Last year we started a Adventure Club for the guys in our homeschool group. We took a look at a specific hero in history each month. We would do activities from that time period and have a discussion about that historical "hero". I wish I would have known about YWAM Publishing then and had the books George Washington: True Patriot and George Washington Unit Study last year.
George Washington: True Patriot by Janet & Geoff Benge ($6.99 for Ages 10 and up) is not just a book about all the George Washington accomplished during his lifetime, but it really breaks down events that happened to him during his life. How many people know all that Washington done prior to the American Revolution? So many people do not know that he fought for the British during the French and Indian War? Or know how the French and Indian War helped to teach him battle strategy? So really the British paid to train one of our greatest American War Generals.
This type of information is something I never got to learn in school. I actually didn't know any of these facts until we did an extensive study of George Washington a couple years ago. George Washington: True Patriot includes all this material and so much more about his family life, his career, life in the army, and his impact on America. It is easy to read for children to understand how important George Washington was and what kind of impact that he had on our country for not only his generation but for many years later.
This book is well-written. I love that the information is presented in a story form to keep kids interest. It is definitely written for older children, recommended Ages 10 and up if they are reading it on their own. But this would work well as a read-together for History also.
Joey struggled a bit with reading though. The words or story were not too difficult to read, but he had trouble reading and comprehending what he read. So we went through it at a slower pace than say other kids might go through it. He usually spent 2 days of 20 minute reading times to read one chapter. I encouraged him to do this so that he could retain the information that he was reading. In his mind, the length of the chapters were too long. But that is because he does not love reading.
He really did enjoy learning so much about George Washington besides that he was our first President of the United States and he is on the $1.00 bill. I was able to easily adjust the reading to include both "read-alone" time and "read-together" time. So it made it very easy to
There are 19 chapters in George Washington: True Patriot. You could easily spend as little as a week reading and learning about George Washington or spread it out to a month and include many wonderful activities that are included in George Washington: Unit Study Curriculum Guide ($7.49, All Ages).
We were given the opportunity to review the ebook for George Washington: Unit Study Curriculum Guide. The book was very simple to download, even with a Mac. I was up and ready to read in no time. The amount of information included was amazing. I really had to weed out what would work for Joey and just check on items I thought were very neat for learning.
There were some wonderful ideas given to help with remembering what we were learning. I really liked the idea of a picture corner showing the life of George Washington, but Joey said no. This activity would be great for those visual learners. Included also were comprehension questions for each chapter. This is something I do for almost all of Joey's reading material, so I was very excited to have them all written for me. The questions included not only remembering things that happened in the chapter, but also included some great vocabulary information for the kids to remember.
In order to make the book span a wide age range, ideas are given for creative writing and also research writing. If you are multi-level teaching or have a state that requires extra writing skills, George Washington: Unit Study Curriculum Guide has that skill included...which also cuts out a lot of extra work for those parents. Unfortunately, Joey did not get into all of the possible projects that were included. He did come up with the idea to build Mount Vernon on our Minecraft Server, this is a project that he is currently working on. But a nice benefit of using George Washington: Unit Study Curriculum Guide is the flexibility that it allows for.
I really do love Heroes on History books. George Washington: True Patriot has really shown me that history biographies for kids do not need to be boring and hard to understand. We will continue to use the Heroes on History books to learn about important people in our World's History. I think this series really helps to bring history more alive to children. YWAM Publishing has a wide variety of Heroes on History books to choose from. What a way to work our way through a timeline using these books!!
I would also continue to get the Unit Study Curriculum Guides to go with each of the books. George Washington: Unit Study Curriculum Guide was a very economical choice for me to lighten my workload and yet not lightening up on the material we are learning about. It is packed with flexible options for any family with any learning style. I highly recommend using the Unit Study Curriculum Guides right along with the Heroes on History books.
Several members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew were given the opportunity to review either George Washington: Unit Study Curriculum Guide and George Washington: True Patriot or Jim Elliot: One Great Purpose and the accompanying study guide Jim Elliot: Unit Study Curriculum Guide. Please take a little time and see how these wonderful teaching aides were able to help in their homes and if they will be a good fit for your family.
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