classical Archives - The Crafty Classroom

Heritage History Giveaway!

September 29, 2012 By Valerie Mcclintick 187 Comments

UPDATE: THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED AND THE WINNERS HAVE BEEN DRAWN!

First Winner was comment #160: Ann R. who said, “My girls enjoy the Little House books. My son enjoys books about knights and the Lord of the Rings.”

Second Winner was comment #67: Melody Lunsford who said, “Christian Europe and British Middle Ages would go along with our Mystery of History Vol. 2 material. Thank You for having a giveaway!”

Congratulation to both of our winners!

Don’t worry if you didn’t win, you can still take advantage of the
FREE Curriculum CD Offer below, but do note that it only goes through the end of October.

It’s time for another fantastic giveaway from our sponsors!

But First, Write Down This Code!

valerie7

It will get you a Free Curriculum CD from Heritage History.
You can read about the offer here

Now, on to the giveaway…

When I first learned of Heritage History,
I was a bit confused as to what products they offered,
and what would be the best fit for our family.

So I wanted to take a second to show you the different ways
Heritage History can become a part of your daily learning:

1. Read pre-1923 books online for FREE.

You can choose from hundreds of living books, and search by author, genre, title, and even civilization. If that weren’t enough, they have color coded them by reading ability.
Bookmark or Pin this page, you’ll love it.

For those of you interested, you can read the Worldview
Heritage History uses to selected each title.

2.Order single E-books based on your current studies.

The benefits of ordering a book can make all the difference in how you access the resources.
When you order an e-book you receive a PDF version and two different e-book versions.
This allows you to print multiple copies to use in your classroom,
and to save the book to your personal computer or tablet. Also the formatting of a purchased book
has been handled with detail. The captions, tables and other parts of the book have been preserved.
You can download a FREE e-book here to see the difference!
(instructions for loading it to your tablet can be found here)

3. Order a Collection of e-books surrounding a theme or topic:

Heritage History offers TWO different types of CD Collections:
Classical Libraries
Classical Curriculum

These collections of e-books have been specifically chosen to help ease the burden for homeschooling families. With these selections, you can easily provide your children with living books that compliment your current studies.

As with the single e-books, each CD comes with a PDF and two e-book versions of each title.
There are on average about 50 different titles for each collection,
and the price of the CD’s range from $19.99 to $24.99

Last month Heritage History has sent us a CD copy of
Early America from their Classical Library Collection

I was happy to see that it was filled with over 80 titles covering the American colonies to the First World War.

The American library focuses less on politics than many American History curriculums, but includes biographies and short stories about explorers, settlers, inventors, military heroes, writers, presidents, and Indian leaders. American Indian history is treated thoroughly, with over sixteen books on the subject. American Negro and Spanish American histories are also covered thoroughly.

My children are still considered early readers (green books)
so I was happy to see this series by James Otis:

It made me giggle because these are like the original Dear America Journals.

Storytelling just never goes out of style,
children love to read personal accounts of a living history.

We will be using these alongside our American History studies through out the year.

You can read more about the James Otis series here.

See all the 80+ titles included in the Early America series here.

So now that you know all about Heritage History,
are you ready to WIN some classical titles for your classroom?

Heritage History is offering up winner’s choice
of one Classical Library CD, and one Classical Curriculum CD!

There will be TWO Winners!

How to Enter:
1. Check out the Classical Library CD’s, and the Classical Curriculum CD’s.
Come back and tell me which title from each that you would want.
(If you’re the winner, you’ll get BOTH your picks, so choose wisely!)

Additional Entry:
2. Leave me comment with your children’s favorite History story.

Contest ends Friday, October 4, 2012 11:59pm.
Winner will be drawn at random, and this post will be updated.

Disclaimer: As an affiliate of Heritage History I received free product for review purposes, and a percentage of sales is credited back to me. All opinions are my honest thoughts about this product.

You can read our review of the Young Readers Collection here.

Heritage History

May 20, 2012 By Valerie Mcclintick 2 Comments

Last year I wrote a post entitled 10 Things I bet ya didn’t know about me.

I posted 10 because it’s a nice round number, and it seemed like a good place to stop.

But if I had to write a #11, this would be it:

#11. I love to read.

As a child I would read anything and everything that I could get my hands on.

Sometimes this was not such a good thing.

*ahem

Flash Forward 20 years and you’ll see that my 9 year old daughter shares my passion for reading.

Christmas and Birthdays are easy for this little girl.

Her stocking is filled with little brown rectangles and she cherishes every single one.

With her I hear, “Can we go to the library” more often then “Can we go to McDonnalds?”

What could be better right?

Well, if you have an avid reader you probably already know that
keeping the bookshelf stocked can be a bit of a challenge.

And if you’re a homeschooler you know how wonderful it is when you find an appropriate book….
a Classic even that teaches your children about important facts in a fun, and memorable way.

I believe the term for these types of stories are called Living Books!

“Putting the story back into History-
Heritage History promotes traditional narrative history. Our online library contains biographies, legends, adapted literature, and introductory histories. All were written for the general reader and are easy and enjoyable to read.”

So here’s the deal with Heritage History:

Isn’t that neat?

Heritage History has over 400 titles, and you can purchase a single book, or an entire collection!

We were sent the Young Reader’s Curriculum

Every book in this curriculum was written pre-1923
You can check out theYoung Readers Book List here.

The Young Readers library is one of our largest collections, with over eighty books to choose from. Many of the books in this collect are simple enough for a fluent reader to complete in only a few hours, so avid readers may be able to read dozens of books from the collection before moving on to more challenging curriculums. Reading a few dozen of these books will expose students to hundreds of famous historical characters and will be an excellent foundation for future learning.

Ok.

Stop right here.

I HAVE to tell you that I was a bit worried when I saw that these were pre-1923 books.

Wait….Wait….Wait. Back up even further here.

Let me just say something here:

We are not KJVer’s.

I simply can’t get through the thee’s and the thou’s and the thy’s
without spitting all over myself
and that never makes for good worship.

Anyway, when I saw that a lot of these books had that old world ring to them,
I was a bit worried.

Read:
A bit worried was I that my eldest would find the text
a daunting reversal of mirrored context, neglecting to partake
in the fanciful pleasure of each winnowed passage.

(I’m 74% sure that actually makes sense.)

In short, I wondered if it was going to be too much for my little 9 year old girl to handle.

Would she get all tongue twisted and frusterated?
Would she just skip over the seemingly backwards sentences and simply go for the general idea?

Nope. She read them.
She understood them.
She enjoyed them.
She wanted more.

(And of course I secretly took Homeschool Mom credit for providing her
such a wonderful resource that I knew she would like)

Ahem.

Actually all of the stories in the Young Readers Collection are chosen
because they are told in a “child-friendly, easy-to-understand manner.”
You can read them online to get an idea of the tone.
(Green books are for Young Readers)

Quite a contrast to fact drilling, public school, History books that i grew up on!

What a great way to learn!

Just as a side note here: I believe I remember a certain someone
who used easy to understand parables in His teaching as well.

Just Sayin’

Anyway,I really love that Heritage History is providing these classic stories in an updated format, making it easy for today’s homeschooling families. You can easily print multiple copies, and reuse your teaching materials for your upcoming students. Some of the more difficult passages make excellent read alouds as well.

There are also additional resources like Teacher Guides, maps and clipart for you to use alongside the books.

(I smell a Notebooking project)

You can pick up the Young Readers Collection for $24.95

There are quite a few other collections for older children as well, and right now if you purchase multiple CD’s Heritage History is running a special deal you can take advantage of!

Be sure to check them out on Facebook, and subscribe to their newsletter.
(Which enters you in a giveaway for a Kindle Fire!)

Overall, I’m really excited about having this resource at my fingertips. I know that I’ll be putting our new books to good use, and tying them into all of our unit studies over the coming years.

Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this product for review purposes. Check out what other TOS Crew Review Bloggers thought of Heritage History!

Wildflowers

May 9, 2012 By Valerie Mcclintick 1 Comment

Don’t you love when you’re out for a mid-morning stroll,
and you happen upon a field of these:

You didn’t plant. You didn’t water.

Hidden back beyond the roads,
where almost no one can see.

A forest springing with life.

And then you look close at the real beauty,
the unique dressing of each flower…

a glimpse of the mind of God.

“See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.” Matthew 6:28-29