MYSTERY OF HISTORY,VOLUME 1

(Written by Justin's wife) Disclaimer: if you aren't a Christian, this curriculum may not be for you. This is a Bible-based curriculum that shows how what happened in the Bible aligns with other events throughout history. It follows the young earth creationist belief. The third edition is fantastic because it includes great colored photographs and is hardcover. One little tweak I would make would be explaining artistic license to your student when it comes to the pictures. I believe the author used pieces of historical art to show scenes such as "Cain and Able" or "The Prophet Isiah". Some of these pictures show people one way when there's no certainty that is how that person actually looked. Especially when talking about ancient history. So I think for this it's helpful to let students know that artists' pull from their own ideas of how someone should look. The text is well done. Accessible for students of different ages. The author tries to word it like she's having a conversation with a friend, rather than keeping it dry like many textbooks do. I'm an adult and it kept my attention, and even my four year old has shown an interest in it. I can't judge what an older kid or teenager would think, since I only have a younger child.

The book was pricey but came the next day and for a used item it looked brand new. Great sellers.

I can’t wait to start using this with my child!

Haven't started using yet, but just flipping through we are impressed. The teaching companion PDF is chalk full of enriching ideas to correlate with the lessons! So exciting to use this in our home classroom this year

Love this series

I can't say enough about this series MOH 1 -MOH 4. I have used it with my kids ages 5, 7, 10, 13, 16,17. Using Brightidea press to print out coloring pages that go perfectly with every lesson for the Youngers and then usingthe notebooking pages for the middles and tests and quizzes for the olders...We ALL loved listing to the audios (with nice calm music that goes to the theme of each lesson) of them...I think it was one of the kids favorite times of day. 3 days per week. Finished each vol in a school year. WHAT I LOVE THE MOST about it is: 1.) it ties in Jesus/the Bible...into every lesson near the end...which totally makes sense bc Jesus is part of every day of History! It is NOT over spiritualized though...I grew up with Abeka which kinda did that. She deals with the best and the worst parts of history and does not takes a "side"...but gives various views (ie. like how people saw Christopher Colombus). THe people in history come across as they were... Real. Sinners. In need of God's mercy. Making good choices and bad. It was clear to myself and the kids how much choices affect history... and 2.) She is a GREAT story teller and she wraps you into the Mystery that is History. I just have to say I am a VERY eclectic homeschool mom that has tried out so so many curriculum...and of all the curriculum this is the ONLY one I have ever stucj with through all my kids and then did another round 5 years later :-)

For Christian homeschooling parents and their children, this is a very good option. The quality of the textbook pages and the outstanding artwork and photographs go a long way in justifying the hefty price tag of each volume (between $75-$100, depending on where you get it). Clearly designed as a sort of survey course in ancient history (Book 1 ends with Christ's resurrection), it will satisfy most parents' expectations and desires for a Christian worldview of history. The 4-volume textbook series does suffer from some flaws, at least in my opinion. If it had been possible, I would given the review 3.5 stars rather than 4, but I prefer to err---if erring it is---in the direction of the positive. PROS: Incredibly high quality textbook with its art and photographs and high-grade paper. This goes a long way in justifying the rather steep price ($70-$95) for each volume. The book presents an Evangelical outlook on history which can be seen as literally faithful to Sacred Scripture (the author is a young-earth creationist), which will give heart to parents looking to integrate traditional Christian beliefs into both religious and secular history. There is a wonderful array of ancillary materials available (at a rather steep cost) with the text which will be very helpful in preparing lessons for students. The writing tone is friendly and conversational, very appealing to the younger end of the students (1st-5th grades) for whom this textbook series was at least partially designed (but see below). CONS: First of all, the cost, though as stated above, I believe the quality of the product helps to make this a more acceptable hurdle to overcome. My biggest issue with the textbook is its rather cursory approach to content. Admittedly, this may be exactly the point of the author(s), but I came away feeling as if the content could have been so much richer. And while I admire and believe I understand the very heavy emphasis of Biblical characters and the Bible narrative, I feel like this was achieved at the expense of so much more culture and history. Any historical author has to edit his material and cannot include *everything* he wants to put in, but it appears that so much was omitted that should have been included, and this is generally in the secular (or non-Biblical) domain. There is, to my mind, simply not enough content, and one must go elsewhere to find it and incorporate it (not a bad thing to do in any case). The author's tone, which I mentioned above regarding younger students, may not set as well with older, mainly high school, students. Again, this was no doubt a necessary feature chosen by the author to appeal to as wide a range of student ages and abilities as possible. I just find it somewhat off-putting when teaching older students. And last, almost a side note, the religious material (and there is a great deal of it) seems to be more Protestant in nature. For Protestants and Evangelicals, this is no doubt precisely what is desired. For conservative or traditional Roman Catholic homeschooling parents, a little more work will be required to incorporate their faith view into the course. I have no idea how future differences in Protestant and Catholic history (e.g., the Reformation) are treated in subsequent volumes since I have only reviewed Book 1. All in all, this 4-volume textbook series is a good choice for those whose outlook the author shares. The quality of the books puts many competitors in the dust. If the content and presentation are compatible, it's an acceptable choice. However, I have found Bauer's 4-volume "The Story of the World" to be superior in content (if not presentation), and at a far better price. More attention is paid both to the general historical narrative and the literary and cultural content. Bauer's texts also come with excellent ancillary materials as well and are, to me, more adaptable to a wide variety of ages.

We bought all parts of the curricula & worked through it all for 1/2 of it and a bit beyond. We got 100% on almost all of its pretests for the whole book. It is a narrative book as if grandma tells you stories at bedtime, not meaty at all, requires extensive supplementation with hard to find materials at a public library. It also requires lots of printing of pretests, tests, exercises, activities.... You will be managing a ton of loose paper sheets. Since the chapters are vague and short, the learning cards were almost not used by us. The audio of the textbook is well done, so if you travel or have a child that does not read well or dislikes reading, these CDs would help. If your child dislikes taking notes, then lap book makes sense. It is too much to do both writing and lap booking. Some people prefer to buy Evan-Moor Ancient Civilizations Pockets. I have both lap book and pockets and I prefer the substitution, too. We really wanted to like this history series but boy is it vague, busy and so focused on Israel. We are moving on to a better-suited program in the mid-year. One that has all one needs, no chasing of anything, all binded & preprinted, meaty & well balanced in content about major countries/nations.