I got so excited when I found out that these guides are really study guides to be used with Joy Hakim’s History of US series. Every year we get phone calls from confused customers about which teacher and student guides should be used with which volumes in the Hakim’s series. Belinda Bullard has made studying the History of US series much easier and much more affordable.
Mrs. Bullard has written these guides according to the recommendations of the Bradley Commission which was formed in 1987 concerning the quality of history education in American classrooms. This literature-based history curriculum works to attain the goals set forth by that commission, yet in a homeschool setting. The Charlotte Mason feel to these guides incorporates a good amount of quality reading and some learning activities such as making fry bread, making a map of Native American tribes, compiling items for a time capsule, and charting.
Each volume includes a timeline for the content of that guide, list of core texts, read-alouds, and readers, background information and major themes for that section, a reading plan that is laid out by days and weeks (5 days weekly, 36 total weeks), learning activities, and “Shining God’s Light on the Journey.” This last section provides students an opportunity to think about the spiritual aspect of what they have just read.
Although written to highlight the African American role and contributions in American history, I find these guides offer a good amount of textual information and additional reading for overall history – History of US volumes 1-10, Around the World in a Hundred Years, From Sea to Shining Sea for Children, and Traitor: The Case of Benedict Arnold, just to name of few. You can choose to do as much or as little of the read-alouds and readers as they fit into your schedule, but the amount of information found in the core texts will supply ample information. Each volume of This Far by Faith covers 5 volumes each of the History of US series, equaling 2 one-year courses.
Well-written and easy to incorporate, these curriculum guides offer a good alternative for the History of US series, and a perspective from which you may learn things not found in most history texts. 48-60 pages, pb.
— Donna
