BJU Heritage Studies 4
Written: Nov 02 '05 (Updated Nov 02 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy to use, very little prep time for the teacher, kids love it
Cons: Expensive if bought new!
The Bottom Line: A great program if you can find it used to save some money on it!
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| smjackson's Full Review: Dawn L. Watkins - Heritage Studies 4 for Christian... |
I have homeschooled my children since my teenager entered 1st grade and have tried a number of good history curricula. In order to prepare my older child for college, I started him on Bob Jones History this year, and decided to try out the 4th grade version for my youngest one! I have been quite happy with it for a number of reasons.
First of all, it is easy for the teacher to use with very little to no preparation time. That is always a good thing when trying to juggle home life and schooling! The teachers manual is a spiral bound, soft cover book that contains small photos of the pages from the student book as well as tons of helps. To start with, they divide each chapter of the student text into several lessons. For instance, Chapter 1 is divided into 5 lessons in the teacher manual. For each lesson, they list exactly what pages you will need from the student text, the student activity book, and the supplements at the back of the teacher manual. They then explain how to introduce each lesson to your child and give discussion questions to go over with your child after reading to them or having them read the text. The teacher manual also provides the answers to the student activity pages.
Secondly, the teacher manual is stuffed with extras in the back:
Maps and More has color maps and pictures to go along with the lessons. These are all conveniently numbered and are referred to in the lessons for easy access. For example, there are charts to help explain some of the concepts from the lessons. One chart show the number of immigrants from various countries that came in during different time frames.
Supplements-This section has helpful charts, maps, and definitions. For instance, to help clarify the difference between immigrants and emigrants, there is a page that graphically shows the emigrants exit, and immigrants move into a country. These, to are referred to in each lesson and are easy to access when needed.
Appendix-Finally, there is a section with supplementary maps and worksheets that can be photocopied to use in addition to the student activity sheets if your student needs more practice on a concept. We have found these helpful in particular while learning states and capitals where lots of extra practice is helpful!
Thirdly, the student text is easy for the child to read and understand. The text we have is softcover, which doesn't hold up very well! However, the material is great. There are tons of colorful photos and pictures, and the material is written to be interesting to the child. The 4th grade material covers America from the 1700's through the beginning of the 1900's including immigration, missions, economy of the U.S. (supply/demand, capitalism, etc...), inventions, and more.
Finally, the student activity book is packed with fun stuff for the child to do. There are crosswords, short writing exercises, short research activities (in one they are to find out where their ancestors immigrated from), chart and graph exercises, fill in the blanks and other questions, and tons of other cool stuff.
The tests are pretty difficult, but my daughter seems to do well on them. I think the activities really help integrate all the material in her mind because she doesn't have to do a lot of studying ahead.
I believe that you can also get the Maps and More supplements from the back of the book in a larger format of poster sized pictures/maps/etc...
COST:
The entire kit can be purchase new for around $85. This is the student text, teacher manual, student activities and answers, and the tests and answers. It can be purchased for a lot less used!
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Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
smjackson
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Location: Midland, TX
Reviews written: 136
Trusted by: 6 members
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