{REVIEW} The Good and the Beautiful History – Year 3

This post is SO LONG OVERDUE. We finished up our third year of history last summer and I really debated about just skipping this post BUT I want to remember all of the goodness of this year of history. This was our third year with The Good and the Beautiful for history and we continue to just love it. We love hitting four different time periods in the year and the variety that it brings.

Topics

Each year of history has four units that cover a different period of time. We LOVE this way of learning history. It really helps avoid burnout in my opinion. We go from ancient to modern and it has been amazing. I have a detailed review of each individual unit that will give you LOADS of information (click on the unit to find the review):

• Unit 1: Ancient Mesopotamia & Ancient Israel
• Unit 2: Ancient Africa & Native North Americans
• Unit 3: Westward Expansion and Industrialization
• Unit 4: World War II

Preparation

The Good and the Beautiful history courses really have minimal prep – which is so great! I did a whole post about how I prep history if you want more information about what I do for our little schoolhouse.

Included in the course set is:

• Year 3 Course Book: This book takes you through the course. The lessons are ALL outlined for you and it is very easy to follow.
• Year 3 Big Book of History Stories: This book is full of stories, maps, and images. It is BEAUTIFUL. This really adds depth to the lessons and the course book lets you know when to use it.
• Bill of Rights Roundup Game: Each history course has a game that accompanies it. This was probably my least favorite history game but Jacob and I both learned a lot about the Bill of Rights so, in that way, it was definitely beneficial.
• Year 3 History Timeline: Beginning in Year 2 of The Good and the Beautiful History Courses, you begin implementing a timeline. So in Year 3, you don’t get a new timeline, you just get additional stickers to add. This is really helpful to see where things happen in the scope of history. We just put in on our wall and so it is an easy resource to use.
• Student Explorers: This is the only thing that does require some preparation. Again, I go more in depth in this post about what I do to prep. The student explorers are given as a PDF file, then you can download them and use them for your kiddos. They are divided by grades, so we only have experience with the Grades 1 – 3 ones. This brings yet another layer of depth to your lessons.
• Audio Recordings: This is easily one of our favorite parts of the history courses! This follows the same family throughout the course as they learn history right along with you. They are so well done and a nice piece of variety to the lessons.
• Read Alouds: It is suggested that you read a book to go along with each unit. This has brought a lot of learning and really brings the time period ALIVE!

Length of Lessons

The lessons are designed to take about 60 minutes and I would save on average, that is even a little high. Very rarely does it take 60 minutes – I would say we are usually between 30-45 minutes each lesson. The only time it takes longer is if there are additional activities – which are GREAT!

Student Explorers

As I mentioned earlier, the student explorers are divided up by grades. So there are explorers for Grades 1 – 3, 4 – 6, 7 – 9, and 10 – 12. I can only speak for Grades 1 – 3, but they are a lot of fun and help solidify those things you are learning.

In Grades 1 – 3, there are a lot of maps, timeline pages, history heroes (my FAVORITE!), and coloring pages.

Audio Recordings

The audio recordings are definitely a favorite around here. These recordings are found online and accessed through a password that you receive when you purchase the course (I think you can download them if your internet is wishy-washy or if you would prefer to have them that way).

These add so much depth and I love them! You can also access them as a script if you’d rather read them out loud. I think this may be fun to do occasionally when the kiddos get older!

The Bill of Rights Roundup Game

As I mentioned earlier, the Bill of Rights Game wasn’t my favorite game in the lineup but it was still really helpful (and in defense of The Good and the Beautiful, they did set the standard pretty high with their previous games!). Basically, you are given various scenarios and you are asked whether or not it is legal or not. If you answer correctly, you get to add a horse to your corral. The first person to fill their corral with ten horses wins.

Read Alouds

We love our read alouds around here! And I would definitely not skip on these. They truly bring history alive and we have really enjoyed them. We do one read aloud per unit in our family. These were our choices this year:

• The Golden Bull: A Mesopotamian Adventure by Marjorie Cowley
• Tikta’Liktak: An Inuit-Eskimo Legend by James Houston
• Gold Mountain by Gwendolen Lampshire Hayden and Pearl Clements Gischler
• The Winged Watchman by Hilda van Stockum

If you ware wanting more details about the books, click on the individual unit reviews.

I also encourage Jacob to read books on his own that go along with the time period we are studying. I would recommend any of these books and they would go best for someone in Grades 1 – 3 or ages 7 – 9 ish. Here were Jacob’s picks this year:

• Danger on a Silent Night by Marianne Hering and Nancy I. Sanders
• Light in the Lions’ Den by Marianne Hering
• Showdown with the Shepherd and Marianne Hering and Brock Eastman
• Prairie School by Avi
• Escape to the Hiding Place by Marianne Hering and Marshall Younger

Our Favorite Activities

We did this course during a year that was highly stressful in our family life (Lydia’s Rett Syndrome diagnosis). And if I am being honest, it was kind of one of those let’s just SURVIVE this year kind-of-years.

But here were some of our favorite activities that we did:

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The moment that resonated the most with me occurred in our first unit. It was so eye-opening to learn about the events we read so often in the Old Testament and learn about them with the added depth of secular history. It was fascinating. I write more about this in our post detailing the first unit.

Final Thoughts

This year in history was wonderful. As I mentioned, this year in school was hard and I felt stretched really thin as a mom. I feel like the word I mentioned the most while writing this post was DEPTH. And this course gives so much depth without feeling overwhelming. And I mean that both with the prep/logistical side of things, but also in content. It never feels overwhelming but has so many layers of goodness. I am grateful I get to have this special time with Jacob and learn about those that have come before us.

If you are interested in this course, you can find it HERE.

History Reviews

The Good and the Beautiful History Year 3

• Unit 1: Ancient Mesopotamia & Ancient Israel
• Unit 2: Ancient Africa & Native North Americans
• Unit 3: Westward Expansion and Industrialization
• Unit 4: World War II

The Good and the Beautiful History Year 2

• Unit 1: Ancient Greece and Ancient Asia
• Unit 2: Vikings, Exploration, and Pre-Columbian America
• Unit 3: Colonial America & the U.S. Constitution
• Unit 4: History of U.S. Education & WWI through the Great Depression

The Good and the Beautiful History Year 1

I have not written a formal review of this year, but we did complete it and would love to answer any questions you may have.