The Story Of The World Homeschool History Curriculum Review

This is the second review I’m doing in a series of reviews on the homeschool curriculum that I’ve tried with my son.

You can read my first review on the Language Arts curriculum in this post.

Today I want to talk about History.

For our first year of home-schooling, we chose The Story Of The World for the history curriculum. I was not familiar with any history curriculums and trusted our teacher completely on this one.

The Story Of The World curriculum came as a book (text), a CD that consisted of a voice reading the text and a workbook.

How we did the work

My son and I worked on History two times a week. Each day we would work on 2-3 chapters. At the beginning of the semester we sat together and listened to the CD while following along in the book.

It is a lot of reading and my son just got bored really fast. He struggles with reading comprehension and it was difficult to keep him interested. We tried taking turns reading and then even just me reading and it was always a struggle to retain any information.

We would then move on to the worksheets and activities that were assigned to that chapter. We would go over the questions and fill in the blanks. Each chapter also has a list of questions and discussions you can have with your child. My son and I would work on them together filling in the worksheet. He would then tolerate doing any craft or coloring.

When I felt like my son could not understand or remember what we read I would create my own worksheets or fill in the blanks to work on.

At first, I tested him on it since the test is included but he could not remember anything and was having a really hard time with it. There was a lot of frustration and anxiety. I decided not to test him. We would go over the test together and just answer the questions together or not do the test at all.

The workbook also comes with a list of other books and videos you can use to add to your curriculum. I did not use any of those. I honestly just didn’t plan ahead enough to find those books and videos that were recommended. I did once in a while find a relevant book in the library or a video on Youtube that I would show to my son.

Pros

-well written

-Audio CD – having someone else read to you is convenient

-workbook – great questions to ask your child. Fun and relevant activities to work on and projects to make.

Cons

-so much reading – it was too much for my son who struggles with reading and reading comprehension.

-projects can be time consuming

Overall Thoughts

Yes, I found only two cons. I honestly enjoyed this history curriculum quite a bit and it is recommended by some moms. It just didn’t work for my son.

If your child does well with long lessons and lots of reading I recommend this curriculum. If your child likes projects and craft then I recommend this curriculum.

However, if you have a child, like mine who struggles with reading and reading comprehension this might not be the right fit. My son does better with short lessons and more hands–on and more worksheets. They help him retain information better.

welltrainedmind.com sells this curriculum and have a link so you can see and read inside the book. It’s very helpful if you wan to see what it consists of.

You know your homeschool best. You know your child and yourself best. You know how they learn and how you teach. This was my experience with The Story Of The World and my opinion only. You should pick a history curriculum that is best for your home.