Thank you so so so much for making this video! I am a brand new homeschool Momma and we are a secular family. Finding the secular curricula in the sea of non-secular is overwhelming!
I agree, if it is labeled as secular, and then it isn't, it feels extra icky. Just be honest. Say that you are attempting to write it neutrally, but you are a person or publisher of faith. We all have biases, and curriculum publishers should be designed so carefully because of that.
Oh this was a fantastic video!!! And a big smile and nod on your feelings about Story of the World!! I was the same as you, couldn’t figure out if it was secular, it’s kinda advertised as neutral, and it is SO HARD to find quality history, this one was so popular, I thought it must be good. I read the first chapter of the first book to my kids, everything was going great! Then I was preparing the next weeks lesson and read the next chapter to prepare and was like, wait…that’s sorta odd…maybe it’s just me. Read several more chapters, and couldn’t resell it fast enough! You’re right! It’s underhanded and hidden like some sort of curse in the pages. I was SO ANNOYED!!! Wasted money! Wasted time! And you see, this curriculum just has a knee jerk rant reflex for us all!! LOLOLOL!!! Thank goodness for your wonderful videos which have helped me so so so much find quality curriculum! You are just fantastic and I appreciate all the time you put into your videos! Thank you!!!
I just don’t think you can describe something as NEUTRAL when it comes to religious content. It’s either religious or it’s not. I wish they would just say it.
I feel you on SOTW! You must be our homeschool twin, my kids love Beast Academy and I loved using History of US when I taught middle school history. Can’t wait to break the books out when we start U.S. History next year.
I so totally agree with you about Lightning Literature!! We started with grade 2 and it's one of our favorites!! My son is loving all the books, writing projects and he is absolutely loving it 😊 watching this really made me excited about all the other grades...
Loved this video. Thanks for sharing. I have been looking into what literature/reading curriculum to use after we finish All About Reading and LL looks awesome. I will be watching your video on that. And I agree with you about SOTW. :)
Lightning Literature is great! We are using it this year for 4th & 5th grade and we love it! Thank you for introducing it to me in one of your curriculum videos! We will be continuing to use it the next school year.
Thank you! You are the first secular homeschooler I’ve found, and it helps. I respect all people’s beliefs, and love finding friendly advice. We are not religious and it can be difficult finding homeschool resources.
Absolutely agree with you on the story of the world. It is sneaky. I have had curriculum that the voice of the narrative really reminded me of listening to a ministry. (And not the band! 😅😂)
I agree so much about story of the world. I never listen to religious homeschoolers now about what is secular or not because they have no clue a lot of the time. Also I knew your top choice would be lightening literature! Haha.
We also use History of US and it has made history our favorite subject for the second year in a row. (Two boys, 5th and 2nd grade). We have a large map of the US and one of the world in our living room and when we are curled up on the couch reading we go find the places on the map 👍. Great way to get geography in! Love the short chapters, level of detail, and story approach... Very digestible and educational for all of us! Learning a lot together
Love love love the History of us... my daughter just read this series this year (11th grade) If someone is looking for a schedule or curriculum to go along with it ..... we found it through Bookshark. New subscriber here 🤗 looking forward to your videos.
I looooove LL (minus the composition portion), but unfortunately it has not worked well for my 4th grader this year. I am really hoping that after some tweaking and maturing we can return to it for him next year. My 2nd grader will be using level 2 soon, and seems pretty excited to dig in. I cannot wait!🥰
commenting on this older video because i feel the same way about SotW. my daughter is now 20 but we used vol. 1 and i also purchased 2 and 3 because as you said, there werent many secular programs for history back then. i remember that at the time nearly everyone considered SotW to be a secular series. Even on the Well-Trained Mind forums that was the recommended secular choice. I dont really recall when it hit me but one day we are working through a chapter and shes coloring her ugly coloring page from that beastly activity book and I'm like uh this isnt a secular statement. Then the realization that theres always been a religious slant to it set in. I felt like it was disappointing to have that realization as far in as we were because my guard was down. I'm now on the path to homeschool my 'second set' of kids and theyre 6 and 4 and boy are the secular options so amazing! I'm so thoroughly excited to see the shift as homeschooling has become more mainstream.
Thank you for the info!! I was homeschooled with ACE. Definitely very anti-theist now. Would still love to do early education for homeschool, and was hoping a secular option was available! So glad!
So interesting that you disliked SOTW! I have never tried it, but I could tell from watching a lot of reviews that it wasn't for us. I think you have similar taste in history curriculum as I do, so now I'm very intrigued by Story of US
10 years of homeschooling & you have an absolute favorite; now that is a recommendation! I'll have to check out Lightening Literature and I'll start with your reviews, thank you!
If your kiddos like Beast Academy, look into "Know Yourself" for science. It's all about the human body, comic structure with practice books. Each book goes over one system, but the first one goes over the five senses.
I've been holding off on "The Story of Us" because I have a kindergartner and a 3 year old and figured I should wait a while, but decided to go ahead and purchase them based on this review. I was able to get 10 of the books on thriftbooks for $50, compared to buying the set from Amazon for $92. I wanted to ask your thoughts on the 11th book - it says "source book" and I wasn't sure what that meant (that volume is not included in the Amazon set, nor did I see it on thriftbooks). Is that something I should seek out in your opinion? *I was pleasantly surprised to find that my library system does have them available for checkout, as well as the Joy Hakim Science books. I decided to purchase the History ones because it's my favorite and I know I'll want those, but it's a good option for someone who might not necessarily want to own them. I will be checking out the Science books for a flip through before I decide on those. Thanks for the info!!
Thanks for the price points!! I haven’t used the 11th book much. It does have a lot of great things in it, such as The Bill of Rights, etc. I just keep forgetting to include it
My family is Roman Catholic, and I'm so grateful for the secular curricula. We are very fussy about religious instruction and don't appreciate generically religious insertions into all the subjects. I just want math that does math, literature that does literature, and science that does science. History is tricky because you can't NOT take a stance. I appreciate the reviews! I intend to take a look at Lightning Literature.
@@HomeschoolHappyHour I was looking at History Quest for a while, but I think I'll wing it with books that I like that are above my kids' reading level, read it to them, and take it from there.
Did you ever find a good history course? I’m having the same issue. Secular ones try to divorce the religion out and the religious ones are too heavy for me.
@@flynnmorrow6945 makes sense. I think I was going to use Story of the World but then got scared off about the negative reviews about their modern section. My kid is still in 2nd grade so I decided to focus more on local and American history first. I landed on Beautiful Feet early American history. We will see how it goes. I’m still a bit suspicious of it. I was thinking of checking out the Tuttle Twins new history book, but there are not many reviews out yet.
I carefully researched LL before purchasing for my daughter. I think it's a wonderful program, but she hates the grammar and the composition parts. I agree that there isn't much help in the writing part. We are loosely following now by reading the books and answering the comprehension questions. I'm sad it didn't work for us.
I have not used SOTW, but I know Emily at BYL had said that the first couple levels of it were not secular, and I think she was specifically talking about the very early history part where christian biblical history is presented as fact. I mean that flat out means that it isn't secular which is pretty different IMO from just a biased or a whitewashed account of events. I think where it gets complicated is that the later levels of SOTW can be considered secular.
I just started homeschooling this year and am secular. I am having the hardest time with history. The problem you mentioned with SOTW is the exact problem I am having with secular history curriculum. Western perspective of history is heavily influenced by religion whether you like it not. I was using TGTB for history and it was way too religious focused borderlining Bible study. After researching many things, I landed on Beautiful feet early American history. Do you have any other non crt influenced secular history choices? I feel like some people have over corrected if that makes sense.
This has been my biggest struggle! Finding good history is HARD. I used Curiosity Chronicles for a bit and I liked that. We are currently using History of US along side Crash Course videos on RU-vid. Most of our history is discussion based. A great resource as an adult is Lies My Teacher Told Me. If you find something you love, please share 💕
I'm completely with you on curriculum deceitfuly presenting itself as Secular when it is not - rant away. Have you used any of Joy Hakim's science/ or history of science books? Our core theme of the year is History - we will be using Pandia Press's History Quest Early Times, and their Life for science, and among the pile of books I've grabbed to go along with them is her book Aristotle leads the way. We haven't used it yet, at first glance I had a steam coming from the ears moment because it's first paragraph was a bible quote.. But it's followed by a Mayan quote, then a Hindu quote and seems to be covering all bases with various belief systems and their relevance to history and science at each stage through the history of science.
Yes! We are using Aristotle Leads the Way right now. I bought the companion teacher guide and kids workbook with it. In short: neither of the added books are being used anymore, but the main text is. I have it on my “need to do a review” list, so keep an eye out for that video if you’re interested in a more detailed review
@@HomeschoolHappyHour yes I seen them but didn't get them as this is our first year of following an external curriculum with History Quest, and Pandia Life science
I'm currently using the story of the world as a secular homeschooler, and at first I was iffy about the religion that is in it but having almost finished the first book. The way I see it is that they don't just share Christianity they also share Hinduism as fact so they just give the facts of the religion and the parts that are up for interpretation they leave out like they will say Jesus was a real person but instead of saying he rose from the dead, they said his followers said he rose from the dead.
We got the story of the world under the impression it was secular. We still have it, but stopped using it. It was not a fit for our family. I just ordered a history of US based on your review. Do you think it would be a good fit to use for my 5 and 8 year old at the same time?
I almost checked out SOTW a couple of years ago. I agree. That is the worst form of non-secular material... *dishonest* in its objective, *by design.* Are you kidding me, y'all. But it's unsurprising that this happens. Megan on the Bold School channel had such a fabulous video lately, breaking down why SOTW is problematic!
New Mama here!!! My daughter is just 16 weeks today... ahhh time is going too fast!!! With that said, We want to familiarize ourselves with Homeschool stuff now to feel more prepared when the time comes. ... May be a silly question but does Secular just mean NON-Religious? If so, that is exactly what I'm looking for. Now that I've listened to the whole video I think my question was answered. I recently saw The Crafty Classroom and their adds pulled me in, very colorful which Im all about. I emailed them and they said they have a Bible section but is separate from all other curriculum. They said that there may be a cross in a Christmas work sheet and such but is not all throughout. I don't' even like that much to be honest. It seems as though what your saying is if I want 100% non religious that I should not go with anything like that because it might be weaved throughout even though they say its not?!! Also curious about curriculum in Download Versions and Ones in Print. I heard the Downloadable is much less money which is always good but not a deal breaker. It looks as though the ones you mentioned is already printed. Pros and Cons? ?
I generally avoid any materials that are “religious” and stick with secular materials. As time has passed and more secular materials have become available, this has become easier to do. As far as preprinted vs downloaded materials. I personally prefer preprinted, but that’s just a personal preference. Many homeschool parents prefer download materials. I’m not super comfortable with “technology” and end up spending more time than I like when I try and use downloaded items. I also prefer being able to touch and mark up whatever we are using. Congratulations on your new baby! It’s never to early to learn about anything that your interested in for your kiddo. 💕
One thing I see upon looking at Lightning Literature is that they do not have very many readers compared to other curricula. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
@@HomeschoolHappyHour Yes, "readers" is a term I see on curricula that basically means the books that you have to buy outside the teacher and student manual. For instance, Lightning Literature has Aesop's Fables for Children as the only reader for Grade 1. Other companies have as many at 10-20 books/readers that would be needed if we were to follow the curriculum to the T. Companies like Book Shark, and Build Your Library are examples of this type of curriculum. The purpose behind my comment is that I see all kinds of books that I would love to introduce my son to, but I worry that I would just be cramming a lifetime of learning into him at a rate that he would not be able to absorb. When I look at Lightning Literature, my heart relaxes and I see that if there were more time,we could always add more, if he were open to it, but it would not be "required" by the curriculum.
I almost chose SOTW for our least favorite! Your thoughts on it are EXACTLY how I feel. I use it here and there for early modern world history topics, but with a LOT of sidebars. It’s just so whitewashed and Christian-washed, there is no “filtering” that out. P.S. I am so sad LL isn’t working out well for us. I’m doing a video on that soon, but I wanted so much to like it!
I have met many families who are secular but have used Christian curriculum because it was given to them for free and they just tailor it to their needs
I actually bought build your library a few years ago and the author used story of the world as the history spine, I was so totally put off because I too don't think SOTW is secular, in fact it's not secular at all so I didn't end up using build your library!
@@HomeschoolHappyHour Unfortunately I was trigger happy with purchasing curricula at that time!! I actually looked at the booklist but didn't research what each book was about! I found out the hard way! But I got rid of it like a hot potato soon after!
I know exactly what you mean about SOTW, this is our first year of homeschooling. we bought TGATB history and there are parts that deffintly manipulative. but like for the sake of the story line you have to keep reading. Normally we stop a bunch of times to talk about the diffrent parts that are not from a secular view
I used to do that due to a lack of purely secular options, but there are so many great options now that I refuse to purchase anything that isn’t exclusively secular anymore
That’s interesting 🤔 I’ve used grades 1-7, and am about to use grade 9 and I’ve never encountered anything that would suggest it isn’t secular. Did they say why?
@@HomeschoolHappyHour I have no idea!! I am super confused by this because I've seen several staunchly secular homeschoolers using Lighting Literature!! That's what convinced me to start using it with my two. It's super confusing to me that it's listed on our group's "banned" list. No one can tell me why that is...
@@HomeschoolHappyHour Also, I LOVE LOVE LOVE your channel! Thank you for all the content you deliver! And I'm so glad to see another secular homeschooler offering curriculum and mindset ideas! It's so hard to find secular groups of homeschoolers!! Thank you for making me feel not so alone!
Although most of LL is considered neutral, I have heard that Hewitt is a Christian-owned company. That may be an issue for some people.🤷🏽♀️ Other than that, I do know that there are a couple of explicitly Christian LA options offered at the high school level. We are a Christian family and use LL, but I have not seen any religious content in the lower levels so far.
My daughters LOVED The Story of the World (me too) when we used it in their early elementary years. History was a favorite in our home thanks to all four of those volumes, they would always ask to read more or listen to more. They're in high school now and have a great world history foundation. I'm often surprised by how much of it they retained. We used History of US in later years and they just couldn't get into it and started dreading doing history, they said they don't like when books are laid out like that. I'm excited for another chance at using Story of the World again now with my first grader and my high schoolers are getting excited to hear it in the background, lol. Thanks for your review!
I agree with wishing that religious curriculum was clearly labeled! I recently bought a workbook to go with the beautiful Ocean Anatomy book, and the description said nothing about religion, but after I downloaded the file, the introduction said “since we are a Christian company, we have elected to skip the sections of the book talking about evolution, climate change, and reproduction.” 🤦🏻♀️ I was so frustrated, because I wouldn’t have purchased had I known.
@HannaPy709 Can you say which company surprised you with info left out? I've found a couple of workbooks like you mention. One company says at the bottom that because they're young earth creationists they've left things out and one doesn't say that, but the lady is def religious. So I'm assuming she's left things out. Sigh. We def need more secular homeschoolers creating resources!!
I'll weigh in as a teacher since you were confused about the plural (yes, it grated on me in the beginning of the video :). The plural of curriculum is curricula BUT we are allowed to bring the "common use" clause into effect here so 'curriculums' is also perfectly fine unless, say, you're using it in an academic setting or at university. So, no more curriculum use in plural but curricula or curriculums instead.
I have a few questions. Have you tried Learning Language Arts Through Literature? If so, can you compare the two and why you preferred Lightning Literature over LLATL? Does Lightning Literature cover grammar or is it strictly literature and writing? Does it scaffold the writing? That’s my biggest issue with our current LA program. It will say, “Rewrite these facts into your own words,” yet not explain HOW. Finally, other than History of US, what other history/social studies have you enjoyed? Thanks so much!
I have not tried LLATL. So I can’t offer a comparison. I can tell you that LL does cover grammar. I find it to be comprehensive with the exception of a dedicated spelling section, but we don’t really do focused spelling so that’s no issue for us. The writing is scaffolded IMO, especially if you start in the early grades and work your way up. As to history, that has been a struggle for me because I am exceedingly picky about it. I have looked at a few different curricula over the years, but the only two that I have come to appreciate are History of US and Curiosity Chronicles. So far those have met our needs so I stopped looking at this moment.
I would be interested in an actual example of Story of the World teaching religion as fact. They hit on every religion, as religion was a major part of life back then, but I have not seen them stating any religion as fact.
It was 8 years ago and I don’t have the curriculum anymore, so I cannot provide you with an exact quote. I remember vividly that they had religion weaves into the story with zero clarification that it was theology and not history.
@@HomeschoolHappyHour I just think having factual evidence, like "on page... it states"... would be helpful if you are going to give negative feedback about curriculum. I do understand what your complaint is though bc we used Usborne for a first grade history book several years ago, which had me read outloud, Allah is the one true God, to my little girl, explaining what a middle east flag said in arabic. I. Was. Pissed.
@@jenniferm586 Chapter 6 literally uses the bible as historical fact when talking about Jewish history. "One of the cities in Sargon's empire was called Ur. And a very important man lived in the city of Us. His name was Abram. The book of Genesis, in the Bible, tells us about Abram." p.35 It also fails to mention that Sargon has the same origin story as Moses, sent down the river in a basket and found, which is interesting as it's a pretty important part of Sargon's story. Chapter 14 then quotes Exodus as history and recounts Moses's origin story as fact.
@@jenniferm586 Some were and there's archeological evidence for them, like King David, while others are either made up or a composite of several people or there's no evidence either way. But the Bible wasn't written to be just a historical record, it was written to provide a group of people with a sense of identity and purpose. And the problem that we have with SOTW is that it's not presenting the information as this is what may have happened it's literally reading from the Bible as history. Using the language, "the Bible tells us..." is a religious lesson, not a history lesson. It's an important part of history but it's not the only source. You asked for proof of her criticism and I gave it to you since I happened to have the book on hand.
