Check out COMPASS CLASSROOM curriculum here: affiliates.compassclassroom.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=585 And if you’re curious about how THE LOST TOOLS of WRITING works, check out this video where I explain it!! ruclips.net/video/tTE5Pk9TnjM/видео.html
Videos like this, to me, and invaluable. I love to see what others are doing, how they are doing it, and what they liked or didn't like. I agree with you that it is so important to read these historical figures' on words and not just listen to modern day people's impression of them.
Oh my!!! How amazing is that curriculum! Your son should be so proud of himself to have finished it! This reminds me of what I believe Generations curriculum is and listening to their workshops. Always love your videos!
Thank you so much for this. I just purchased this for my 9th grade daughter. While we definitely will be cutting some things out because of her load through co-op and horseback riding and swim team, this sounds amazing even if we scale back.
I love your reviews. Very thorough and in depth. Really helps me to evaluate if this curriculum is right for us. I have a 7th grader and 10th grader. Thanks so much!
We used this curriculum for the first time this year. It was a struggle because we do 4 day school weeks. However I love the curriculum. It is a lot!!! We did a scrapbook, and the costumed speech, etc. We did not finish the course though. It is SO many hours worth of work. I definitely it could be a 2 credit course. I love your idea to use the notes as part of the portfolio. I'm stealing that idea for sure. I also struggled with getting my daughter to be thorough in her note taking, but I think if she uses it in her scrapbook and also can use the scrapbook for her exam that would motivate her to take better notes. Great idea. We didn't make it to the hours project either, and the research paper did us in too.
Lol!! We seemed to have had the exact same experience! 😜 it’s a lot, so you don’t have to feel bad about cutting things out. Even lessons. This last year, we did Modernity. And I did tell my son to skip some weeks bc I wanted him to get to others. Really, bc a credit is 120 hours worth of work, that’s only 4 hours/week for 30 weeks, you could continue on with this next year if you didn’t want to miss out. And then just start a new curriculum after that. So only doing 3 history courses over 3 years, you really could get 3 credits out of it. (I might have just talked myself into doing this next time! Lol! Bc we didn’t finish Modernity this year either.
I LOVE your videos! I have a son who is 15 and in same "grade" as yours and a daughter who is in 7th and we use a lot of the same curricula. Thanks for such in depth reviews. I look forward to the next one and God bless.
We love autobiographies and biographies!!! We love understanding different cultures in both history and geography!!! I agree with you on exams!!! The portfolio is an awesome idea!!! I think that this could roll into with summer or the next school!!!
Such an indepth review!! I was looking at this one for my daughter but didnt know much about it. We went with Guest Hollow Geography for this coming year, but I may look into Compass Classroom come her 10th grade year, we shall see!! Awesome points Rachel!
Thank you for this great video! I love how you really go into detail on your curriculum reviews. I would love to know more detail about how you are teaching him to take notes. This is something I am thinking more about with my rising 8th grader and I have my own ideas, but it always helps to see how others do it.
I just watch the videos with him, then I had him read his notes back to me and I helped him fill in what he missed. I do think taking notes is kind of personal, like everybody has their own way. I explained to him that when I was in college I had a system that developed. Like if I was listing points, I’d write the number and always circle it. Definitions, I always underlined the word being defined. Little things like that. But how one takes notes develops with experience. You develop your own “shorthand” I don’t really have a technique that I taught him through. I just made him redo some lectures and had him stop the video to explain he needed to “write that down!” 😉
Awe, thanks!! 🥰 Yes we do plan to use it again. And having been through it now, I may tailor it a bit. I’m not sure we will do the research paper next year because I’d like him to do the hours project, for example.
Thank you so much for sharing with us so many tips and helpful ways to make teaching fun! I love that you share about the importance of God in our children education. Your videos are fun and very educational ! I would love to know more about how you taught your middle schooler how to take notes for future projects! Keep sharing. Love your videos and comments! 👍😊🤓💐
Somebody else also asked me how I taught him to take notes. It’s hard to put into words. There’s. No technique. he’s still practicing. But all I did was sit with him, watch the videos with him, comment “you should write that down” and then I gave him ideas on numbering points, or how I separate definitions. Eventually everybody comes up with their own “shorthand”.
Fantastic review! I was planning to use Visual Latin on Compass already for next year for my high school son but now I must go check out the rest of their offerings. I may just go for the membership instead of just Latin. That portfolio binder is amazing!! Would you say the history course is reading heavy? My son is dyslexic and a very slow reader but I think he's pretty interested in history. I do like the way it seems to address all the learning styles.
Thank you!! I think the history program is very flexible to tailor. It does have reading assignments in the printed “textbook” but on a daily basis, it’s not more than 4 pages usually. There ARE other assignments that may require more reading, like the research paper. But you could cut that if it’s too much and figure out a different way. My son LOVES the Latin course (well….as much as you CAN love Latin. 😂) but he thinks the teacher is funny, which makes it more enjoyable!
@@OurHOMEschoolPlan okay, another couple of questions- My son already had early American history. Would I skip the first course and go to Modernity, or would he need to start at the beginning? Do you have any input on the Modernity class? Is it dependent on taking the early American class?
@@valleyhavenfamilyschool8951 you can take them in any order. They aren’t sequential. I just heard that American history was a little easier in that the videos were shorter. Modernity videos are longer sometimes. Several are 20-30 minutes. But for assignments and reading, I think they’re about the same.
This curriculum is so appealing to me. What are your thoughts on doing this curriculum along side a 6th grader? I’m struggling to find a rich history curriculum that doesn’t wash down the true events of history, and also teaches from a Christian perspective. Thanks!!
It probably depends on what your 6th grader can handle. You could definitely tailor it. It’s a lot for a high schooler. But if you only did the lectures and the extra projects, it would still be a very rich education!! I’ve heard that 6th graders have done it before. 😉 I hope that helps!!
We have this to use next school year for my upcoming 10th grader. I'm so excited about this, along with Guest Hollow for Biology. 10th grade seems to be shaping up to be MUCH better than our 9th grade year 😂🥴
They have some great literature based history/geography and science courses. This will be our first year to use them, but I'm so excited. Physical science was such a flop for us this past year, and it really does look like Guest Hollow will help my son like science again.
Loved hearing that it brought up the ideas/values/and beliefs of the founding fathers instead of just saying that they were all Christian, as I have seen in some history materials.
Yes! We also have to be careful about seeing history through our own rose colored glasses. So you’ve seen other curriculum say they were all Christian? In other Christian curriculums? I don’t know if mentioned this in the review. But they talked a lot about even about preachers of the time….George Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards…so they talked a lot about “Christianity” in general and how it fit into these events.
@@OurHOMEschoolPlan Abeka's US history in early elementary is one we've used that leans heavily toward the angle of portraying every founding father as a paragon of virtue and Christian faith. I love studying the history of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield!
HI, thank you for your video! I was wondering how to make this course work for a 15 yr old 9th grader with special needs. She would not be able to read the student reader and do all the writing projects. I was thinking about this curriculum because the video course would be great for her. Is this course adaptable to be independent for her at her level?
I think you can adapt anything to suit her. But yes....even if you simply just watched the videos.... if you watched with her, you could have a brief discussion together. And even if she watched on her own, she could take some notes and journal about what she watched. And she could use that journal or notes from the video for her portfolio. That in itself would be so much more "meaty" than what many students get today. It's good stuff!!!
This may be a silly question, but could this curriculum be used by only watching the videos and taking notes? I have an upcoming 9th grader who desperately needs both audio and visual and that is really hard to find with history! The videos look amazing, but the whole curriculum looks like it would be way too much for her (she has ADHD and struggles with anxiety). Would there be enough history information solely through the videos (and possibly an extra assignment here and there)? BTW - I love all of the details you provide in your video!
I think the videos are really thorough! So its definitely still a solid education. And so if you just do those and maybe the extra projects, there's still a lot to chew on! Each video is approx. 20 minutes. They could work on their portfolio assignments everyday....every once in awhile, the reading assignments are actually quite small....or maybe its an assignment to just read a poem or DRAW something! So while I do think you could eliminate a lot of reading if that's going to be an issue, I'd still look at the assignments in case theres something else there she could do! (and BTW - you don't even technically have to print the book if you had access to the course from their app - I think that's available as the streaming option.). I'm actually doing a high school day in the life video - up tomorrow - where I show this. :)
I probably won’t make a video specifically on that. But what it means is everything flows through your Christian lens. When studying deeds of historical men, what was their religion and how did that affect the decisions they made? Why do men do bad things? Because we live in a fallen world and men are sinners not bc they’re just misunderstood, or the environment around them left them no choice and made them do it. This curriculum studies early American cultures like the Aztecs and the Mayans and revealed all the human sacrifice, even child sacrifice they did. And some of those early explorers came across this and interpreted what was going on as truly evil and the reason why they fought those nations or tried to convert them. Today….historians would say “how pompous of those explorers to not let the Aztecs practice their religion and force Christianity on them and steal their land”The “why” behind things that happened can be interpreted through the Bible. Science….was the world created or did it evolve? A biblical worldview doesn’t deny science. The laws of science were created by God. Science supports creation bc no matter where you look it and how far back you go, you end up with, “but where did that start?” Woodpeckers have a cushion between their skull and their brain bc they peck so fast that if it wasn’t there, their brain would explode from the impact. (Have you heard of “never shake a baby….it’s a like that) but yet they have this cushion? That could not have evolved. It was placed their by a divine designer. If it evolved than the first woodpecker would’ve died as soon as he pecked and no baby woodpeckers to “evolve a new mutation.” Nursing mothers……how is that milk produced? Couldn’t have evolved or first child would’ve died. A secular worldview tries to explain these things without God (or they try to avoid explaining these things - there’s a RUclips video of Ken Ham debating Bill Nye the science guy that shows this very well - Biblical vs secular worldview) A Christian worldview affects politics…..when does life begin? Individual liberty vs government controlling everything, which side does the Bible say is better? What does the Bible say about work and welfare? Our worldview affects every decision we make and every opinion we have.
You can definitely reduce what to do. We did. We don’t do all the lessons. And this year we didn’t do any of the extra projects. We only did the videos, assignments, tests, and portfolio.
Check out COMPASS CLASSROOM curriculum here:
affiliates.compassclassroom.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=585
And if you’re curious about how THE LOST TOOLS of WRITING works, check out this video where I explain it!! ruclips.net/video/tTE5Pk9TnjM/видео.html
Videos like this, to me, and invaluable. I love to see what others are doing, how they are doing it, and what they liked or didn't like. I agree with you that it is so important to read these historical figures' on words and not just listen to modern day people's impression of them.
Thank you so much!!! I’m so glad this is helpful!!
Oh my!!! How amazing is that curriculum! Your son should be so proud of himself to have finished it!
This reminds me of what I believe Generations curriculum is and listening to their workshops.
Always love your videos!
I need to look up Generations!!! 😉 thank you so much! I’m very proud of him!
Thank you so much for this. I just purchased this for my 9th grade daughter. While we definitely will be cutting some things out because of her load through co-op and horseback riding and swim team, this sounds amazing even if we scale back.
It really is!!! Yah!!🤓
I love your reviews. Very thorough and in depth. Really helps me to evaluate if this curriculum is right for us. I have a 7th grader and 10th grader. Thanks so much!
You’re so welcome!!! So what do you think of this history??
Also, your son's portfolio is so impressive!
Thank you so much!
Wow! This does look really good especially for my auditory hands on learner
We used this curriculum for the first time this year. It was a struggle because we do 4 day school weeks. However I love the curriculum. It is a lot!!! We did a scrapbook, and the costumed speech, etc. We did not finish the course though. It is SO many hours worth of work. I definitely it could be a 2 credit course. I love your idea to use the notes as part of the portfolio. I'm stealing that idea for sure. I also struggled with getting my daughter to be thorough in her note taking, but I think if she uses it in her scrapbook and also can use the scrapbook for her exam that would motivate her to take better notes. Great idea. We didn't make it to the hours project either, and the research paper did us in too.
Lol!! We seemed to have had the exact same experience! 😜 it’s a lot, so you don’t have to feel bad about cutting things out. Even lessons. This last year, we did Modernity. And I did tell my son to skip some weeks bc I wanted him to get to others. Really, bc a credit is 120 hours worth of work, that’s only 4 hours/week for 30 weeks, you could continue on with this next year if you didn’t want to miss out. And then just start a new curriculum after that. So only doing 3 history courses over 3 years, you really could get 3 credits out of it. (I might have just talked myself into doing this next time! Lol! Bc we didn’t finish Modernity this year either.
I LOVE your videos! I have a son who is 15 and in same "grade" as yours and a daughter who is in 7th and we use a lot of the same curricula. Thanks for such in depth reviews. I look forward to the next one and God bless.
Thank you so much!!! 🥰
Thank you for this extremely thorough review. You made me so excited to go through it with my own students!
You’re welcome! 😉 it’s a very well put together curriculum!!
We love autobiographies and biographies!!! We love understanding different cultures in both history and geography!!! I agree with you on exams!!! The portfolio is an awesome idea!!! I think that this could roll into with summer or the next school!!!
Absolutely!!! 😉
Thank you fir this video! Extremely helpful, I now have a better picture to help me decide.
You’re welcome!!
Such an indepth review!! I was looking at this one for my daughter but didnt know much about it. We went with Guest Hollow Geography for this coming year, but I may look into Compass Classroom come her 10th grade year, we shall see!! Awesome points Rachel!
Thank you!! Guest hollow??? Never heard of that one!!
Thank you for this great video! I love how you really go into detail on your curriculum reviews. I would love to know more detail about how you are teaching him to take notes. This is something I am thinking more about with my rising 8th grader and I have my own ideas, but it always helps to see how others do it.
I just watch the videos with him, then I had him read his notes back to me and I helped him fill in what he missed. I do think taking notes is kind of personal, like everybody has their own way. I explained to him that when I was in college I had a system that developed. Like if I was listing points, I’d write the number and always circle it. Definitions, I always underlined the word being defined. Little things like that. But how one takes notes develops with experience. You develop your own “shorthand” I don’t really have a technique that I taught him through. I just made him redo some lectures and had him stop the video to explain he needed to “write that down!” 😉
This was very helpful. Thank you!
You’re welcome!! 😉
Thanks for this review. So helpful. Do you think you’ll use it again with your younger crew?
That…I can’t say bc my middle child is very different from my older and she doesn’t do as well with videos. But for my youngest, maybe!!!
Thank you so much for the info! I’ve thought about doing a humanities approach for high school and I can really see how this would lend to that!
You’re welcome!
We skipped the hours project too, just no time! But it was a good curriculum. I did open note tests on the fifth day.
Are you doing the history again?
This is an amazing review. Thank you!
You’re welcome! And thank you!
Thank you for this review!
You’re welcome!
Great insight! Thank you for reviewing!
You’re welcome!!
Your son did a great job with his portfolio! Do you plan to use Compass Classroom again next year for 10th grade history?
Awe, thanks!! 🥰 Yes we do plan to use it again. And having been through it now, I may tailor it a bit. I’m not sure we will do the research paper next year because I’d like him to do the hours project, for example.
Thank you so much for sharing with us so many tips and helpful ways to make teaching fun! I love that you share about the importance of God in our children education. Your videos are fun and very educational ! I would love to know more about how you taught your middle schooler how to take notes for future projects! Keep sharing. Love your videos and comments! 👍😊🤓💐
Somebody else also asked me how I taught him to take notes. It’s hard to put into words. There’s. No technique. he’s still practicing. But all I did was sit with him, watch the videos with him, comment “you should write that down” and then I gave him ideas on numbering points, or how I separate definitions. Eventually everybody comes up with their own “shorthand”.
Are you using this curriculum again for your 10th grader?
Yea we did
Fantastic review! I was planning to use Visual Latin on Compass already for next year for my high school son but now I must go check out the rest of their offerings. I may just go for the membership instead of just Latin. That portfolio binder is amazing!! Would you say the history course is reading heavy? My son is dyslexic and a very slow reader but I think he's pretty interested in history. I do like the way it seems to address all the learning styles.
Thank you!!
I think the history program is very flexible to tailor. It does have reading assignments in the printed “textbook” but on a daily basis, it’s not more than 4 pages usually. There ARE other assignments that may require more reading, like the research paper. But you could cut that if it’s too much and figure out a different way.
My son LOVES the Latin course (well….as much as you CAN love Latin. 😂) but he thinks the teacher is funny, which makes it more enjoyable!
@@OurHOMEschoolPlan okay, another couple of questions- My son already had early American history. Would I skip the first course and go to Modernity, or would he need to start at the beginning? Do you have any input on the Modernity class? Is it dependent on taking the early American class?
@@valleyhavenfamilyschool8951 you can take them in any order. They aren’t sequential. I just heard that American history was a little easier in that the videos were shorter. Modernity videos are longer sometimes. Several are 20-30 minutes. But for assignments and reading, I think they’re about the same.
Thank you for this video!!!
You’re welcome! 😉
This curriculum is so appealing to me. What are your thoughts on doing this curriculum along side a 6th grader? I’m struggling to find a rich history curriculum that doesn’t wash down the true events of history, and also teaches from a Christian perspective. Thanks!!
It probably depends on what your 6th grader can handle. You could definitely tailor it. It’s a lot for a high schooler. But if you only did the lectures and the extra projects, it would still be a very rich education!! I’ve heard that 6th graders have done it before. 😉 I hope that helps!!
@@OurHOMEschoolPlan thank you! I appreciate your response.
We have this to use next school year for my upcoming 10th grader. I'm so excited about this, along with Guest Hollow for Biology. 10th grade seems to be shaping up to be MUCH better than our 9th grade year 😂🥴
You are the second to mention Guest Hollow!!! What is this curriculum???
They have some great literature based history/geography and science courses. This will be our first year to use them, but I'm so excited. Physical science was such a flop for us this past year, and it really does look like Guest Hollow will help my son like science again.
Loved hearing that it brought up the ideas/values/and beliefs of the founding fathers instead of just saying that they were all Christian, as I have seen in some history materials.
Yes! We also have to be careful about seeing history through our own rose colored glasses. So you’ve seen other curriculum say they were all Christian? In other Christian curriculums?
I don’t know if mentioned this in the review. But they talked a lot about even about preachers of the time….George Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards…so they talked a lot about “Christianity” in general and how it fit into these events.
@@OurHOMEschoolPlan Abeka's US history in early elementary is one we've used that leans heavily toward the angle of portraying every founding father as a paragon of virtue and Christian faith. I love studying the history of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield!
HI, thank you for your video! I was wondering how to make this course work for a 15 yr old 9th grader with special needs. She would not be able to read the student reader and do all the writing projects. I was thinking about this curriculum because the video course would be great for her. Is this course adaptable to be independent for her at her level?
I think you can adapt anything to suit her. But yes....even if you simply just watched the videos.... if you watched with her, you could have a brief discussion together. And even if she watched on her own, she could take some notes and journal about what she watched. And she could use that journal or notes from the video for her portfolio. That in itself would be so much more "meaty" than what many students get today. It's good stuff!!!
This may be a silly question, but could this curriculum be used by only watching the videos and taking notes? I have an upcoming 9th grader who desperately needs both audio and visual and that is really hard to find with history! The videos look amazing, but the whole curriculum looks like it would be way too much for her (she has ADHD and struggles with anxiety). Would there be enough history information solely through the videos (and possibly an extra assignment here and there)? BTW - I love all of the details you provide in your video!
I think the videos are really thorough! So its definitely still a solid education. And so if you just do those and maybe the extra projects, there's still a lot to chew on! Each video is approx. 20 minutes. They could work on their portfolio assignments everyday....every once in awhile, the reading assignments are actually quite small....or maybe its an assignment to just read a poem or DRAW something! So while I do think you could eliminate a lot of reading if that's going to be an issue, I'd still look at the assignments in case theres something else there she could do! (and BTW - you don't even technically have to print the book if you had access to the course from their app - I think that's available as the streaming option.). I'm actually doing a high school day in the life video - up tomorrow - where I show this. :)
@@OurHOMEschoolPlan Thank you so much for your response! It is extremely helpful! I'll be looking for that next video! 🙂
For anyone else currently watching: Do you have volume on this video or is it my device?
Nevermind, the volume is now working. Must have been my phone.
Learning how to take notes is a great skill to teach.
Another good place to practice it is in church!! 😉 all my kids have notebooks for that as well!
As a Christian who went to public school, I am not sure what you mean by Biblical worldview. I would love it if you made a video on that.
I probably won’t make a video specifically on that. But what it means is everything flows through your Christian lens. When studying deeds of historical men, what was their religion and how did that affect the decisions they made? Why do men do bad things? Because we live in a fallen world and men are sinners not bc they’re just misunderstood, or the environment around them left them no choice and made them do it. This curriculum studies early American cultures like the Aztecs and the Mayans and revealed all the human sacrifice, even child sacrifice they did. And some of those early explorers came across this and interpreted what was going on as truly evil and the reason why they fought those nations or tried to convert them. Today….historians would say “how pompous of those explorers to not let the Aztecs practice their religion and force Christianity on them and steal their land”The “why” behind things that happened can be interpreted through the Bible.
Science….was the world created or did it evolve? A biblical worldview doesn’t deny science. The laws of science were created by God. Science supports creation bc no matter where you look it and how far back you go, you end up with, “but where did that start?” Woodpeckers have a cushion between their skull and their brain bc they peck so fast that if it wasn’t there, their brain would explode from the impact. (Have you heard of “never shake a baby….it’s a like that) but yet they have this cushion? That could not have evolved. It was placed their by a divine designer. If it evolved than the first woodpecker would’ve died as soon as he pecked and no baby woodpeckers to “evolve a new mutation.” Nursing mothers……how is that milk produced? Couldn’t have evolved or first child would’ve died. A secular worldview tries to explain these things without God (or they try to avoid explaining these things - there’s a RUclips video of Ken Ham debating Bill Nye the science guy that shows this very well - Biblical vs secular worldview)
A Christian worldview affects politics…..when does life begin? Individual liberty vs government controlling everything, which side does the Bible say is better? What does the Bible say about work and welfare?
Our worldview affects every decision we make and every opinion we have.
Love his portfolio!
Thank you!
Well this is disappointing. I wanted to use this but this looks to be too much.
You can definitely reduce what to do. We did. We don’t do all the lessons. And this year we didn’t do any of the extra projects. We only did the videos, assignments, tests, and portfolio.
Can we do it on 6th grade?