Living Books as Curriculum

This post has been a long time in the works, friend. When I began our homeschool journey many years ago, we dabbled in all manner of curricula but I NEVER used a boxed curriculum. I’ve always pieced together different texts and programs. I guess in some ways I’ve always been a rebel 😉

Then as I dove deeper and deeper into Charlotte Mason’s methods and her beautiful philosophy, I began to feel much more confident in creating our own curriculum. Now I get so incredibly excited to plan out each term that I often have to take a few days to check myself and reel it in because I want to include so much! I’m sure you understand.

Living Books are a beautiful way to engage your children in learning and keep them interested. A living book will bring to life even the subjects your children find dull. It will not necessarily create a passion in them for that subject, but it makes the study of that subject more tolerable and engaging. Living books always beat out dry, tedious texts that lecture and drone.

A note on our home library collection – I have been building our home library since I was a teen. I was always an avid library user as well as a curator of books of my own. As my children came along and the culture continued to change in ways that are contrary to our family values, I continued to add more to our home library and visit the local libraries less. We no longer utilize the local library at all. We have our home collection, we use Scribd and Audible, and we purchase most books used. This is what works for our family. Please don’t feel that you need to run out and purchase all these titles. Many can still be found within library systems or borrowed from friends.

Living Books as History Curriculum – Using The Landmark Series as a Spine

As promised, I’m sharing our world history plan for the next 2 years. It could very well carry over into 3 years, but that’s fine, too. And I do mean full years, not school years. We enjoy learning together as a family and in order to get through this cycle and still have time for all the military histories my oldest wants to complete in high school it just makes sense to keep the reading and discussions going. Without further ado – Let’s dive in!

First, let me explain that our family studies the Bible chapter by chapter and we are beginning in Genesis and reading straight through for our Bible study time as we go through this history cycle. I have not included the Bible in this list of books we are using because it’s a constant in our home. But I encourage you to consider a full cover-to-cover read-through at least once while your children are at home in addition to your regular studies!

The Landmark Series is a wonderful series of American and World History books that Random House published between 1950 and 1974. It includes Landmarks, World Landmarks, and Landmark Giant books. We are using the Landmark series books that we own as our spine. They were originally geared for ages 10 – 15 so they are perfect for a middle/early upper grades history overview. My history lover (13 and a half – he says the half is important- and he’s already read many of the Landmark books at least once) will fly through them (as usual) and my reluctant history reader (11) will be able to complete the readings without stress.  We are also adding biographies, documentaries, and other titles that I have curated for our family.

For our other resources and references, I relied heavily on the IEW Timeline of Classics (which includes several Landmark Books) and my own research to put together this history program. The IEW Timeline of Classics is truly an invaluable resource if you, like me, enjoy building your own curriculum.

I am reading the first few books now to get a head start and refresher on the topics covered. We have reached the amazing stage of education where we are able to read (together or independently) and then come together to discuss events, people, ideas, and what biblical truths we can see playing out in the things we are learning. I LOVE this tween/teen stage! It’s truly a joy to see these incredible connections being made by my children. Be encouraged, mama. All this work and love you’re pouring in does matter and it will bear fruit!

We will be reading, discussing, and I am requiring one entry each into the boys’ History Notebooks and Book Journals weekly. The book journal entry (also called a commonplace book) may be from any reading as they also have literature and free reads throughout the year. My goal is to read 1-2 books from our history selections per week. Several of the biographies are doing double duty as civics/character study and many of the novels and movies are doing double duty as literature. 

 I opted to purchase more “keepable” journals for them this year as they are reading higher-level books and the notes they make are ones, I hope, they will go back to fondly in the years to come. We have also chosen to use pre-printed BOCs from Living Books Press for their history journals.

We have a family movie night a few times a month when my husband is able to join us. I have acquired many of the mentioned movies and documentaries for us to watch during those times as he also enjoys history and having discussions around what they are learning with the boys. Building those conversation channels between our children and ourselves is incredibly important! Make learning a family adventure whenever possible.

***The titles included are in as chronological order as I could get them, so if something is a little out of order, thank you for your grace! I also decided partway through writing this post that I’m going to have to do a second post for the documentaries and movies, but you can see how we homeschool with documentaries here. **

Creation through John Paul Jones

 Adam and His Kin In the Beginning: Creation Stories from Around the World The Adventures of Ulysses The Odyssey Black Ships Before Troy Tanglewood Tales Ben-Hur (1959) Julius Caesar Julius Caesar – Arkangel Audio Production Quo Vadis King Arthur and His Knights We Were There With Cortes And Montezuma William the Conqueror We Were There with Richard the Lionhearted in the Crusades The Crusades Genghis Khan & the Mongol Horde

 The Magna Charta The Adventures and Discoveries of Marco Polo Joan of Arc Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc The Story of Joan of Arc The Fall of Constantinople Leonardo Da Vinci Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther The Vikings The Vikings The Long Ships The Voyages of Christopher Columbus Balboa, Swordsman and Conquistador Will Shakespeare and the Globe Theater The Story of Good Queen Bess Exploring the Himalaya The Barbary Pirates The Explorations of Pere Marquette Captain Cook explores the South Seas The Story of the Thirteen Colonies

 The Scarlet Letter The Witch of Blackbird Pond The Witchcraft of Salem Village The Hudson’s Bay Company Ben Franklin of Old Philadelphia Catherine the Great Common Sense PAUL REVERE AND THE MINUTE MEN Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys The Slave Who Freed Haiti: The Story of Toussaint Louverture All Times, All Peoples: A World History of Slavery John Paul Jones, Fighting Sailor

Rogers Rangers to The Story of Buffalo Bill

 Rogers’ Rangers and the French and Indian War EVANGELINE AND THE ACADIANS The Marquis De Lafayette: Bright Sword for Freedom The Swamp Fox of the Revolution The American Revolution The Winter at Valley Forge Our Independence and the Constitution The Scarlet Pimpernel Napoleon and the Battle of Waterloo The Count of Monte Cristo The Story of Scotland Yard John James Audubon A Nest for Celeste Old Ironsides: The Fighting Constitution The Pirate Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans A Boy Fighter with Andrew Jackson Soft Rain: A Story of the Cherokee Trail of Tears Robert Fulton and the Steamboat Tall ships and great captains Daniel Boone: The Opening of the Wilderness

 The World’s Greatest Showman War chief of the Seminoles Davy Crockett SAM HOUSTON TALLEST TEXAN Remember the Alamo! The Texas Rangers Wild Bill Hickok Tames the West Wyatt Earp U.S. Marshal The California Gold Rush The Pony Express Geronimo Wold of the Warpath The Story of Geronimo

 The story of General Custer The Story of Crazy Horse The story of Buffalo Bill

Master Detective Allen Pinkerton to the Battle of the Bulge

 Allen Pinkerton: Master Detective Born in the Year of Courage Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan Lee and Grant At Appomattox Gettysburg The Monitor and the Merrimac Lincoln and Douglas: The Years of Decision Clara Barton Stonewall Jackson Robert E. Lee and the Road of Honor Abe Lincoln: Log Cabin to White House Custer’s Last Stand Shades of Gray Heart and Soul: The Story of Florence Nightingale The French Foreign Legion The Golden Age of Railroads

 Andrew Carnegie and the Age of Steel The First Transatlantic Cable The Building of the First Transcontinental Railroad Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders George Washington Carver The Conquest of North and South Poles America’s First World War: General Pershing and the Yanks Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Story of Albert Schweitzer Medical Corps Heroes of World War II The Battle for the Atlantic The Sinking of the Bismark

 The Flying Tigers Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo Guadalcanal Diary John F. Kennedy and PT 109 The Story of Winston Churchill The Story of D-Day We were there at the Battle of the Bulge

The Beacon Lights of History by John Lord – These exquisite history tomes are set aside here for my young historian to read in High School at his leisure. If you have a history lover, I cannot recommend these enough. Our set is the 1921 edition.

You can tell this is where our chronological shelving starts to get a little cattywampus.

 The West Point Story The Story of the Naval Academy The F.B.I. The Story of the U.S. Marines The Story of the U.S. Air Force The Story of Submarines The Story of Dwight D. Eisenhower The Country Artist: A Story about Beatrix Potter Balboa, Discoverer of the Pacific The Red Baron The Story of the Paratroops The Story of Amelia Earhart King John and Magna Carta Ronald Reagan: Young Leader The Story of Helen Keller Come on Seabiscuit! KON-TIKI: Across the Pacific by Raft The Boyhood Diary of Charles Lindbergh, 1913-1916: Early Adventures of the Famous Aviator

The bottom shelf of this bookcase is a conglomeration of picture books like Henry’s Freedom Box and The Gunslingers, biographies like Blood and Guts and Explorers Who Got Lost, heart-warming heroism like Always Faithful and Down Cut Shin Creek, and so many more. These will be added in where we can and are always available for the boys when they want to dig into a topic more deeply.

So that’s our plan! Have you tried building your own curriculum? I’d love to hear what and how so drop a comment below!

Back to Homeschool Giveaway

Preparing for a new homeschool year is an exciting time, but it can also create feelings of overwhelm and stress! What curriculum should we use next year? What supplies do we need? And how are we going to pay for it all?

Many homeschoolers live on one income and have to stick to a strict budget that doesn’t always allow for much wiggle room. That’s why I’ve teamed up with a group of amazing homeschool bloggers to make getting ready for your new school year just a little bit easier and hopefully a little less stressful for you. Our hope is that we can bless a few homeschool families (although we wish we could bless many more) and ease a little of that financial burden and help you check some extra things off your homeschool wish list this year.

Three people will win a $250 gift card to either Rainbow Resource Center or Christianbook.com – two great places to shop for homeschool curriculum and resources, with the best prices around!!

To enter for your chance to win, simply use the Rafflecopter form below to enter.  Now I know this is quite a few entries, but each of these bloggers has generously chipped in their own money to make this giveaway possible, so I hope you will take the time to do all of the entries.  And hey, the more entries you do, the better your odds are of winning!

Giveaway ends July 21, 2023 at 11:59pm ET.  Must be at least 18 years of age.  Must be a resident of U.S. or Canada to enter.  Selected winners will have 48 hours to respond to email notification to claim their prizes or another winner will be drawn.  By entering this giveaway, you agree to be added to the email lists of the participating bloggers (see the Terms & Conditions on the Rafflecopter form).

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