Heritage History Classical Curriculum Audio Books

"The Heritage Classical Curriculum is the easiest, least expensive, and most enjoyable way to learn traditional history. Our "living books" reading program uses narrative histories that were popular with young people of earlier generations and features books of interest to students of all ages."

Product:
"The Heritage Classical Curriculum offers students an opportunity to learn about history through stories. The curriculum encourages students to learn at their own pace, without busywork or rote memorization." There are 12 books included in the curriculum. The stories may be read by children of any age since most books have different levels of reading abilities. Each Curriculum CD includes biographies, legends, hero stories, and historical literature as well as comprehensive histories. In addition to the audio stories, study aids, including timelines, historical maps, and era summaries are provided in printable format (PDF) and e-Reader (EPUB and MOBI) formats so that students can print copies or download e-Books to any electronic reading device. The study aids include visual aids, such as images and historical maps, as well as text-based material, such as timelines and battle dictionaries. Many of these resources are also included in a printable. 

Study aids that accompany each curriculum include:

• Age specific core reading recommendations.
• Dozens of history maps.
• Outline maps and geography terms.
• Summary of each historical era.
• Battle dictionary listing all wars, battles, and conflicts.
• Short biographies of famous characters.
• Time lines describing major events of each era.
• Hundreds of high quality images.
• Accountability records     

The Heritage History offers five Libraries as complete curriculum. The cost of each one is $24.99. The complete set could be purchased for $99.99. Below are the complete curriculum.

• The Young Readers which is designed for grammar school age students introduces them to Western Culture. The collection includes American History, Colonial Children, European History, Children's Heroes, Ancient History, Bible and Saint Stories, Historical Anecdotes, Legends and Folklore, Twins of the World, and Our Little Cousin. 

• "The Ancient Greece collection covers Greek history from the earliest days of myth and legend, through the Golden age of Athens, to the Greco-Roman Era. Of special interest to older students is a selection of simplified classics based on the works of renowned poets, historians and playwrights."

• The Ancient Rome collection includes romantic stories for students of all abilities, from legends of early Roman heroes that fascinate youngsters to stories of political turmoil in the imperial era that provide food for thought to older students. Stories from Gothic, Carthaginian, and Byzantine history are also included.

• The British Middle Ages collection features books that cover the 5th through 17th centuries in Europe and the British Isles. Topics include barbarian invasions, Christian conversion, feudalism, medieval war-craft, church-state conflicts, and the Reformation, all covered with a special focus on British history.

• The British Empire collection focuses on 18th and 19th century world history, with a special emphasis on colonial development. Stories that highlight scientific discovery, exploration, invention and industry are featured, along with those that cover regional histories of Ireland, Canada, British Africa, India, and East Asia.

The curriculum also provides a sequence guide which helps the parent decide what the child needs to learn initially. Heritage Curriculum also gives the parents an opportunity to incorporate the activities into their core curriculum. "Structured activities can be done in conjunction with a learning co-operative, while independent reading can be based on the Heritage Curriculum. As long as a primary instructor is willing to put some thought into the best manner of integrating curriculum, the possibilities are endless." The curriculum also offers some examples of curriculum that would work well with Heritage Classical Curriculum.

Mailing address for Heritage History

Heritage History

P.O. Box 901

Newman Lake, WA 99025

• If you have a question about our products, contact customerservice@heritage-history.com.  

• If you have a question about the contents of the libraries, specific books or images, or curriculum  recommendations, contact askheritage@heritage-history.com.  

• For any other questions please contact us at infodesk@heritage-history.com.

My Experience:

I was able to incorporate Heritage Classical Curriculum into my core curriculum which I really enjoyed. Since my daughter had learned about Greece and Aesop's Fables, I read to her a few of the "Aesop for Children." One of the ones that she selected was "The Lion and The Ass". This fable was about a lion and a donkey cooperating together to hunt for their prey. The lion and the ass saw a group of goats run into a cave and concocted a plan to kill them. The donkey was to go into the cave and frighten the goats into running outside. The lion would be at the mouth of the cave waiting for the goats to come out. Once the goats were out the lion would eat them. When all of the goats were eaten by the lion, the donkey walked out of the cave and was being boastful about his actions.The lesson of the story was "The loud-mouthed boaster does not impress nor frighten those who know him." "The Fox and The Grapes" was another story she selected for me to read to her. In this story the fox sees a delicious bunch of ripe grapes hanging from a vine trained on the branches of a tree. The fox tried numerous times to try to catch the grapes to no avail. So he finally gives up and says to himself  "Here I am wearing myself out to get a bunch of sour grapes that are not worth gaping for." The moral of the story is "There are many who pretend to despise and belittle that which is beyond their reach." This lesson gave my daughter and I an opportunity to talk about persevering and not becoming bitter because something is out of reach.

When I was browsing the site heritage-history, I came across the recommended sequence guide. The curriculum lays out a multi- year study program that covers the western civilization. This helped me understand  what CD curriculum my daughter should start with. Since she is only 6 years old, I decided to begin with the Young Readers CD. This curriculum provided easy to read stories of the history of the western civilization.

I also enjoyed the "living books" approach to learning. The compact library was also very useful. There are hundreds of titles sorted by genre, author, series, and civilization.One can find all of the books, learning aids, and study guidelines associated with each curriculum package organized in the compact library. Information can be retrieved just as if one was viewing a website, but connection to the Internet is not required.

An option that I found very useful was the book list colored coordinated depending on difficulty. For example, the green links indicate introductory books which are appropriate for older grammar school students. The brown links pertain to material appropriate for middle school. Finally, the red links indicate books that are appropriate for high school.

Having my daughter view the historical images was also pretty neat. The historical images gave a little short biography of the character.

The "Battle Dictionary" has over 2000 historical battles with information pertaining to the year, the war, and the outcome.

Overall Thoughts:

The stories were very engaging and my daughter enjoyed me reading them to her. Even though many of the books are not for children under 4th grade, the books could still be read to a child in a lower grade level.

I also appreciated the recommended sequence guide. Furthermore, reading the introduction helped me realize how different this curriculum is to the way I was taught history in school. History to me was boring and not relevant. With Heritage Classical Curriculum, using living books instead of textbooks  made the stories more interesting to read.

Since I love learning about history, I will pass that love on to my daughter and help her understand the relevancy of learning how the past affects us now.

I would recommend this curriculum and it is complete for its purpose.

homeschoolcrew.

I have received this product free of charge for review purposes.