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, the British Middle Ages and the British Empire of the 18th and 19th century. They also have curriculum available for Early America and the 20th century, and Spanish and Latin America as well. For this review, I got to sample the Ancient Greece CD.
The CD contains ebooks divided into genres (military history, biography, mythology etc.) and further divided into levels (beginner, intermediate and advanced). Since this is a classical curriculum, the levels basically correspond to the levels of this curriculum style. The ebooks are presented in both PDF and ereader formats so students can print books or download them to ANY ereader device (a nice feature in this world of IPad’s, Nooks and Kindles! 🙂 )
The CD also includes a user’s guide, which gives you an intro and suggestions about how to use the curriculum, as well as several study aids, including maps, timelines and photographs. These can easily be printed or viewed on the computer as well. The recommended reading section of the user’s guide tells you the core books for each level (beg., int., adv.) as well as the supplemental books it is suggested for students to read. As the parent, you can choose which of these you want to use.
I personally read a few of the core books aloud to my boys, then allowed them to choose a book to read on their own. They each chose a mythology book, which they enjoyed. We used some of the maps and while reading the books and we liked the timeline as well. The guide doesn’t have study questions, but many of the books lend themselves to discussion.
I think Heritage History could easily be used alongside a more structured history curriculum (i.e. Tapestry of Grace, Truthquest etc.) to give you access to classical books, while also providing background info and more structured assignments (if you want). However, if you are creative and prefer making up your own discussions/assignments/etc. for your children, you could simply use Heritage History on it’s own, and then create whatever you wanted to go along with it!
The Heritage History CD’s are very reasonably priced at $24.99. I think this is a great deal for all that you get. I am thinking about getting the Ancient Rome CD to further complement our Truthquest Ancient History study next year. To find out more about Heritage History, click here:
http://www.heritage-history.com/www/heritage-store.php?pid=curriculum
To find out more about this curriculum, and see what other members of the crew had to say, click here:
http://homeschoolcrew.com/785260/
*Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this curriculum for the purpose of writing this review. All opinions expressed are my own.