US History Through Literature with Beautiful Feet Books
I’ve always been curious about taking a literary approach to homeschooling. While we tend to bounce between homeschooling styles (I call it eclectic homeschooling), I’ve never really dabbled with any type of Charlotte Mason-inspired homeschool programs. So when Beautiful Feet Books offered a chance to check out their Early American History Primary program, I jumped at the opportunity to see what learning history through literature is all about!
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are ‘affiliate links’. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission.
I received the Early American History Primary Pack for free. I was not required to write a positive review, however I’m extremely pleased with the program and share below my thoughts.
Beautiful Feet Books is an award-winning curriculum company that was founded by a homeschool mom, Rea Berg. Berg wanted to find a way to teach history to her kids without the use of boring, lifeless textbooks. In this search for a method to incorporate Susan Schaeffer Macaulay’s theories and Charlotte Mason style teaching, Berg created Beautiful Feet Books.
Beautiful Feet Books uses a literature-inspired method of teaching. This method utilizes living books in place of those boring, old textbooks. This allows the student to learn history (or any subject) through literature.
Be sure to keep reading for a giveaway sponsored by Beautiful Feet Books!
Learn History Through Literature
I’ve always had a love hate relationship with history. While I absolutely love learning about historical figures, important events and the interesting ways of the past, I’m not a fan of memorizing names, dates, and places. My history fact regurgitation skills are lacking due to the overwhelming amount of information that I crammed in public school and college.
Sadly, I didn’t retain a lot of historical knowledge because it ended up being downright boring to me in most cases. This is where learning history through literature comes in.
Learning history through literature completely changes the way history is learned, discussed, and celebrated in most cases. Instead of reciting and memorizing specifics of historical events and people, literary works make history come alive for the reader.
Using this method helps draw the student in and keeps them wanting to learn more. They’re sometimes put into the story as if they are living it.
Imagine reading about the bravery and courage of Sarah Noble aloud with family. Or learning about the knowledgeable and important Sacagawea through gorgeous illustrations. Or picturing yourself as young Leif Erikson setting sail into unknown waters.
Learning through literature helps you connect with your children through discussion and engaging conversations. It also helps students connect historic events and situations to happenings in their own lives.
This creates an environment that encourages critical reasoning, curiosity, and intellectual growth. You also have a great opportunity for strengthening the family connection when reading the stories aloud together.
Ignite Wonder with Living Books
The read-aloud curriculum by Beautiful Feet Books provides an education that is built solely on historical, biographical, and classical literary works. These types of books are referred to as living books. Living books pull the reader in and capture their imagination with gorgeous illustrations, rich language, and captivating stories.
Keep reading to enter a giveaway sponsored by Beautiful Feet Books! Ten winners will receive $100 store credit!
After a bit of research on using living books for homeschooling, I’ve found that living books normally suck the reader in by the first few pages. This intrigued me as both girls are avid readers and can normally be found with their noses stuck in a book.
Curious to learn more about living books and how to use them to homeschool? Check out these 5 ways to know if a book is worth sharing with your kids.
Sharing Read-Alouds With the Family
Beautiful Feet Books bases it’s program around read-alouds with the entire family. Reading aloud as a family allows time for connection, conversation and bonding. It opens up opportunities for unfiltered discussion and helps teach empathy and compassion.
With Beautiful Feet Books programs, it’s easy to include all family members in read-alouds. The stories are perfect to share with younger and older siblings. This makes their programs great for multi-age homeschooling.
What’s Included in Early American History Primary?
The Early American History Primary pack is designed to guide you through a 1 or 2 year-long history study with 94 lessons. You can choose 1-2 lessons per week for a 2-year study or 2-3 lessons per week for a 1-year study.
The teacher guide is designed as a tool, to lead you through the program. It doesn’t tie you down to specifics, which is one of the great benefits of homeschooling – you can be flexible and personalize your lessons.
There is plenty of opportunities to follow rabbit trails within this curriculum, too. Included at the start of each section is a list of additional books you can seek out in addition to those included in the pack.
Included in this pack:
- Teacher Guide
- 23 Books
- Notebook
You’ll also find online resources to complement some of the lessons. Just head to the Beautiful Feet Books website to find a list of all websites mentioned throughout the lessons. This is extremely convenient for planning purposes and a great way to incorporate additional media into the program.
Amazing Teacher Guide
If you’ve been an OLSH reader for a while, you know I’m always looking for robust, well laid out teacher guides. While many fall short of my high expectations, the Early American History Primary guide did not. In fact, it’s in the top few teacher guides that I was completely impressed with.
The full-color guide is over 125 pages and divided into 7 sections:
- The Vikings
- The Indigenous Peoples of North America
- The Golden Age of Discovery
- The Colonies
- The Revolutionary War
- The Young United States
- The Civil War
Each section starts with a short introduction. Then, you are given the list of rabbit trails you can choose to include in your study followed by online resources.
The section then is broken into individually numbered lessons. These lessons are short and to the point, but are written to encourage conversation. Provoking questions and discussion points align with the reading for that lesson.
The Early American History Primary pack is geared toward Kindergarten through 3rd grade. I found the lessons provide more than enough content and prompts so you can adjust accordingly for your child’s level. There are even answered included for some of the comprehension questions.
Activities are spread throughout the guide and are written out with instructions or include a link to online resources. These seem relatively simple yet heavily encourage the student to reflect on the events and characters from the stories.
Lessons also include the option for your child to create a student notebook. The blank notebook is included in the pack and a printable picture packet is available for free on the Beautiful Feet Books website. This packet includes black and white images from some of the books. Instructions on what to do with each picture are included in the lesson.
I love the notebooking portion of this curriculum. My girls are very hands-on and love working on a small activity while I read to them. The simple coloring or mapping activities were perfect to keep their hands busy while I read. I do wish the notebooking activities were noted more boldy in the lessons so I could have them ready, but that’s a minor inconvenience in my opinion.
The guide also includes recipes, titled The History Table, for easy-to-make dishes from the era of the lesson. We are a foodie family, so this was extra brownie points in our book!
23 Amazing Living Books
The Early American History Primary pack includes 23 carefully selected books. These books are all of amazing quality and written by authors who are passionate about the events and people.
Books included:
- The Courage of Sarah Noble
- Pilgrim Stories
- The Year of the Horseless Carriage 1801
- Phoebe the Spy
- Thee, Hannah!
- The Fourth of July Story
- Jamestown, New World Adventure
- Winter at Valley Forge
- A Picture Book of Sacagawea
- Pocahontas
- Buffalo Bill
- Encounter
- A More Perfect Union: The Story of Our Constitution
- Leif the Lucky
- Columbus
- Benjamin Franklin
- George Washington
- Abraham Lincoln
- Squanto’s Journey: The Story of the First Thanksgiving
- Dear Benjamin Banneker
- Crossing Bok Chitto
- Discovery of the Americas
- Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom
My Impression of Beautiful Feet Books
Upon opening our package, I am pretty sure I said out loud, “Wow, why are there so many books?” Then I remembered, the entire program is built upon beautifully illustrated books so there’s no need for fillers or fluff.
Beautiful Feet Books has chosen amazing stories to include in this pack. The girls were actually fighting over the books as we unpacked them.
With the handy teacher guide, beautifully selected books and the opportunity to take lots of rabbit trails if desired, this package can be used as an open-and-go curriculum or has the ability to be built upon.
While we haven’t had the chance to completely work through the entire 94 lesson program, I’m confident this is a program that we won’t “bail and bury” as we have with programs in the past. Many times a program becomes stale a few months in and we’ve all lost interest. This results in us bailing on the program and burying it on a shelf.
The Beautiful Feet Books set up allows for breaks, additional studies, and activities as needed – meaning we aren’t held to a specific schedule or amount of work. This is exactly the type of homeschooling flexibility we love.
Who Is Beautiful Feet Books For?
This would be the perfect package for new homeschoolers who want an open-and-go history curriculum. With several other levels of history, Beautiful Feet Books can be used with multiple ages or throughout a homeschooler’s entire school career.
Charlotte Mason homeschoolers will also love the structure of the Beautiful Feet Books programs. But learning history through literature can sometimes mean a lot of planning, sourcing books, and starting engaging conversations. This pack makes it easy to simply pick up and get lost in the stories of the early Americans, Vikings, explorers, and leaders of the past.
Families not familiar with learning from a literary standpoint will find this program a gentle way to ease into this style of schooling. We have no experience with a literature based program and found this program extremely easy to follow.
Other Beautiful Feet Books Packs
K-3rd Literature Packs
- Early American History Primary
- Around the World with Picture Books Part 1
- Around the World with Picture Books Part 2
- Teaching Character Primary Reading
4th-6th Literature Packs
- New Early American Intermediate
- Around California with Children’s Books
- History of Science
- History of the Horse
- Geography Through Literature
- Teaching Character Intermediate Reading
7th – 8th Literature Packs
- Modern American and World Intermediate
- Ancient History Intermediate
- Medieval History Intermediate
- History of Classical Music Intermediate
9th – 12th Literature Packs
- E.A. and World History Jr. High Pack
- Ancient History Senior High Pack
- Medieval History Senior High Pack
- Modern U.S. and World Senior High Pack
- Zeezok’s Government and Economics Pack
If you’re looking to add a history curriculum to your homeschool lineup or just want to introduce a literature-based program to your kids, be sure to check out the Beautiful Feet Books website for more information on their programs and philosophy. Learning history through literature is an amazing way to foster a love for learning any subject with the use of living books.
