Saturday, February 02, 2008
Book Review: "The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child"
Volume 1: Ancient Times (From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor) by Susan Wise Bauer
At first glance, Susan Wise Bauer's The Story of the World seems like every homeschooling parent's dream — a well-written, engaging version of thousands of years of history condensed into one easily-read volume. And, in fact, that is what it is. As with all books, though, there are just as many cons as there are pros.
Susan Wise Bauer is a well-known name in homeschooling circles. A graduate of homeschooling, she is now a college professor and home educator to her own children. She is the author or co-author of several well-regarded books including The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home. A study of world in history, done in order, is a very important part of that classical education, and she found existing curricula to be lacking because so often children are taught history all out of order, and many times in a "me-centric" method, with the social sciences first (neighborhoods, city, state, country) and world civilizations and history last. To combat this, Ms. Bauer has compiled her volumes of The Story of the World.
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Labels: books, reviews
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Book Review: "Great Civil War Projects You Can Build Yourself" by Maxine Anderson
The Civil War is still alive and well here in the Deep South, however you may feel about that. No matter how you feel about keeping alive the memories of that awful, bloody war between American brethren, there is no doubt that it is a huge benchmark in American History, and a study of the time and places of the Civil War is a fascinating study. Great Civil War Projects You Can Build Yourself is a great hands-on resource for those who want to not only read their history, but recreate and live it as well.
The book begins with a fairly short introduction that explains the basis of the war and a brief overview of the years and how everything finally ended. This really is nothing more than the smallest of introductions to the topic, and is written on a level for about 4th to 5th grade. After the introduction you are taken to the meat of the book, a series of 18 chapters with good information about specific parts of the war and how people lived during that time.
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Thursday, January 17, 2008
Book Review: "Christian Unschooling" by Teri Brown and Elissa Wahl
Christian Unschooling
by Teri Brown, with Elissa Wahl
Christian Unschooling is just exactly what I needed to read when I first received a copy of it. As a Christian who is committed to homeschooling, (although not totally for religious reasons) yet struggling with the idea of allowing unschooling to become our method of learning, this book was, well.... a Godsend.
The book is divided into two main sections, with an excellent resource guide at the end included. Part One covers the whys and hows of unschooling, while Part Two is a collection of essays from unschooling families around the country.
Brown and Wahl begin with a loose collection of "definitions" of unschooling, especially in a Christian home, and also what unschooling is not. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of unschooling, I'll give you my own brief definition here: Unschooling is allowing your child's interests and particular methods of learning to determine what and how they will learn. It is often called "child-led learning". The methods and types of unschooling are probably as varied as the methods of traditional homeschoolers, and I won't try to list them all here. It is not allowing your child to play dictator with his schooling, or allowing them to do nothing but play and watch TV all day, but rather it is the parents taking the cues of the child and letting them set the tone for what should be learned and in what way.
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