When I got our box of the Medieval History Pack history curriculum from Beautiful Feet Books, I almost passed out from excitement. Also, look at my page homeschool middle school for more fun tips.
I was given free curriculum from Beautiful Feet Books and I was paid for my time. However, paid for my time does not mean paid off. All opinions are my own and for sure I will always tell you what is on my mind. When I do accept a review, it’s because I’m giddy to tell you about it. Read my full disclosure here.
For just a moment as I opened up the box from Beautiful Feet Books, I had a flashback to my public school high school years when I learned about the Middle Ages from a history teacher who wasn’t a rule-follower.
My teacher planned a huge high school medieval feast to kick off our study and because I answered the most questions correctly about medieval history, I was crowned medieval queen. Complete with costumes and activities, I won’t ever forget the fun of learning about history in the older grades.
Memory making moments from my high school years stuck with me and hands-on history and living books became part of my must-haves for my homeschool.
Beautiful Feet Books has been part of my homeschooling journey for many years because it fits my criteria of how history should be covered in the middle and high school years.
When my first son, Mr. Senior 2013 was in Kindergarten, I used Early American History with him. Next as I folded into my day Mr. Awesome 2016 and Tiny, we used the Early American and World History and the Medieval History Sr. High levels.
You can read my article, When We Used Beautiful Feet Books as our History Spine to grab more tips about how I use Beautiful Feet Books.
However, because Tiny was young when I studied medieval history with my older two sons, I felt that Medieval History Pack was a better fit for us right now.
Living Literature Bringing Medieval History Alive
Look at some of the reasons why we love using the Medieval History Pack.
- Living books should be a staple of any great course about history and we just can’t get our fill of them. Tiny started off reading The European World, Beowulf and then on to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. We always have trouble following the teacher’s guide because once you get hooked on a living book, you can’t put it down. It’s important to mention here that though I have used a lot of living history books in our study, I value the fact that Beautiful Feet Books spends time culling over the very best ones so that I don’t have to. Again, with this level, we were not disappointed.
- If you have kids that are middle or high school level, I know you can relate to the struggle in keeping history entertaining and educational because so many programs want to move away from interactive activities to exclusive book learning. Making us choose to either prepare a child for rigorous history in the upper grades or making it entertaining seems to be two choices homeschool curriculum providers throw at us. I reject that mentality which is why many times I come back to Beautiful Feet Books. They show us we can and should have both when we homeschool our older kids.
- Also, the teacher’s guide gives me the freedom to incorporate living literature as a unit study because it is filled with teaching ideas, but it is not overly complicated. In other words, I don’t want to have to follow a schedule exactly, but just want a framework to work within.
- However, if you run short on time the teacher’s guide has just enough guidance if you want it. For example, it has vocabulary words for the reading, ideas for hands-on activities, and of course geography and history helps.
How to Make Learning About Medieval Geography Stick
Another reason that we wanted to use Beautiful Feet Books was to incorporate geography in a hands-on way that sticks.
Don’t get me wrong. Computer programs and pre-labeled maps are super resources, but learning the nitty-gritty of geography happens when you can dive into it.
Making a map of the medieval world as suggested in the teacher’s guide is what piqued our interest. Creating a hand-drawn map and taking time to label regions and cities helps Tiny to remember what Europe looked like back then.
We are off to a great start using his map and we can’t wait to add more to it as we will continue on with our study this year.
Does Teaching History Develop Essential Thinking Skills?
Beautiful Feet Books has never been about having to move fast with quick bites of history. I don’t want my sons rushed when it comes to understanding the ideals of the past because it affects the way people think today.
Too, let’s just face it. When it comes to medieval history, we not only want to dig deeper, but we want our kids to savor learning about knights, castles and jousting.
That takes time.
You’ll love these ideas for literature and hands-on ideas from Beautiful Feet Books.
Look at these other things I want you to know about.
- It is a 35 week program, which means it is a year long program. You just can’t rush the richness of the points learned in the literature.
- If you are looking for a day by day guide, this is not your program. If you want wiggle room to add your own spin to it but to have some ideas for each week, you’ll love the flexibility of the teacher’s guide. I added in our own science. Look at Medieval Chemistry and Homeschool History.
- With the book choices, it easily adaptable for high school. Look here at the suggested credits for high school.
- The teacher’s guide has answers and the definition of the vocabulary words in the back of the book. Did I mention it is in beautiful color?
- I did notice a few links that were not up to date, but I found them easily on the home page of the suggested link. Again, having the other links for extra reading is a huge benefit to helping Tiny understand this time period and I appreciate him being able to use his iPad along with reading the books.
I won’t hide my obvious bias and love toward Beautiful Feet Books because it has been around for a long time and there is a reason why. Simply, it works.
Learning about history should be action-packed and motivating. With a framework to work with for studying medieval history, you’ll love this curriculum.
You’ll want to see how I used one of the living books, The World of Columbus making 5 days of Free Printables for a unit study. Also, look at 8 Ways to Teach Homeschool History Other Than Chronologically and Should Homeschool History Be Covered in Chronological Order?
What do you think, will this curriculum work for you?
Hugs and love ya,
We are doing this time period of history with my 8th grader this year. These books look awesome !
I think you’ll love it Candace 🙂
Love this post Tina, so thorough, history is so fun and you have made it come alive for your boys 🙂 Thanks for a chance to win!! <3
Thanks Meredith. I agree, I love history too and hope you win too. I love books like this..
We are covering Medieval History for 2016/2017 – How exciting! Love your site, Ms. Tina, we use so many of the things you offer :). THANKS!!
Great!! So glad you are here Debby and can use the things here. Glad to have you here and hope you love what Beautiful Feet offers like I do 🙂