Ever since my now 12-year-old was in Kindergarten, he’s been a fan of anything related to middle ages history; so much so that we were forever building marshmallow catapults, foam board swords, and flails and helmets and reading and looking through picture books about knights and castles. We also attended the Medieval Times Dinner tournament attraction several times to keep him engaged and entertained.
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Now that he’s older, it’s time to take his love of history and really take a deep dive into the time period. We were lucky to be asked to use Beautiful Feet Books Intermediate Pack for grades 5 through 8, in our homeschool in exchange for a review.
Homeschool History Review: Middle Ages History by Beautiful Feet Books
If your middle-grade learner is like mine; a fan of all things knights and castle related from a very young age, the Beautiful Feet Books Medieval History Homeschool Curriculum, geared for students in grades 5 through 8 is the perfect way to expand upon their interest in The Middle Ages.
Here are 5 reasons why you may want to choose Beautiful Feet Books Medieval History for your middle-grade homeschool history curriculum:
1. Your family enjoys learning history through literature. If your family enjoys learning through literature, the Beautiful Feet Books Medieval History curriculum is a perfect fit. Your learner will discover Queen Eleanor, Joan of Ark, King Richard, King Arthur, and Mansa Musa, to name just a few – through the twenty included books in this Medieval History curriculum.
Covering the years 400 through 1600, your student will work through hands-on activities, and engage with the content through discussion questions, mapping activities, and websites that will help expand upon the information presented throughout the curriculum.
2. You enjoy variety in your homeschool history lessons. Throughout the lessons, you and your learner will have the opportunity to include additional outside resources in your lessons.
For example, in the first week of study, the Teacher Guide suggests using the Crash Course European History channel on YouTube to supplement the learning.
We enjoyed this aspect not only because we enjoy the Crash Course videos anyway, but being able to mix things up in my son’s lessons, helps keep everything fresh and current. I have adult children living at home (also formerly homeschooled) who are also history buffs, so when everyone is home, we tend to watch educational YouTube videos, so this was a great addition.
The Homeschool Teacher Guide
3. You need a flexible and easy-to-use Teacher’s Guide. What’s great about the Beautiful Feet books curriculum is that it includes everything you need to get started the minute you unbox; from the comprehensive Teacher Guide to general scheduling ideas and background information.
Beautiful Feet Books also include resources for additional rabbit trails. This is a great way to stretch out the content if you’re using the curriculum in the way that we are – over the course of 2 school grades.
These rabbit trails allow you and your learner to truly dig in to the material. They’re perfect for immersing yourselves in the material to get the most out of it.
Click here to download a sample of the Homeschool Teacher Guide
Beautiful Feet Books Provides a Hands-on Approach to History
4. Your learner loves maps and geography. My 12-year-old learner is a big fan of cartography. Because of this, the included mapping activities were a winner.
He enjoys marking off regions as we learn about them and the timeline of relevant people and events really helps to put all of the data and information into perspective, which with world history, can be a truly daunting task!
One thing of note is that I thought it might be challenging for middle schoolers to use an atlas to map out regions and landmarks on the provided map. Firstly, the map seems a bit condensed, or squished for lack of a better term. The map seemed a bit distorted, making locating regions a bit difficult.
5. Your student is a visual learner. The Beautiful Feet Books Timeline Figures help your learner put history into perspective. This gave my learner a better sense of when events occurred.
My son enjoyed adding the figures to the timeline; this activity coupled with a few supplemental timeline books we had on hand, really helped him understand the time period and what else was going on in the world.
“Mom, it’s cool to see what was going on in other places while all of this was happening.”
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While doing the mapping, my son used what he already knew, and then consulted with a modern atlas to continue labeling the regions/cities on the map.
The ancient city of Antioch, Syria does not exist on a modern map. You’ll need to use the book, The European World to comprehensively complete the map and this is noted within the Homeschool Teacher Guide. The verbiage could be a bit clearer – instead referencing Antioch in modern-day Turkey – but all-in-all, we’re big fans of the learning through literature, approach in our homeschool.
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