TOS Crew Review -- American Heritage

Last year we took a family trip to Washington DC and I found myself once again stunned at the richness of the heritage of our nation. The intentional faith of our founding fathers, the careful crafting of a new nation, the vision of hope and freedom.

American Heritage Education Foundation (AHEF) seeks to capture, build on, and pass along these virtues. AHEF is a "non-profit, non-partisan educational foundation dedicated to the understanding and teaching of America's factual and philosophical heritage to promote constructive citizenship and Freedom, Unity, Progress, and Responsibility among our students and citizens." They accomplish this through, "writing, producing, and distributing FREE K-12 lesson plans to teachers, students, and families in all 50 states and through additional initiatives, programs, and partnerships."

Product: American Heritage Education Foundation's lesson plan CD (national edition)
Details: This CD offers lesson plans for Kindergarten through high school. The lesson plans come complete with background information, goals, activities, estimated time, and other helpful resources.
Price: FREE! (You can order the complementing binder and materials for $19.50 per level)

What we loved . . .

• The richness of our history undiminished.
• Taking a vast topic and boiling it down to memorable themes -- freedom, unity, responsibility, and progress.
• Builds national pride. I feel this is important. Not that I am proud of where America is today, but recognizing what we could be, and what we have lost, renews my hope and my desire to pray for our nation as a whole, the individuals that compose it, and its leaders.
• Focus on original documents.
• Largely self contained. Lots of information and direction is contained right in the CD itself.
• Not too time consuming, so that can fit in with whatever else you might already be doing. About an hour every other week will carry you from September to May.
  

Challenges we faced . . .

• It is easy to get overwhelmed at first with the amount of information contained in the CD.
• Working with wide range of ages is sometimes difficult, and we faced that a bit as well here. The younger kids may not have grasped as much, and the oldest one may have been a bit under challenged, but I think the principles taught were still beneficial to all.

Of course, there is no better price than free, and this CD has something for just about everyone. I would encourage you to take a look at the AHEF website, order yourself one of these free CDs (or download the material straight from their website if you prefer) and take some time to go through the material with your kids. They have some great quotes, inspirational writings, needed reminders and teaching tools, and lessons that will build character and patriotism.


For more TOS Crew reviews on this product, check out the TOS Crew blog.

Disclaimer: This CD was provided to me free of charge from The American Heritage Education Foundation as part of my participation in The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew. I received no additional compensation and the opinions expressed here come from my personal experiences and sincere thoughts.