{Review} Heroes of History: George Washington

As Classical homeschoolers we love our history studies and are prone to do more, rather than less, reading on our focus topics. This eighth grade year Amber is studying Early Modern history, which is basically the Pilgrims through the American Revolution. Of course we've previously covered this time period in depth, which means I need some pretty spectacular resources this time around.

Recently we were offered the chance to review George Washington: True Patriot from the Heroes of History series by YWAM Publishing, along with the associated Unit Study Curriculum Guide. This biography of George Washington fit perfectly into our history studies for this year!

We received George Washington: True Patriot as a physical paper book (224 pages), however it is also available as an audio book in either CD or MP3 format and as an e-book in Nook, Kindle, and YWAM direct e-book formats.  So whichever way you like to read, YWAM has you covered! The Unit Study Curriculum Guide is also a physical paperback book of 64 detailed pages.

George Washington: True Patriot is a biography of our country's first president from the time of his early childhood in the colonies through his death after becoming one of our nation's heroes. Unique and uncommon stories of his life are included in the book. Each account is used to demonstrate the affect it had on George Washington's future life and decisions, making him the man our country turned to over and over again. The book is geared for students 10 years old and up, but could definitely be used as a read-aloud for a younger crowd.

The associated Unit Study Curriculum Guide (63 pages) for George Washington: True Patriot turns an already valuable history resource into a full American history study.  This unit study includes much more than one student can complete in the areas of writing assignments and project ideas.  The unit study guide can be used for a wide range of students and adapted to many learning types due to the array of assignments included.

At home or even the PT waiting room, this was an interesting read.

Highlights of the Unit Study Curriculum Guide include:

• Creative writing prompts
• Dramas
• Reading comprehension questions
• Essay writing assignments
• Geography
• Timeline project
• Movie critiqing
• Hands on projects, audio visual projects, arts & crafts projects
• Games
• Many additional resource ideas

The reading book, George Washington: True Patriot, is divided into 19 chapters. The unit study guide includes questions over each chapter of the book, but these questions are not simply "did you read it" type questions. Every chapter has only four questions which cover the following topics:

1. Vocabulary related
2. Factual
3. Comprehension
4. Opinion or interpretation. These have no right or wrong answer as long as the opinion can be justified.

4 questions per chapter, ensure understanding without overload.

Our Experience:
Amber has been over the Colonial era of our country in history several times now in her history studies, but particularly enjoyed using a biography as a new approach to studying the time period. She chose to read several chapters of the book at a time, then complete the chapter questions.

At first Amber was a little miffed about having questions to answer for each chapter, fearing there would be endless detail questions to complete about the reading. She was pleasantly surprised and quite willing to finish her assignments when she found the questions are short while still reinforcing the point of each chapter. She never did realize the answers to the factual questions are in the back of the study guide book.

After completing the book reading, Amber filled out the George Washington fact sheet included in the study guide. It did require a little online research to finish all the details on the sheet, yet we both learned new information about Washington through our search.

Prior to reading the book, we went over the project ideas together and decided on a couple of items for after she finished the reading. We would have loved to spend a couple of months working on just the projects in this book, but unfortunately our schedule did not allow for it.

Fact sheet from the Unit Study book, plus a few of Amber's chapter questions.

In the end, we were very appreciative of the wide array and adaptability of the projects. Amber had selected a few creative writing assignments, however she's been experiencing increased pain in her hands and we've been trying to minimize her hand writing and typing. Instead, we worked on those creative projects and a couple essay writing suggestions as verbal discussion. It definitely was not the same experience as a written project, but we were ever so grateful for the discussion ideas.

George Washington: True Patriot and its companion Unit Study Curriculum Guide were a perfect fit our homeschool studies. It was just the spectacular resource we needed to keep Amber's interest on this often covered American history topic. The books work well as either a quick biography resource to round out your Revolution period studies, or as a complete unit study. Either way, you can't go wrong with this set!

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Visit other members of the Review Crew for more information on the Heroes of History and Christian Heroes: Then and Now series!

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