Cindy Downes

Aug. 7, 2007 - Curriculum Review - All American History

Book Review: All American History, Uniting America's Story, Piece by Piece by Celeste W. Rakes.

When I first received Volume 1 of this curriculum, I thought it was going to be just another history textbook. However, I was pleasantly surprised! This one is unique and worth considering for your children.

The reader is excellent and the information is well presented. I think students will enjoy the text. Each unit includes easy-to-read text, illustrations of famous people and events, maps, and a section on the impact of the unit's events on our nation. The illustrations, however, are black and white which makes it somewhat less interesting than a similar book in color. Maybe a future edition will add color illustrations.

What I like the most is the activity book! Each unit includes activity worksheets to accompany the text. The fun part is that Celeste has included small images of famous people and flags to cut out and paste on the worksheets. Visual learners and your younger children will like this part and it will help them to remember what they learned. The worksheets also include a fill in the blank and multiple choice quiz to check older student's memory, as well as map work and additional ideas and resources for further study.

This curriculum comes in three parts: The Student Reader, a Student Activity Book, and the Teacher Guide with Answer Key. Normally, I don't like having to purchase a separate teacher book, but in this case, it's not that expensive ($16.95) and it is well worth getting. It includes a lot of background information as well as additional activities that will make multi-level teaching a lot easier. For instance, in the lesson on the Revolutionary War, students will make invisible ink secret messages, create a newspaper, make candles, go on a nature hike to identify trees and animals, learn how to fly and store a flag, and much more.

I particularly recommend this to parents who have visual learners and who have to teach multiple grade levels at one time. The author recommends it to be used for grades 5-8, but I would not be afraid to use parts of it with younger children.