BookShark History With Readers 7

Last year my eldest used BookShark History 6 with Readers and really enjoyed it. This year he picked right back up where he left off using BookShark History 7 with Readers, and he didn’t enjoy it. Nope, he absolutely loved it. He’s raved so much about the books, the fun and the learning, I think he’s going to be totally bummed when he finishes it off next week.

History 7 picks up where History 6 left off and carries you reasonably close to modern day. The book choices were so fantastic that it is really hard to name a favourite. In fact, while discussing the books read this year it was quick to understand this when a book would be snatched up and dubbed “the best” only for another one to be seen followed by, “okay maybe this was the best!”

Just like with BookShark 6 we didn’t use a full Core, although it is offered. We already had all our other subjects covered and at hand, so we chose to simply use BookShark for their history offerings and I’m so glad we did.

How I Use BookShark History:

This year was pretty open and go. When our instructor guide {IG} arrived I bound it up in the same fashion that I’ve bound many other IGs. Then, when I had an afternoon to myself I was able to flip through and take note of things as I colour-coded my guide. Yes, you read that right, I colour-coded my guide.

Why? I think better in colour. There’s really no other reason for it. I open up each week and mark things in the same colours so that I can easily locate anything we’re looking for at a glance. This also means I can quickly open up the guide the week of our studies and glance down the vocabulary list to see if there are any words my child should be prepped on prior to reading for the day.

It allows me to see at a glance if there are excess notes about any of the readings and if there are what they are about. It also allows me to see if we need to read or discuss the readings for the day/week. It just allows me to feel at total peace with our IG. It’s not a needed thing at all. Many people never put a single mark on their guides and that is perfectly fine too.

Over the course of the previous year and summer I read the majority of the BookShark 7 books I was unfamiliar with so I had an idea of what the books were about. This also allowed me to make any substitutions I might feel necessary, in the case of History 7 I actually removed one book that I wasn’t pleased with, all the rest stayed.

I put all the books in a large basket on my son’s school shelf so that he can easily locate them. The guide is kept in the book basket so I can easily locate it. He opens up his planner, glances at what he’s suppose to do and off he trots.

My son did this BookShark Core independently the majority of the year. We stared out doing the read aloud and encyclopedia together, but once his new visual spectral filters {coloured glasses} arrived I handed him the work and he was able to accomplish it all.

My eldest child has severe Visual Processing Disorder (VPD). While he can read and write quite well, his ability to read quickly is hampered by his VPD. In order for him to work independently and maintain the schedule without ever feeling bogged down he used audio books. This allowed him to keep pace with the guide and eventually set his own course moving ahead in various areas that excited him, slowing down when he needed to and so on.

While I did not do much of the work with him, I still heard all about it. Hardly a day went by when he didn’t come out flabbergasted by some new astounding piece of information he’d learned wondering if it was really true. My response was always the same, “Why not look it up in another resource.” Our shelves are bursting with books and Google is a great friend in this area too.

What I didn’t like:

• It’s hard to really pinpoint any one thing I didn’t appreciate about this core as my child did the work and raved so much about it. Having said that, I did pre-read the book Betsy & The Emperor and was not pleased with the underlying tones in the book. I made the judgement call to remove the book. I really really wish there had been something else available to supplement the removal of this book, but my library choices are limited.
  
• My son was so-so with reading The Scarlet Pimpernel. It wasn’t an easy read {or listen}, but there was a turning point where the book became really great and we crash listened together to this one. He did, however, feel that he’d been thrown into the middle of a time period due to the placement of this book and he didn’t feel he had enough background to fully grasp what the angst was about in the beginning of the story. We made use of a really great BBC Documentary on The French Revolution to help him out. In general he’s not really into any form of “romantic” stories so in that essence this title was slightly stacked against him, but once we finished the book he was glad he’d stuck it out. However, his “I hate germ” side is still repulsed by any man who’d kiss dirty footprints of any woman..

• At times there were copious amounts of notes speaking against the main spine that BookShark chose to use. I found this very very peculiar. If a company chooses a spine then I would think one should feel it’s good enough not to need copious amounts of notes in order to rebuttal what is said. If one doesn’t stand by the spine they’ve chosen, then why choose it at all? I’m also quite curious how updated some of the notes are considering the spines have been updated several times since the original notes were written. Having said that, we were not disappointed with the spine or the information it portrayed. We accept that history is always going to be told on a bias depending on which country the author is from. It is easy enough to glance at the notes, ignore the notes, or read them depending on which needs suit your family.

What I Loved:

• The Books. I’m not gonna lie, ancient history can be a slog at times and so reading the books in Level 7 was a pure delight to find times and places we could relate to. I enjoyed every minute of pre-reading that I did before handing my child this stack of books and telling him how much he was going to love it. There were a few books I never pre-read and my boy returned them to me with, “Please read this and don’t dawdle about it. I need to talk about this book, but I can’t or I’ll spoil the story for you.” It’s hard not to love something when you see that type of passion coming from your kid.
• The schedule. We just wrapped up our 10th year of homeschooling. When my kids were little I loved planning out units and making schedules and all the wonderful things that I did. But I reached a point where I needed someone else to deal with all the finer details so I could revel in my children, their abilities, and the simple joy of watching them learn. That’s exactly what this schedule offers my family. It’s also made the transition from dependent to independent learning painless for my teenager. We had a few crazy weeks with a grandparent in need of emergency help, my husband in need of emergency help, a sick sibling, etc. My boy didn’t miss a beat because he could just pull out the schedule and keep right on going. 

• Passion. My son’s love for history has only deepened while using this level of BookShark. One evening while we were all gathered around the dinner table discussing our days, he got lost on a trail of telling us all about what he’d been learning and how fascinating some aspects were but how insane others seemed. When he came up for air my husband sighed and said, “You know, I never really cared much for history in school. In fact, I hated it.” In absolute horror our child said, “What? How can you hate history?!”

Bottom Line:

Any curriculum that can make my child passionate about a subject is bound to win a whole lotta love from our family. That’s exactly what BookShark has done. It has taken history from being a subject to a passion for our child.

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To see more of how Kendra uses Bookshark 7,  encourages independence with BookShark Cores, or to learn more about visual processing disorder check out blog.aussiepumpkinpatch.com

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