Truth Quest History~ Living Books ~ A review

 

My daughter has really disliked history so far this year.  The previous curriculum we had been using just skimmed the surface of events.  It is also textbook style.

Just when she would get interested it would move on.

I jumped at the chance to review TruthQuest History’s American History For Young Students II 1800-1865.

She enjoys reading in a living book format.  TruthQuest is a a big historical book list in chronological order.  However it is more than just a book list.  There are discussion sections, a writing prompts.  There are not very many of these.  Expect to spend most of your time reading right out of the various book you choose.

One thing about TruthQuest is that the books have been chosen because of their Christian perspective.  For me quiet a few books were not available at my library (I live in a very small town).  I do have interlibrary loan and requested some that way. I was also able to pull up similar books from the time period based on my searches for the books on the lists. They also offer a few spine choices, they are by no means required though.

What I have been doing is checking out enough books to last about 1 week.  Then I have been letting her choose the books to read from my basket.  If she is interested in the subject, I try to get more books on that time period and let her spend another week on it.  If she isn’t as interested in it then just a week has been fine.  She doesn’t fight me as much for history.  She is learning more and retaining more.  History is moving slower than it was, but that can be a good thing.  

Did I mention that there are book for all grade levels, K-12.  This has really helped me with my selection process.  I have been trying to get a mix of the younger level books, the books on her level and one above her level.  She feels less overwhelmed starting with the lower level shorter books first.

One that that I would have liked was more hands on/activity book choices.  There are a few.  This is a literature based curriculum.  So I expected there would be lots of reading.  I just like to do one activity for each main point.  There are suggestions for skits and you could easily come up with your own ideas based on the books you selected.   They also offer supplements on their website for this curriculum. 

Overall this has helped my daughter to enjoy history more and dive deeper into history than she was previously doing.

I was also excited that this curriculum included Brigham Young’s journey and books to read for that. 
Check out the Table of Contents to see what else is included. There is even a sample section.  

There are Truthquest Guides for every time period. 

This particular guide is $24.95 for the print version and $19.95 for the pdf version.

To see what others though of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

Disclaimer: As a member of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew I review products like this, which I receive for free in order to be able to share my honest opinion.