American Heritage Education Foundation
www.americanheritage.org
The lesson plans are available in three different levels–elementary, middle, and high school. They can be downloaded from the site or ordered on a CD-Rom free of charge. Each level is also available printed in a binder for $19.50 each. The CD-Rom has all three levels. The Crew was sent the CD, though mine never made it here. I downloaded the elementary section. The download was pretty easy and quick even with our very slow DSL. You have the option of downloading the entire group or each section individually.
According to the AHEF site, there are four key characteristics that make America what it is. These are Freedom, Unity, Progress, and Responsibility.
It is critical that our nation’s history, heritage, advancement, and goodness not only be constantly remembered and celebrated, it must be studied and relearned anew by each generation. If this is not accomplished, then our young generation today and future generations will not understand, appreciate, and maintain our fundamental national characteristics that it received from the previous generation.
As quoted from the page Themes explaining how and why the study materials came to be.
The idea of the lessons sounds quite appealing. Of course we want our children to have an understanding of the ideals upon which our nation was founded. The lessons are written for classroom use, but are easy to adapt (for most) to a home setting. There are various activities to re-enforce the lessons making them enjoyable for all learning styles. If you are looking for something to ensure that you are covering some of the basics of U.S. history/government, social studies, etc. then this is an easy way to introduce the material as covered by the standards of the national Core Knowledge Skills. While I found nothing wrong with the material–many of the activities I know my children will enjoy–we choose to study our history and government in a different manner. Some of these things may prove to be a good supplement for our style of learning. The CD is free, downloading from the site is free–it is worth checking out the site www.americanheritage.org
Be sure to check out what other Crew members are saying http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HomeschoolCrew/739239/