TOS Crew: The American Heritage Education Foundation, Inc.

Mel participated in this review with the TOS Homeschool Crew.

History is one of my favorite subjects to study and work on with Jacob in school.  When I received a CD in the mail from The American Heritage Education Foundation, Inc., I just thought it was a DVD that I had to watch and review.  I had no idea what it actually was until I started reading down through the letter that came with it.  There is actually a whole supplemental American history curriculum on this one CD, a curriculum for all age levels, elementary levels to high school levels.  Even the elementary levels have a Spanish edition. 

Anyway, when I realized what it was, then I popped it into my computer and began to sift down through all of the vast material that is covered.  Here are some of the topics covered:

• Colonial America: American Revolution
• The Declaration of Independence
• George Washington
• U.S. Presidents
• Thanksgiving
• The United States Flag
• The Star-Spangled Banner
• The National Motto
• America the Beautiful
• What is an American?

These are just some of the topics.  Each topic covered in the curriculum focuses on one or more of four key themes of the whole curriculum: Freedom, Unity, Progress, and Responsibility.  Since we are studying ancient history right now, we didn't use this curriculum as of yet, but I plan to use it when we get to that point in our history studies, and I also plan to use this curriculum for special holidays, in order to teach Jacob certain aspects of our foundation.  The founders of this curriculum sought to help today's youngest citizens learn about the true foundations of our heritage, so that they could grow up to be true, responsible, honest, value-driven citizens who will greatly make an impact on society.  This curriculum is really meant to be placed in the hands of teachers everywhere.  There is a section at the end of each level on the CD, with all kinds of resources for public school teachers, including a section on Religious Expression in Public Schools.

As I looked over the different topics set to teach, I noticed a few things.  In each section, there is a purpose, an objective for that lesson, a Core Knowledge section for each grade within that level (elementary having grades 1-5), the time it should take to teach that lesson, a list of materials that are needed, and prep that I would have to do beforehand, in order to be truly ready for the lesson.  There is also a Focus section that gives you a sort of outline to start out with and gets interaction going between the students and teacher.  There is an Activity section with activities to choose from that will help reinforce the principles taught.  Then a Closure section helps the teacher to close out the lesson in a way so that the students are reminded of the key points in the lesson.  There is also an Assessment section where students give feedback, sometimes written feedback, through a composition or small essay.  It's really an awesome supplemental curriculum, in my opinion.

The best part about this supplemental curriculum is that it is totally FREE!  It is a $150 value for absolutely free!  You can order the CD for free, or if you'd rather have the printed binder, it is $19.50 per level.  It's nice because it's a curriculum that could be adapted across multiple ages, in order to help with homeschooling several kids at the same time.  I highly recommend this CD to any homeschooling family and also to teachers everywhere.

To read more reviews, visit the TOS Homeschool Crew Blog.

(Disclosure: I was provided with this free product by The American Heritage Education Foundation, Inc., in association with the TOS Homeschool Crew.)