Name: ICHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-06-05T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-06-07T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Bourbonnais, IL

Tagged: History

This topic has 8 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 13 years, 10 months ago by CindyS.

Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

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July 5, 2011 at 3:39 pm
greenebalts
Participant
Has anyone used the Beautiful Feet guides at the high school level? I’m looking for any kind of feedback. We used MFW for 9th grade and purchased MFW for 10th grade this fall, but I’m disappointed with the history piece. They recommend the Notgrass Exploring World History, which is fine, but the only other high school resources used are a DK book and an Usborne book. I’m not a fan of either, especially at the high school level. There’s so many great books out there and I feel like she only has 3 years left, I want to incorporate quality books without wasting time. We are using the SCM history guides with our younger kids. Thanks, Melissa
July 5, 2011 at 3:54 pm
CindyS
Participant
Hi Melissa,
We’ve use BF and have enjoyed it. It is not purely cm in that it is a study guide with questions for the student to answer, however it includes wonderful literary selections. It may or may not have been the author’s intent, but we’ve not used every selection included because it way surpassed the requirement for history. Some of the books we used as part of the student’s literature credit, some we dropped altogether because we did not want our children to read them for moral reasons. One child was specifically interested in the wars, so we were able to switch things around to address that, so it is quite flexible. If you are speaking of the 1900s course, you should know that A History of US is liberal and will take some discussion. So, in a nutshell, the books we had issues with were, Quo Vadis, Diary of Anne Frank, History of US, Far From the Bamboo Grove. I can’t remember any others, but probably will as soon as I hit the ‘send post’ button.
Blessings,
Cindy
July 5, 2011 at 5:05 pm
cedargirl
Participant
This is good to know! I am doing the Character Literature study with my children this coming year. I hope it goes well as I love the looks of it. Good to know that even in the older sets of books there is some edgy topics. Thank you for sharing that Cindy.
Often I start in on a new curriculum all excited and hit moral and or twaddle let down (recently experienced with Noeo Science). So the more we know ahead of time, the more we can plan for if suppliments need be.
July 5, 2011 at 8:58 pm
Janell
Participant
My thirteen year old daughter is working through BF World and U.S. History with modifications and Stobaugh’s Literary Analysis. I have Clarence Carson’s U.S. History series (Beautiful Feet’s recommendation) to balance out the Hakim books. She will be moving on to study the ancients this autumn and will use BF ancients and the ancients portion of Stobaugh’s World Literature.
Although I don’t have much experience with high school, I thought I would post to let you know that we think alike…I had originally planned to use MFW. It looks great, but we like to remain flexible with our literature and writing assignments. BF and Stobaugh have been our roadmap this year…with lots of sight seeing along the way.
(Ambleside Online and TheGreatBooks.com have great history and literature recommendations.)
Janell
July 6, 2011 at 2:13 pm
greenebalts
Participant
Thank you ladies for sharing. We are studying world history staring with Rome and the New Testament this year. I’m thinking I may use the Notgrass World History as a spine and BF books to supplement. Then I’m hoping to finish the last two years of high school with U.S. history, including govenment and economics. Again, I really like what BF has to offer.

Thanks Cindy for stating that you don’t use every book. This is freeing. I know this, as we are always told to let your curriculum be your slave not your master, but it’s great to be reminded. Actually, in order to study this time period, I’m looking at pulling from multiple BF guides. I’m wondering if this will be too much?

Notgrass spine
Augustus Caesar’s World
Caesar’s Gallic Wars
The Bronze Bow
Quo Vadis? — undecided about this, need to pre read
The Story of Liberty
The Magna Charta
Castle
Cathedral
Otto of the Silver Hand — undecided, just a possibilty
Adam of the Road
In Freedom’s Cause
The Door in the Wall — I’ll be reading this aloud to younger kids as well
The Morning Star of the Reformation
Joan of Arc
Fine Print
The World of Columbus and Sons
The Hawk That Dare Not Hunt by Day
Tales from Shakespeare

DD will also be reading the following through the MFW Bible and Lit portion:

Heroes of the Faith
Church History in Plain Language
More Than a Carpenter
Christianity, Cults & Religions — undecided, don’t own yet
Experiencing God Youth Edition — undecided, don’t own yet
Julius Caesar
Beowolf
British Literature (parallel text) — undecided
Practicing His Presence – undecided, don’t own yet
The Pilgrim’s Progress
A Tale of Two Cities
Silas Marner
Pride and Prejudice
Cry, the Beloved Country
Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret
The Hiding Place
Animal Farm
In His Steps — undecided, don’t own yet

As I’m typing this, it seems like a tremendous amount of books. I think I need to go back and cut out. Does anyone have thoughts or recommendations for this time period?

Thanks so much,
Melissa

July 7, 2011 at 6:15 pm
HeidiS
Participant
I just had an email this morning from BF books that they are revamping and or rewriting their high school level guides? full color and other additions to the layout>..might be worth a peek?
July 7, 2011 at 6:51 pm
HeidiS
Participant
Oh darn, sorry, its the Primary level that has been redone. Looks like it will be ready at the end of July but you can apparently preorder..

July 8, 2011 at 3:02 am
greenebalts
Participant
Thanks HeidiS. I got that e-mail too.

I’m rethinking things again and think I may stick with the MFW plan and add living books to supplement the Notgrass, maybe even cutting out the Usborne and Dk.

CindyS can you tell me more about Quo Vadis? You mentioned above an issue with it. I have not read it, though my husband has.

Blessings,
Melissa
July 8, 2011 at 10:29 am
CindyS
Participant
Quo Vadis is a very graphic story of the debauchery of Nero’s reign. It has a wonderful story of redemption, but I felt like I would be dragging my children through the cesspool in order to achieve the diamond. I first preread it when my son was 13 and getting ready to do this course; that would have been tragic knowing what boys especially struggle with.
You’ve got a lot of books listed there Melissa. I do not know what the Notgrass spine is, but I think Augusta Caesar can also be a spine, isn’t that right? One way to get to where you want to be is to add up the pages your child would be reading every day in order to complete the course and then see if that is realistic. This may be more information than you wanted it (but I’ve been where you are so I’ll just put it out there), but a full credit course should be able to be completed in about an hour each day and and 1/2 credit course should be able to be completed in about 1/2 hour per day. Of course, check with your own requirements in your state, if there are any.
This is way off subject, sort of, but I have children that have graduated and I so loved history that they had awesome history courses, but now I wish we’d spent more time on home skills.
Blessings,
Cindy