What are some good High School Home school HISTORY curriculums (can't afford Sonlight)?

Question

I'm looking for an American History and a World History curriculum, high school level. (preferably secular but will consider religious as long as it is still complete and not extremely overdone) thanks ... would love to do sonlight but unfortunately that's out of our budget :(

Answer 1

There are some great books out there to study for high school level history.  Classical history - We found a great book Ancient Greece [ A political, social and cultural study.] World history we have a great book on World War 2.  We also have an American history book History of the Great American West.  We find our books on the internet, second hand book sales and sometimes buy them off other homeschoolers.  The library is a great place for history resources - if you tell your librarian what you are looking for they are extremely helpful.  All the best and remember that History needs to be enjoyable, there is no point studying something that does not ignite a hunger for learning more.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Don't give up on Sonlight! Try finding it used. A good source I use is vegsource.com. It is a vegetarian site that has many different catagories to browse. One such catagory is used material for homeschoolers. I've bought used curriculum books from different sellers on that site and have paid a fraction of what I would have, had I bought new. I'm sure you can find other sites out there where people are selling used homeschool books. Good luck!

Answer 3

If you really like Sonlight, consider getting their stuff used.  I always find their recommended books at the library or half price books.  Here are some other places you can find used books:

http://www.successful-homeschooling.com/...

For the ones you can't find used, here are some places you can buy them at a discount:

http://www.successful-homeschooling.com/...

Good luck!

Answer 4

I think the best program for history in the high school years is Tapestry of Grace.  It is a VERY rich program.  It is Chrisitian, but I know people who are not who use the program.  

http://www.tapestryofgrace.com/index.php

Their website takes a little time to wade through, but the IMO it is the best!  In order to save money, you can buy the actual curriculum, but not any of the books that are used.  You can get those from your public library, or from inter-library loan.  We have used both Tapestry of Grace and Sonlight, and we prefer Tapestry of Grace.

Answer 5

You have gotten some great links from some great people here ..

Try this link to get sonlight used ..

www.homeschoolclassifieds.com

I have found some great deals there.

Good luck

Answer 6

We live in Virginia, in the DC area, so we had lots of field trips, but I'd encourage you to find good field trips wherever you are and supplement whatever you do with primary sources.

We used Glencoe textbooks for two years and easily developed our own curriculum around them.

http://www.glencoe.com/sec/socialstudies...

Similarly, for Civics, we used Magruder’s American Government, from Prentice Hall.

http://www.amazon.com/MAGRUDER-AMERICAN-...

For these textbooks, we didn't use much of the teacher's edition (TE) and didn't even buy it the later years.  Many of the activities in the TE were designed for classroom, and Grandpa (who taught history for us) already knew the content well.

P.S. Try the library (local or Inter-Library Loan) and ABEbooks.com for some of the Sonlight required reading.

P.P.S. If the child is a struggling learner, I'd recommend Globe Fearon books, which I have used. See my website to ask me more about this: http://www.learndifferently.com/

Answer 7

Hello,

How about Keystone National High School?

American History costs $279.00 for a full credit and 209 for a half credit.

American History:

https://enroll.keystonehighschool.com:44...

World History Costs $279.00 for a full credit and 209 for a half credit.

Here is the World History link:

https://enroll.keystonehighschool.com:44...

I highly recommend that you look into keystone it is a great school with excellent teachers and curriculum!  I know it is a little on the pricy side, but I am not sure how much is too much.  So if you can afford it I highly recommend that you use their program! :-)

I hope this helpes and good luck!

Answer 8

I think you should porb go to the library

Answer 9

http://www.archive.org/details/ap_us_his...

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/

They are both free courses, U.S. History.  For World History if you want secular go to:

http://www.glencoe.com/catalog/index.php...

Here are some more:

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/History/index....

http://www.worldhistorycompass.com/selec...

http://nchs.ucla.edu/World_units.html

http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/Hi...

Answer 10

TRISMS is excellent - the entire thing will cost you less than $200, and covers history, geography, lit, writing, worldview (not tied to any one worldview, just a general study), rhetoric, government, economics, and the list goes on.  Here's a link: http://trisms.com/

There are places you can get TRISMS volumes used (there's an egroup with a buy/sell sister site), and it's very strong.  It doesn't really require you to buy outside resources, as you can use what you have and what you can get from the library.  

Hope that helps!

Answer 11

One very useful way to study history is by reading biographies. You don't need an actual scripted curriculum. Choose a time period, choose an area of the world and read  biographies from that period. Assign a weekly essay to make sure the comprehension and understanding is there. As an alternative to essays, you can have a weekly discussion time about what's been read. This method can actually improve the students retention and understanding of the period compared to reading snippets in a text book, answering comprehension questions and moving on to a new topic next week. You might check the Robinson Method web site for more information on implementing this. You don't have to buy their books, you can get their book list here: http://www.hstreasures.com/rc/booklist.h...

pick and choose what you like and either get them from the library or you can download many older books for free from Project Gutenberg

Answer 12

You have been given some great links.

I only have one to add and it is one that our family loves because we are lazy learners.

http://www.learner.org/index.html

There are several History sections.   We particularly like the Eugen Weber World History  lectures using Art for visuals.  This is in the college section.

This website is free but you do need to register.   We have not received unsolicited emails so it is safe.

Answer 13

You can use Sonlight without buying the whole thing. They give you their book list and most of them you can get at the library for free. Some you may have find at book sellers or order on-line from Sonlight but you don't have to buy the core if you don't want to.

Also consider how many you are homeschooling before you give up on Sonlight. If you have 1 child then yes it is expensive but you can easily sell it used for at least half of what you bought it for. But if you are like me and homeschooling 3 kids it makes more since to buy it. For us it costs about 150 a year for all 3 even though I haven't started homeschooling 1 since we can use it for 2 years and over and over for each child.

Answer 14

Try Free-Ed.net.  No, I don't work for them, I just love using the free courses there.  You can also get free texts on Paperback swap:

http://www.free-ed.net

http://www.paperbackswap.com

Here is an American History site:

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/

You can also use The History of US series by Joy Hakim.  This is what Sonlight uses:

http://www.joyhakim.com/books.html

and the companion PBS site:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/historyofus/

Dr. William Bennett has a new American History series:

http://www.roadmaptolastbesthope.com/

Diana Waring has a new world history series, "History Revealed":

http://www.answersingenesis.org/PublicSt...

You do realize that Sonlight is a Christian curriculum, right?  The History of US books are secular, though.  You can get the companion materials to the books at Oxford Press.

Answer 15

Brain pop might be one you would want to consider. Brain pop offers curriculum for students of all ages. Brain pop movies are aligned to the standards of all 50 U.S. states. They offer all subject areas and offer subscriptions for those that home schooling families , schools, the libraries and more.

Subject Areas include:

Social Studies, Science, Math, English, Arts and Music, Health and Technology.

I know that they have american history and world history as well