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Have you ever heard of Switched on Schoolhouse?


We have used Switched-on Schoolhouse for the last 10 years. We started out with 1999 edition just to try it out. Once we decided that we liked it we purchased the 2000 edition of Grades 3 through 8. I then received the 2001 edition of Grades 9 through 12 as payment for doing beta testing for them. We have been using these since then.

In 2003 or 2004 they changed the format of the program to use .NET framework instead of being DOS based. The newer program also offers a choice between the KJV and the NASV. The original version was strictly King James only.

We like the program but if we ever replaced all 10 grades it would cost us around $3,000. Our original investment was only about $1,000.
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We use Veritas Press's Bible and history curriculum. I really like how this curriculum integrates biblical events with history, and uses timelines to illustrate that the "Bible times" were real, historical times as well. For example, we study the dynasties of Egypt in history while studying Genesis to Joshua in Bible. The patriarchs and Joseph are not ripped out of their historical context, but studied within that context. It's SO interesting; I've learned a LOT that I didn't know before (and I was the typical ABeka-raised student from an excellent Christian school). My kids are learning things now that I did not know until college History of Civilization. I always had this "great divide" in my mind between "Bible characters" (seen mostly on flash cards and flannel graphs) and "history" (a list of characters, events, and dates totally unrelated to anything in the Bible). I even remember asking my mom once, "When did the last Bible character die and the first 'old-fashioned' person be born? Where and when was that dividing line?" I remember being frustrated that my mom didn't seem to understand what I was asking...and that learning gap remained until college years, when I was unfortunately too busy to care about anything other than making an A in Hist of Civ. (And I went through American history many times, and world history twice in high school, and music history once in HS, and somehow didn't get this great gap filled until much later. The trouble was that history was presented in a boring, disjointed fashion...No one showed me how it related to other events in the same eras. We memorized facts about Bach and Beethoven without understanding the worlds they lived in, and what place those worlds had in today's music, philosophy, and religion. Just dry and dusty lists of unrelated dates and events to memorize and regurgitate on the tests.)

Another thing I like about Veritas's Bible curriculum is that it takes the student systematically through the entire Bible (chapter/book content) three times between grades 2 and 12. The kids have a handle on where to find what in the Bible...not just "sword drill" type stuff, but events and narratives.

One caution about Veritas Press; it's written from a Reformed perspective. I'm certainly not Reformed, but I haven't found that perspective too obvious or invasive in the curriculum yet, and I've been using it for five years.

Sorry for such a long post, but I feel passionately that if a kid's going to love and learn from the Bible and from other history, these subjects must be presented correctly, not as disjointed facts and stories which have no corelation or influence on any of the other facts and stories.

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One caution about Veritas Press; it's written from a Reformed perspective. I'm certainly not Reformed, but I haven't found that perspective too obvious or invasive in the curriculum yet, and I've been using it for five years. That was going to be my question about Veritas. I like a good number of their books, but don't want to recommend something that might have some problems. If the Reformed perspective isn't blatant, that would be okay.

Sorry for such a long post, but I feel passionately that if a kid's going to love and learn from the Bible and from other history, these subjects must be presented correctly, not as disjointed facts and stories which have no corelation or influence on any of the other facts and stories.
I totally agree with you here! I loved history growing up - I was fortunate to have teachers that made it exciting. And my grandpa helped! Looking at history as HIS story makes it a compelling study! I love to look at timelines and see what was going on at the same time all over the world.

Thanks for all the responses. My friend will appreciate the suggestions.
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  • 3 months later...
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I strongly recommend that somewhere in High School you teach your child the history of the Baptists. Not Church history as the Lutherans and Catholics tell it, those are the very people who killed Baptists for centuries. I don't know why some Baptists feel like they have to worship John Calvin and Martin Luther.

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Finding a good history curriculum for high school was one of the greatest challenges I faced when I was being homeschooled. It seemed like most of the good history books stop at the Civil War or World War II. What about modern history? It's hard to find a history book from a Christian perspective about modern history. Have you run into this problem, too? This difficulty has been overcome with a high school history curriculum from Notgrass Company. Exploring America by Ray Notgrass is an amazing curriculum that is exciting as well as educational. It begins with Christopher Columbus and ends at the present time. Each day is broken up into short concise lessons.

Sometimes history books seem to make the exciting events sound like nothing more than boring facts, Mr. Notgrass has an engaging writing style that makes the events come to life. There are also daily assignments that encourage the students to dig deeper. Sometimes they will read a document, speech, or hymn from American Voices, which is a 400+ page companion book that comes with the curriculum. Other times they will look up relevant Bible verses and also memorize verses. Writing assignments (including writing a research paper) are also part of the assignments. Students who finish the course will have three credits, one in history, one in English, and one in Bible. How's that for hitting 3 birds with one stone?

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Finding a good history curriculum for high school was one of the greatest challenges I faced when I was being homeschooled. It seemed like most of the good history books stop at the Civil War or World War II. What about modern history?


Because we just don't have the time to have real historical perspective on modern events. We just don't know the historical implications. In one hundred years the Iraq war might be considered in the same light as the insurgency we fought when we took over the Philippines or if it will be as important as Pearl Harbor.
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F.L. Booth has been a Bible class teacher in the Zion, Illinois congregation for over 40 years. The brethren in Zion have always taken their Bible classes seriously, and as a result, our teachers have written a lot of excellent material for Sunday School and Bible classes.

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We have never had a whole lot of money to spend on curriculums, so we have piece-mealed our curriculum together. For Bible class, my wife reads a chapter to all of the kids together at the Breakfast table, and teaches that chapter. We have been doing this for a number of years, so after a while, they get quite a bit of Bible teaching.
For Church History or Baptist History, they just use the books in my library.
Dr. William Grady has an excellent book documenting the influence of the Baptists on the foundation of America - "What Hath God Wrought" available at Amazon.
Dr. James Beller has another excellent book on American Baptists - "America in Crimson Red" - a little bit more difficult reading level - definitely more high school level.
There are other good books out there on Baptist History, and we simply have them read those books rather than any particular "curriculum."
Dr. William Bennet has some decent books out on American History, even though he writes from a Catholic perspective. He has a book entitled "A Century Turns" that gives a pretty good synopsis of events from 1990 to 2010. My high school student son read it for Current Events History.

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We have never had a whole lot of money to spend on curriculums, so we have piece-mealed our curriculum together. For Bible class, my wife reads a chapter to all of the kids together at the Breakfast table, and teaches that chapter. We have been doing this for a number of years, so after a while, they get quite a bit of Bible teaching.
For Church History or Baptist History, they just use the books in my library.
Dr. William Grady has an excellent book documenting the influence of the Baptists on the foundation of America - "What Hath God Wrought" available at Amazon.
Dr. James Beller has another excellent book on American Baptists - "America in Crimson Red" - a little bit more difficult reading level - definitely more high school level.
There are other good books out there on Baptist History, and we simply have them read those books rather than any particular "curriculum."
Dr. William Bennet has some decent books out on American History, even though he writes from a Catholic perspective. He has a book entitled "A Century Turns" that gives a pretty good synopsis of events from 1990 to 2010. My high school student son read it for Current Events History.

I highly recommend "What Hath God Wrought" by Dr. William Grady. An excellent book to read for oneself and excellent as a teaching source.
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I don't have a lot of money to spend, either (right there with you, Steve!), and I've found the Veritas curriculum to be affordable. My oldest daughter--now in 8th grade--is going through church history and the Middle Ages right now in Veritas's Omnibus program, which combines three subjects that IMO should be studied together: history, literature, and theology. I will say that the Veritas curriculum is the thing I spend the most money on with my oldest, but once we have the books, all of the other kids can use them; the consumables can all be printed off the CD-ROM included with the curriculum. So, I spend $0 on them for history, Bible, and reading/literature every year.

This year, my oldest has read in their entirety and written essays about Eusebius's Church History, Augustine's Confessions, The Rule of St. Benedict, Bede's The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, and Beowulf (and one or two other books that I can't think of right now). As you guys pointed out with your book list, you can't beat reading primary sources. It's so much richer than reading the snippets and brief references that are cut and pasted into the typical Christian school "reading books" and Bible curriculum.

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Ace School of Tomorrow is IFB (I think) Queen Homeschool is owned by an IFB family. Abeka has been leaning toward Protestantism in their history of the Reformation. I use Rod and Staff. They are close to what we believe (except for a few things). Landmark Freedom Baptist Curriculum is curriculum sold by an IFB church in Haines,FL.

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