Recently I was provided a CD-Rom from AHEF for review purposes. I did not receive any monetary compensation in exchange for providing my honest review, and the opinions expressed represent my own and my family's experiences with this product. To read more about this product and many more exciting homeschooling products, please visit the Homeschool Crew web page.
At first, I was not quite sure how to approach this product. After all, this non-profit educational foundation writes history curricula for public schools. So, first how was I going to adapt curricula which is written for a public school classroom to work with my own 8th grader, 5th grader, and 2nd graders while still using my own perfectly good homeschool history curriculum? Second, was it really worth that effort? What were this company's foundational principles--their philosophical bias, if you will? Was that really going to be compatible with my own? Initially, I had my doubts.
So, just what was this company's mission? I found this right on the AHEF home page:
AHEF is a non-profit, non-partisan educational foundation dedicated to the understanding and teaching of America's factual and philosophical heritage to promote constructive citizenship and Freedom, Unity, Progress, and Responsibility among our students and citizens.
AHEF accomplishes this patriotic mission by writing, producing, and distributing FREE K-12 lesson plans to teachers, students, and families in all 50 states and through additional initiatives, programs, and partnerships.
Right below this company's mission I found this quote:
"Effective, cohesive, and positive self-government in a free democratic republic such as America requires an informed and educated citizenry for the survival of our participatory democracy. ...We are in danger of forgetting this lesson." "...[A] nation that does not know why it exists, or what it stands for, cannot be expected to long endure."
--Dr. Bruce Cole, President, American Revolution Center
Former Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities
Well, I really like this statement. I agree with it. I want my children to know the foundations upon which our government was founded--principles of Freedom. Unity. Progress. Responsibility. I read further on AHEF's "The Problem" page. As they assert, these themes are founded in not only our Judeo-Christian and Western Civilization heritage, but also in our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution and other founding documents of our nation's history. You can read more here about this company's desire to prevent the further erosion of our country's values and freedoms.
So, how do I feel about this curriculum now? In short, I want my children to learn the principles upon which our nation was founded and this organization provides some educational activities to meet some of these same goals which our family already supports. Therefore, I decided I would just use some portions of this supplementary curriculum as a supplement to our history studies.
My children and I have engaged in some of the learning activities included in the Colonial America section--including reading and discussing the principles upon which America was founded and some great information about our Founders, playing the Independence game (which we had attempted somewhat unsuccessfully to adapt for a smaller group), reading a radio script ("We Got to Get Independence!"), and studying the Declaration of Independence, answering some questions about it and completing a crossword puzzle. We have only progressed about a third of our way through this curriculum, simply using it to supplement our other history studies. Other topics (usually assigned a "month" in which to study and tying back into those main key character themes I mentioned earlier: unity, freedom, responsibility and progress) I might use later in the year. Clearly not a complete curriculum and probably not as good a choice as our regular history curriculum's activities, but perhaps suitable for history supplementation for many families.
Sections included on the FREE CD-Rom include Elementary, Middle, High School, and an Elementary Spanish edition. The Elementary and Middle School lesson plans include 182-184 pages of lessons, worksheets, activities, crossword puzzles and even coloring pages. The lessons--although devoid of Christian content, being crafted for the public schools--are still adaptable for use by Christian families. These lessons, though needing some adaptation in many cases for the homeschool setting, contain some good information and extra activities you may wish to use to supplement your schoolwork. Many homeschools may benefit from the FREE download of this material. If you do not have high speed internet, you may also order a free CD-Rom from AHEF.
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