After seeing Susan’s post over at Learning All the Time, and she was asking about history programs. I immediately thought, I’ll link up to my review of Mystery of History, and then I’ll get off my butt and write my review of Time Travelers later this week.
And then I did a quick search of my blog, and found out I hadn’t actually written one.
OOPS.
So, here’s my review of Time Travelers, and then I’ll go back later and get Mystery of History.
So far we have the first four, and currently the kids and I are doing “New World Explorers.”
I have mixed feelings on the series, but overall I like it.
PROS
- Everything you need is included, there are already lapbooking, what have you all included on the CD-ROM.
- There is a teacher helps section with a schedule, and an extensive list of additional resources to use.
- At least one major project is planned for each week, but you won’t totally miss out on what’s going on if you don’t do it.
- Very thorough in the coverage of the material.
- I can reuse it again when we get back to this topic and I can print as many copies of the pages as I need for my kids (I think there is a classroom version to buy).
- I can organize the printed pages however I want, which I could not do with MOH because of it being bound…….
CONS
- It doesn’t include as much to adapt to little kids. It claims to adapt down, but some of the major notebooking pages aren’t designed for little kids handwriting.
- The style is much more dry than Mystery of History. So, my kids have a harder time with understanding the lessons. This would not be a con for older kids, but for mine this is a big one.
- I have to print it all out, since it’s all on CD-ROM.
Overall I think I like Mystery of History better as a curriculum, but there are some features in this I really like. I enjoy not having to create the notebooking pages and the like for the kids, and the ones they’ve got are very well done.
But, it’s not as easily adaptable to my kids ages. They have gotten rather lost with a couple of the lessons, which means I need to do a bit more prep, which I’ve done to some extent. I just need to follow up on it.
Because posts without pictures are boring, even if this has nothing to do with the post…….
Oh, and if you’re using Mystery of History head over to Being Made New, where she is compiling a MOH blog roll.
History is one of the subjects we completely unschool – we seem to bump into it everywhere – even without “studying” it.
Ugh – I would think that extra prep and the kids getting a bit lost might be a big pain for you!
Love the picture.
Ticia, thanks so much for linking! So many good history ideas this week 🙂
How frustrating for the kids to get lost…maybe it'll end up working out better another time through when they are older.
The picture is cute 🙂 He looks like he's having fun!
I would have probably unschooled history too – curious to see what will be used in school. I have not met a history curriculum that I liked yet.
I don't really like prepared history curriculum either, but I know it works for plenty of people.
I am always on the lookout, though, for good books, videos, and websites.
Thanks for linking the MOH Blog Roll! I'm looking forward to many posts over the next few weeks!