Pathway to Liberty's US History Curriculum {Curriculum Review}

I am always on the lookout for good history curriculums and I've been blessed to have been introduced to several through the Homeschool Review Crew. For the last several weeks, we have been reviewing a new (to me) history company, Pathway to Liberty Homeschool Curriculum, and have been working through the Pathway to Liberty's US History course from the Pathway to Liberty's History Curriculum collection. My hope for this curriculum was to discover another great American History curriculum which I could use for both boys at the same time, even with their different grade levels and learning styles. Join me today as I share our review on this curriculum and you can learn if this material fulfilled my requirements!

About the Company

The Pathway to Liberty's Homeschool Curriculum was created by founder Jayme MacCullough after she couldn't find what she was looking for in the homeschool material world. She wanted a strong
and comprehensive, principle-based biblical worldview curriculum that allowed her to teach quality material at MULTIPLE grade levels in order to allow her children to work together. She desired to show Christian history in context with world events, and also showcase and understand America's founding principles WITHOUT having to use revised history sources that remove the role of God (aka Providence) from the birth of our country. Thus Pathway to Liberty was born...

The material is an easy-to-use curriculum for the whole family and designed to teach one or multiple students from grades K5 through 12th grade. There are separate guides written directly to the teacher and student for each of the levels within a course, as well as an All-in-One Teacher's guide if several levels are being taught at once. There are four years worth of history curriculum with 26 weeks in a year of study. A course outline is available for a more detailed overview of each week’s study. Unlike some courses, Pathway to Liberty is presented in such a way "as to lead students down the path of reasoning, to direct students to be engaged and think biblically, creating an environment where learning is not only educational but transformational!" 

The four years of study include:
Year 1: Universal History
Works through the Bible chronologically, bringing characters and events into a cultural context. Biblical history is taught in context with world events.

Year 2: The Middle Ages
Begins with the Roman Republic and the Heroic Age of the Church, and finishes the year with the Age of Exploration.

Year 3: US History
Begins with the early colonies and finishes the year with the Civil War.

Year 4: World History
Begins with the expansion of the United States ‘From Sea to Shining Sea’ and finishes the year with the Post-Christian West.

There are four levels within each year:
Level 1: K5-3rd grade
Level 2: 4th-6th grade
Level 3: 7th-9th grade
Level 4: 10th-12th grade

The weekly subjects and principles are the same for every level, thus you can adapt the curriculum to the needs of your students. You can read about the requirements for each level on this page to figure out which level would be best for your students.

About the Course

We reviewed Year 3: US History for level 2 (my youngest age 8 1/2) and level 3 (my oldest age 13) over the course of several weeks.

Year 3 is Pathway to Liberty's US History course. The focus of the course is to study US History in such a way as to understand the foundations of our constitutional republic--answering the question "Do men have the right to think for themselves?". Founding principles are emphasized throughout the course and woven into each lesson. Beginning with the early colonists, there is an in-depth examination in the establishment of self-government and the character of the men and women who wanted something new for their new country as soon as they landed on its shores. Unlike most early American curriculum, Pathway to Liberty also explores the role of preachers and pastors in the creation of the Declaration of Independence. There is a lot of time studying many of the Founding Fathers (some less familiar), and the students will explore what made them tick, what their convictions were for the fledgling nation, and give us a flimpse at the sacrifices they made. The Bible's role in the wording of the Constitution will also be examined.  The course explores how the blessing of liberty allows men to innovate and invent which pushed the progress of America forward. This curriculum concludes with exploring the legislation, conflicts, and upheaval leading up to and AFTER the Civil War and how it affected generations of Americans--even to this present day.

Our Thoughts on the Course

Our physical materials were delayed in the mail; therefore, the company quickly sent me the digital versions so that I could get started. We used them for about a week before our physical things arrived. One thing that I learned right off the bat is that this is a heavy book curriculum--and while I LOVE literature-based curriculum, the books I needed just for the few weeks of the review were not available at my library. We quickly discovered that buying books for multiple levels is expensive when this happens. Here's why.

For instance, Level 1 and 2 need children's versions of The Light and the Glory, while Levels 3 and 4 need the adult version. Because these have study guide questions to go with them, using the lower level books with the upper-level study guides won't match up--thus requiring BOTH versions. Also, there is a specific dictionary (Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary) as a core resource for the program--which is in the $60 range. Thankfully we found that it is also available as an online website, thus circumventing the need for the book itself.

In trying to save money, I went with a very inexpensive Kindle version of The Story of Liberty...but then discovered that had weird font, the words were all scrambled, and it was next to impossible to find what matched the study guide--thus I ended up having to buy the paperback version too for my son to use to save his sanity. Fortunately, we didn't need the adult version of The Light and the Glory during our review period, so I just went with an inexpensive kids' copy ($8).

There are EIGHT required books for Level 3 with an additional FIVE books that are strongly recommended, while there are SIX required books for Level 2 with an additional FIVE books that are strongly recommended. AND between those two levels, only FIVE are the same book. Thus you would be purchasing NINETEEN books in all (if you include the strongly recommended ones) just to do these two levels. That's pretty high book count to collect. LOL. Even if you take away the strongly recommended ones, you would have NINE core books to purchase--and my amazing library didn't have ANY of them. That's a very high investment especially if we ended up not liking the curriculum as we went on. I expected a curriculum geared for multiple ages to have more books in common.

Looking over the week's assignments for all levels at once! ♥

The company was incredibly generous and sent me the Teacher's Guide and Student guide for BOTH levels AND a copy of their The Chain of Liberty WITH its coordinating study guide, which is required reading for both levels (thus eliminating one book I would have needed!). These are the required materials BESIDES the core books. You would need a teacher's guide for each level (or the all levels teacher's guide) with each child having their own copy of the student guide in their appropriate level. Two students can't share a workbook since it is consumable. I have a student guide for each of my students in their respective levels.

I LOVE that both of the guides are spiral bound! This is my favorite thing for any physical manual--especially workbooks. The font is very easy to read and there were plenty of lines for writing. Both the Teacher's Guide (black binding) and the Student's Guide (red binding) had weekly lesson schedules before each week's assignments. I LOVE having it in this placement. Even though my Teacher's Guide was geared for two different levels, they each had the lesson plan outline for ALL four levels--ideal for anyone teaching multiple levels wanting to see it all in a glance. I used this to also help make adaptations to how we used the material--choosing to do different level assignments now and then for each boy.

This is a very open-and-go program once you have all the materials. All the assignments are clearly marked--even on the assignments themselves, the reading portion is listed on the same page as any comprehension questions. All of the reading assignments have coordinating comprehension (aka. study guide questions) questions or activities that are done in the workbook. Sometimes the activities are the same between levels (like the writing of the scripture/principle/lesson each week), but most are geared to the grade level. Level 2 had more fill in the blanks for example--while Level 3 had more short answer/paragraph assignments.

What is included in a week's worth of lessons?
Every week has Multi-level lesson plans, Scripture, History with lesson plans, maps, vocabulary and writing assignments, Word Studies, and an Expanded Reading Chart. Every lesson has weekly scriptures, principles and leading ideas, Lessons written to the student for independent study with principled questions leading down the path of biblical reasoning, Notebook pages, outlines, diagrams, and documents. Because this structure is the same every week, it allows for more independent study for the upper levels.

Every week starts with a study on the weekly scripture that connects with the unit principle and lesson's leading idea. The students copy this out the first day or second day of lessons and it is referred to throughout the week. As in HEAVILY referred to in everything from the reading to the teacher discussions to the notebook pages, and writing assignments. Sometimes there are more than one of these for any given week. Sometimes your child may copy down an aspect of it more than once.

The weekly lessons include readings from the core books and then have study guide questions to match them. The core books for the first couple weeks for Level 2 were The Chain of Liberty (provided by the company), and The Light and the Glory-Children's Edition (one I had to get). The Level 3 core books were The Chain of Liberty and The Story of Liberty (the one that I had to buy a Kindle and then a paperback). These books are the "text" for the curriculum and all the material centers around whatever literature is being done. The Level 2 books are a high enough reading level, they are best read out loud--especially The Chain of Liberty. Many of the questions for all of these books had to be explained a bit more fully by me before the boys could answer them. They also all required A LOT of writing, so we decided to mix in some oral with written answers to keep it from being overwhelming. This was especially true for answering the critical thinking questions after reading The Chain of Liberty.

The Chain of Liberty is a book which explores the primary focus of the curriculum--Do men have the right to think for themselves? It also introduces the curriculum's principles of "chains" that lead to the pathway to liberty. This book is definitely required to be able to really get the concept of the curriculum, as it was written by the founder. 

My youngest son's paragraph
after watching the Jamestown video

There weren't a lot of activities to do each week--like non-bookwork ones. The only exception was the weekly (and sometimes more than once a week) YouTube videos. Unlike some companies, Pathway to Liberty kindly created a YouTube channel and then put an entire course year's assigned videos in labeled playlists. This makes it SOOO much easier for the teacher! We have a ROKU, which meant we watched all our YouTube videos on the TV instead of being tied to the computer! This was ALWAYS the favorite lesson of the week. The boys were usually asked to write something about what they watched--the number of paragraphs determined by their Level. This was probably the only writing assignment they DIDN'T mind doing.

So--how far did we get?
Well, this curriculum is an in-depth curriculum requiring 4-5 days a week of study. Each day probably contains a MINIMUM of 45 minutes of work and could go up to 90 minutes (And in cases longer!)--especially for the days with reading assignments AND the writing assignment or extended studies work. Even for Level 2! Our schedule for school does history 2-3 days a week, for up to 60 minutes at a time--so we definitely spaced out this program. We did 2-3 days per week which splits a week's assignments into 2 weeks of work. We just finished week 4. This program is designed to cover history, vocabulary, geography, Bible, writing, and character--which explains why the time to complete is longer than most. And if you have slower readers and writers--well, you can imagine how that will impact your completion speed.

Okay--so. What did we think about this curriculum?
Well, I have mixed thoughts. For my family, this curriculum is TOO much to do in one week. Some of these daily assignments took MORE than one day to complete. This schedule doesn't work well for a family doing history 2-3 days a week, without making it twice as long to complete. Especially if you are using another curriculum for the bible and/or writing.

The reading is overwhelming some days, especially for an independent Level 3. My 13-year old reads well and reads fast. But the two books he had to read are at an adult level and contained an advanced vocabulary so he didn't necessarily understand everything he was reading--but the comprehension questions did help sort this out. The Story of Liberty was definitely the most difficult for him. The reading for my younger son was fine because it was read-aloud and I was able to explain anything I thought he might need to know more clearly.

A rare NON-writing assignment for Level 2

The writing assignments. I wasn't a fan. They were very much "write 2-4 paragraphs about how the principle for this week plays a part in the story of...". And that was basically all the guidance given for the Level 3 assignments. I would NOT consider this a writing curriculum. It is very similar to the type of writing homework assignments I was given in my own public school history classes in high school--but we at least got a bit more guidance. Because the assignments were rather long at times, I ended up adjusting them for both boys--or simply choosing not to do them. One reason for this is that they were already writing so much already.

Boys working on a joint assignment for their Levels

This is very much a traditional workbook sort of program--read, then write. read, then write. Watch a film, then write. Our family is NOT a fan of this style. We like more eclectic curriculums that include a variety of learning activities for a wide range of learning styles. Because of this, we adapted most of the assignments. I picked a few of the study guide assignments to be written and then allowed the rest to be oral. We did the maps and diagrams as they were useful--like the comparison between Puritans and Separatists. And I bounced around between the Level assignments for ones which best fit each boy--going outside of their Levels more than once.

Filling out comprehension questions

I think that if you DID enjoy this style of curriculum, then you won't mind all the reading and writing assignments. We actually didn't mind the reading assignments WHEN WE WEREN'T RUSHING to finish a day's work. The books were actually very interesting. But the reading WITH the writing was more than we prefer to do. I even looked at later weeks--and when the unit over the revolutionary war is being studied, they are supposed to read, research, and write a one-page biographical sketch paper EVERY DAY! And that continues for the rest of the curriculum with each unit--continuous biographical papers! Bwahahaha. And they thought they had to write a lot during our review period!

Therefore, it's no surprise that our FAVORITE parts were the videos we were able to watch. Those were the highlights of the week. I plan on using the Pathway to Liberty channel on YouTube regularly for our history studies, even when we aren't using this curriculum any longer. It is very nice to have them all in one spot.

I also liked how the week's lessons were tied to biblical principles and lessons. My favorite--and one that I've brought up in our normal day--was the one on "If you Don't Work, You Don't Eat" and the lesson on governing one's self in everything. This was by far the GREATEST lesson we took away from this program.

BUT.
And here is the tricky spot. I had a problem with the intensity of the curriculum in regards to the biblical worldview. I have used programs that are biblical worldview before--even in history. But THIS one was...over the top for me. Every single thing. Every single event. Every--everything. Was being related to God, the Bible, and Jesus.

DON'T GET ME WRONG--this is not anything bad in and of itself. But the sheer amount of it was like a pancake drenched in a bottle of syrup. Or the person you know who connects every single thing to a bible scripture or constantly just says "praise Jesus". Sometimes it is too much--even if you agree 100% with what is being said (And 9-10 times I absolutely did!). AND it isn't just written from a biblical view--it is written from a HEAVILY protestant view. If you were of a Catholic faith--for example--I feel like this curriculum would make you very uncomfortable. If you believed in God, but only go to church now and then, I feel like the same thing. This was also written from a HEAVILY conservative viewpoint and the overwhelming vibe is one where the author leans towards the idea that the government should be run according to church principles--as in only by those practicing a certain type of Christianity. It just feels almost like the author believes that the "Freedom of Religion" is only for the freedom of a CERTAIN religion.

Because of this--, I would say that the curriculum is actually very politically minded--in that, if you were more of the independent or democratic political leaning Christian, you would have a VERY hard time with a lot of the ideas presented in this curriculum. The material frequently passive-aggressively points out a TON of problems with the current government system/structure in regards to a lot of national programs (like Welfare). I am not either of these political leanings and AM conservative, yet I felt it really wasn't necessary to include some of the statements that were made in an "all ages" American History curriculum. It was more for discussions I would have at the high school level.

NOW--if you agree with all of this. If you are a hardcore conservative protestant homeschooler--you may not have a single problem with any of this. :)

And one final thought. At times, the curriculum seemed elitist in thought in regards to who should be in charge of the country and about our country itself. It just rubbed me the wrong way--like saying "God has only chosen to bless America, and if you aren't living in America, you are in a pickle and glad I'm not you because America is the best country in the whole world." And why I am incredibly AMAZINGLY grateful to have been born an American, I just don't like the way it is presented as if we are "holier" because of where we live (like it's "God's country".). And I am hoping that's NOT the intent of the curriculum's author--but at times, that is exactly how it felt. And I even went through and looked at the rest of the curriculum and the lessons and writing assignments later in the book.

Before I quit, I had my boys tell me their thoughts on the program...

My oldest son's thoughts (age 13, using Year 3 Level 3 [7th-9th]): "I like reading the book [The Story of Liberty] and learning things--like what I learned about Miles Standish. I also liked the book we got from them [The Chain of Liberty]. But there was just SOOOO much writing. I hate writing and every assignment was nothing but writing. LOTS of writing. I liked the videos that were the HISTORY channel ones, but not that first churchy one. If someone liked writing about what they read, this is a good one for you. But if you hate it like me, you will think you are being tortured. oh, the WORST was the word studies. HATED those. Oh and I think it says that if you don't go to church you aren't good. Like if you didn't go to church, even if you believed in God, you wouldn't like this lesson stuff very much. I feel like the person writing was a little too focused on matching every single event or person to the Bible or something from the Bible. Some of it was good--like the "if you don't work you don't eat." But then it felt like someone who needed help from the government because they lost their job, or didn't have enough money to pay for things and needed welfare, was doing something wrong. And I don't really think I agree with that idea totally."

My youngest son's thoughts (age 8, using Year 3 Level 2 [4th-6th]): "I liked the books we read, especially the Glory one [The Light and the Glory]. I really liked the videos and was glad we had one to watch for every week, but that first one was weird. I liked the history ones. The questions were okay, but why do I have to write EVERYTHING? All I did was write-write-write. And I really really really did NOT like the word studies. Yuck."

Doing some of the reading for himself

LOL. As you can see, they are in agreement. The books were good. The videos were GREAT. But we'll pass on everything else! And that is what I plan on doing...keeping the books (I actually ended up finding the entire children's' and adults' version series of The Light and the Glory trilogy for super cheap and bought them both for our home library.) and referencing the videos in our studies later. I may even keep the pages with the biographical sketches as reference for later.

Whew! That was LONG, but I just had to take the time to really explain why this program had mixed reviews from us because it really does have GREAT material. In-depth studies. Hardcore exploration of the principles of an American constitutional republic (--our government is NOT just an "American republic" as she says a few times, I did wish that was noted throughout the program). EXTREMELY strong Biblical and politically conservative worldview. I know these things are EXACTLY what some of you just might want...even if our family decided the program as a whole was not for us. :) And I hope it helps you make your OWN decision!

Want to Know More?

As you can CLEARLY see we have been reviewing Pathway to Liberty's History Curriculum with our focus on US History from the Pathway to Liberty Homeschool Curriculum. I have extensively discussed our thoughts on the product--but our crew reviewed ALL four of the courses and all four levels within them. So please make sure you visit another review for a greater idea of what this curriculum has to offer!

*****

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