All things rotate around the market, aka- the buyers, aka, the support system by which products are produced and maintained. So it should come as no surprise that good middle school history programs are hard, or at least harder, to find.
Here's a list of the middle school, early high school history programs we've used, and what I thought about them. No matter how much I like a program, if it doens't gel with my "market analysts", aka the students, aka my kids, then it's not a good a program, and we give it up and move on.
One of my biggest requirements for a history program early on is that both kids be able to take it. With all the other stuff we do, and want to do, having 2 separate history programs was not an option, so I gravitated towards prgorams that spans several grades and ages. These below fulfilled those requirements :)
Beautiful feet, "History through Literature" middle school editions- I do love beautiful feet. They are pretty much unit studies using historical fiction, and come with teachers guides that are *sometimes* helpful. They are good to use as a scope and sequence guide, but I don't care for the "now ask this question, assign this writing task...". I can figure that stuff out myself, but the scope is great to have so it's a mixed bag on whether you need the teacher's guide. (Others are welcome to chime in on that opinion :) We incorporated BF into our Story of the world 3, when my dd was doing that history. It really added to the history for her. I've seen the classical literature BF curriculum guide and liked the book choices.
Greenleaf guide to history "History for the thoughtful child" - Roman, Greek, middle ages, famous men, etc
There's the text and an activity guide, which I highly recommend if you're going to be using this curriculum.
They start the 7th grade with "Famous men from the 16th and 17th century", but I actually think if you've never had it, you could start with the Middle ages. I liked it. If you are a huge history buff, you might take offense that it's not super in-depth, but it takes a different edge on teaching history- it teaches history through biographies so there's always room to explore further and easily add to interested subjects as your child develops them. The other criticism of this series- it's very Euro-centric in it's history. It's not breaking any molds in who it decides is noteworthy. The History of the Middle ages would be more aptly titled, "History of the Middle Ages in Europe" (with one journey to China with Marco Polo). My son really liked this series, and it also incorporates well into other history curriculums because it's biography lead, not another general history text. Despite me mentioning the two criticism of the series, we thought it was worth doing and enjoyed it very much. I think this would be a great history for ppl like myself, who sometimes have trouble getting into history. You see history in a very personal way, and I think my children responded to that and enjoyed this series while we used it. (We went as high as the middle ages, respectfully 3rd and 6th grade for my kids.)
Glenco history- World History- This is actually a 9th grade VA text book, but I find it to be an excellent overview of all the history we had up to that point and gave it to my dd in 7th grade. It does a slightly better job then elementary history guides we had of presenting the "WHY?" and making historical connections. I thought the questions in the back of the chapters were thoughtful and encouraged analysis and critical thinking in my student. And it was her first highschool credit to be earned.
My favorite history that I've presented to my children is the Critical Thinking Co.- "Reconstruction to Progressiveness", 6-12th grade. They have the entire history of the US, but this is the one we used so far. I find their history series to be fabulous when it comes to helping a student learn to evaluate history and historical claims. It does a better job than any other text or curriculum of presenting the idea that history is a "story", and we must understand why some facts are chosen to be revealed and considered history, while others facts are not presented/ignored. It also helps the student evaluate any language bias in the presentation. Again, CT knocks it out of the park when it comes to creating critical thinkers.
A neutral comment is there is a lot of writing/answering questions so take that into consideration for your student. The con of this program it is sold on disc, which means you need to print the entire text out yourself. I dislike doing that. I wish there was a paper copy for me to buy. (If there is now, it wasn't there when I bought mine.) We actually missed doing history because I was out of ink one or two weeks last year, and my son doesn't read well from the computer, so that's a half-strike in my book. The other strike is that I gave up on the teacher guide and just followed along with the student text. I dislike admitting my own stupidity, but I didn't find it easily laid out, and I just didn't understand the teacher guide. But just following along, lesson for lesson, with my son on his student book was enough for us.
Well trained Mind has a new "high school" series of text that follows along with their popular Story of the World guides, but takes it up a notch on vocabulary and in-depth discussion of historical events. These books are purely history texts. There's not pictures or pauses here, so take that into consideration. I've looked at these, but we've not used them. The reason they aren't marketed for middle school is in part because S.W. Bauer wants ppl to spiral through her SOTW books, which takes you from 1st to 8th grade. But if she's ever listened to any criticism of her buyers, the homeshcoolers, she would have heard we think the books, which are written for 1st and 2nd grades, are too simple and shallow for advanced middle schoolers. Yes, we can augment them, which is her recommendation, but she doens't really give many book recommendations for upper grades in the activities guides, and if I have to do all the work of finding extra appropriate resources myself, I'm more likely to just not use the program. My dd spiraled through the 1 &2nd books before she moved on and never spiraled through the 3rd or 4th books again, which I guess is a shame because the 3rd and ,especially, the 4th books deal modern history, which has a lot of readily available resources. Oh well.
We came super close to getting the "History Odyssey" series- it is written from a "secular" point of view in the early history book (book 1), so be aware of that, but once you get to the year 1000, it's like any other history book, except it suppose to do a great job of being in-depth. But the program has a pretty intense writing guide, and my son is not the writer. I would have gotten it for my dd, but the only histories she needs now are government and civics, so I don't think she'll volunteer for it :)
Good luck finding a history that you and your child like.
Here's a list of the middle school, early high school history programs we've used, and what I thought about them. No matter how much I like a program, if it doens't gel with my "market analysts", aka the students, aka my kids, then it's not a good a program, and we give it up and move on.
One of my biggest requirements for a history program early on is that both kids be able to take it. With all the other stuff we do, and want to do, having 2 separate history programs was not an option, so I gravitated towards prgorams that spans several grades and ages. These below fulfilled those requirements :)
Beautiful feet, "History through Literature" middle school editions- I do love beautiful feet. They are pretty much unit studies using historical fiction, and come with teachers guides that are *sometimes* helpful. They are good to use as a scope and sequence guide, but I don't care for the "now ask this question, assign this writing task...". I can figure that stuff out myself, but the scope is great to have so it's a mixed bag on whether you need the teacher's guide. (Others are welcome to chime in on that opinion :) We incorporated BF into our Story of the world 3, when my dd was doing that history. It really added to the history for her. I've seen the classical literature BF curriculum guide and liked the book choices.
Greenleaf guide to history "History for the thoughtful child" - Roman, Greek, middle ages, famous men, etc
There's the text and an activity guide, which I highly recommend if you're going to be using this curriculum.
They start the 7th grade with "Famous men from the 16th and 17th century", but I actually think if you've never had it, you could start with the Middle ages. I liked it. If you are a huge history buff, you might take offense that it's not super in-depth, but it takes a different edge on teaching history- it teaches history through biographies so there's always room to explore further and easily add to interested subjects as your child develops them. The other criticism of this series- it's very Euro-centric in it's history. It's not breaking any molds in who it decides is noteworthy. The History of the Middle ages would be more aptly titled, "History of the Middle Ages in Europe" (with one journey to China with Marco Polo). My son really liked this series, and it also incorporates well into other history curriculums because it's biography lead, not another general history text. Despite me mentioning the two criticism of the series, we thought it was worth doing and enjoyed it very much. I think this would be a great history for ppl like myself, who sometimes have trouble getting into history. You see history in a very personal way, and I think my children responded to that and enjoyed this series while we used it. (We went as high as the middle ages, respectfully 3rd and 6th grade for my kids.)
Glenco history- World History- This is actually a 9th grade VA text book, but I find it to be an excellent overview of all the history we had up to that point and gave it to my dd in 7th grade. It does a slightly better job then elementary history guides we had of presenting the "WHY?" and making historical connections. I thought the questions in the back of the chapters were thoughtful and encouraged analysis and critical thinking in my student. And it was her first highschool credit to be earned.
My favorite history that I've presented to my children is the Critical Thinking Co.- "Reconstruction to Progressiveness", 6-12th grade. They have the entire history of the US, but this is the one we used so far. I find their history series to be fabulous when it comes to helping a student learn to evaluate history and historical claims. It does a better job than any other text or curriculum of presenting the idea that history is a "story", and we must understand why some facts are chosen to be revealed and considered history, while others facts are not presented/ignored. It also helps the student evaluate any language bias in the presentation. Again, CT knocks it out of the park when it comes to creating critical thinkers.
A neutral comment is there is a lot of writing/answering questions so take that into consideration for your student. The con of this program it is sold on disc, which means you need to print the entire text out yourself. I dislike doing that. I wish there was a paper copy for me to buy. (If there is now, it wasn't there when I bought mine.) We actually missed doing history because I was out of ink one or two weeks last year, and my son doesn't read well from the computer, so that's a half-strike in my book. The other strike is that I gave up on the teacher guide and just followed along with the student text. I dislike admitting my own stupidity, but I didn't find it easily laid out, and I just didn't understand the teacher guide. But just following along, lesson for lesson, with my son on his student book was enough for us.
Well trained Mind has a new "high school" series of text that follows along with their popular Story of the World guides, but takes it up a notch on vocabulary and in-depth discussion of historical events. These books are purely history texts. There's not pictures or pauses here, so take that into consideration. I've looked at these, but we've not used them. The reason they aren't marketed for middle school is in part because S.W. Bauer wants ppl to spiral through her SOTW books, which takes you from 1st to 8th grade. But if she's ever listened to any criticism of her buyers, the homeshcoolers, she would have heard we think the books, which are written for 1st and 2nd grades, are too simple and shallow for advanced middle schoolers. Yes, we can augment them, which is her recommendation, but she doens't really give many book recommendations for upper grades in the activities guides, and if I have to do all the work of finding extra appropriate resources myself, I'm more likely to just not use the program. My dd spiraled through the 1 &2nd books before she moved on and never spiraled through the 3rd or 4th books again, which I guess is a shame because the 3rd and ,especially, the 4th books deal modern history, which has a lot of readily available resources. Oh well.
We came super close to getting the "History Odyssey" series- it is written from a "secular" point of view in the early history book (book 1), so be aware of that, but once you get to the year 1000, it's like any other history book, except it suppose to do a great job of being in-depth. But the program has a pretty intense writing guide, and my son is not the writer. I would have gotten it for my dd, but the only histories she needs now are government and civics, so I don't think she'll volunteer for it :)
Good luck finding a history that you and your child like.
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