History of the Horse

"I bought History of the Horse for my fourth grade daughter, and I am so pleased with my choice! It was a huge hit with her! She mostly loved the great stories and the drawing assignments integrated into the lessons. I felt it was a great curriculum for introducing her to more independent learning and research skills." 

-Jimmie from Curriculum Choice

"This wonderful study covers science and history as well, but I've assigned it primarily for the literature piece. It uses the Marguerite Henry horse books in addition to other great literature like The Black Stallion and Black Beauty. [My daughter] is really enjoying the study."
-Melissa from Reflections from Drywood Creek

"My son loved this program!" 

-Jess M.

"I got this program for my daughter who is a horse fanatic. She loved learning so much about horses. She was so excited to do this study because she could not believe learning about horses actually counted as "school". She still cherishes these books several years later and will not part with them."

-Shelley

Looking to branch out from more traditional history programs? Or maybe you have a horse lover in the family who needs something to spark an interest in history? Want to combine great literature, fascinating history and geography, and some equine science? This is the program for you. It's such a fun take on history and has been popular since it we first published it twenty years ago!

Hilary Berg Severson, the author, is a home school grad who studied history in college and she brought her life-long love of horses to every page of this study. It utilizes the wonderful Marguerite Henry books and includes drawing and mapping assignments, great research projects, and much more. To read reviews from families who have used this popular program, check out Jimmie's from Curriculum Choice, and Melissa's from Reflections from Drywood Creek.Beginning in the 1700's with the Godolphin Arabian and continuing through the early 1900's, students will learn of the Lipizzaner stallions, wild mustangs, the American bred Morgan horse, the Chincoteague ponies and other breeds. Course utilizes the Marguerite Henry award-winning books, Walter Farley's Black Stallion and Anna Sewell's Black Beauty. Learn horse anatomy, breed identification, basic sketching of horses, charting blood lines and Bible memory verses regarding the horse! 3rd-7th grade level. Contains 92 lessons and it is suggested that three lessons be completed each week.

Click on the thumbnails below to view sample pages:

And everything is available in a discounted pack that ships for free!

We hope you find this helpful. Please never hesitate to contact us with any questions. We can be reached at 800.889.1978, letters@bfbooks.com, on Facebook, and Instagram.

Back-to-School Photo Contest, $100.00 prize!

It's that time of year when boxes of books are landing on doorsteps all over the country and parents are putting together lesson plans, setting up classrooms, and squeezing in last-minute summer activities. In honor of this exciting time of year, we're sponsoring a fun photo contest on our Instagram and Facebook page. Snap a pic of your first day back at school with your BFB books and post it on either platform for a chance to win a $100.00 gift certificate to use at bfbooks.com. Extra points awarded for creativity! Make sure to tag it with #backtoschoolwithBFB to ensure it gets entered in the contest. We'll announce the winner on September 30, 2016. 

And if you're still trying to decide on your history curriculum, give us a call (800.889.1978). We love talking through our options with you. And check out all our studies here. 

We would love to hear what you think! Chime in below in the comment section and share your thoughts. Don't forget to 

check out our Facebook and Pinterest pages. To learn more about Beautiful Feet Books, click here. 

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Modern American and World History review

Today Melissa updates us on her family's progress through our Modern American and World History study! See what using great books does for brining history to life! Within this post, the hyperlinks on different titles will bring you to reviews that Melissa has written on many of the books used in this study so if you're considering this program, check out those links for detailed reviews!

We are a little over half way through our Beautiful Feet Modern American and World History study (lesson 65 of 117) with only a couple weeks left of our academic school year.  The program is fabulous!  The books are incredible!  However, as previously mentioned, the readings are long and I've had to split the lessons in half so we are not making the progress I'd hoped.  Fortunately, our kids love history so much that in our discussion on how to proceed, they were quick to jump at the chance to continue over summer....now that says a ton about the program if you ask me ;-)

The books we've read so far are:

Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt
The Perilous Road by William O. Steele
Frederick Douglass Fights for Freedom by Margaret Davidson (subbed for Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass)
Carver: A Life in Poems by Marilyn Nelson
Theodore Roosevelt by Genevieve Foster
The Wright Brother: Pioneers of American Aviation by Quentin Reynolds
Sergeant York by John Perry
The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy
Rascal by Sterling North
Gladys Aylward: The Little Woman by Gladys Aylward
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
House of Sixty Fathers by Meindert De Jong (currently reading)

As I was typing this list, I immediately began to feel sentimental.  My memories are fond.  I was thinking about a favorite and couldn't narrow it to one book.  I can totally see how the folks at Beautiful Feet had a hard time making the final cuts.

In looking at the books ahead, we've read Twenty and Ten by Claire Huchet Bishop and The Little Riders by Margaretha Shemin in the past while using Sonlight so I don't plan to re-read them, although, they are excellent books.  Riley remembers both.  Ruben was sketchy so I may have him read them independently.  I have also heard fabulous reports on Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan and will consider substituting it depending on how I feel the coverage is after skipping the above two mentioned books and also considering time. 

For more information on our study, you can read my Getting Started post here and our Term One Review here.  There are also samples of numerous notebooking pages at both posts as well as the linked books above.  Overall, we are loving this BF study and not only will continue, but also recommend it!  

Thank you Melissa!

We would love to hear what you think! Chime in below in the comments section and share your thoughts. Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Pinterest pages.  To learn more about Beautiful Feet Books, click here.

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How Stories Create Us

by Rebecca Berg Manor

Recently, during some training sessions at my church I've been reminded of how essential it is to know our own stories. Not only do our stories help us understand where we've come from as individuals, they help us see a greater narrative unfolding in our families and communities. Even having an understanding of what one's name means is so important. I recently discovered that my name has an entirely different meaning from the one that I was told growing up and that revelation is reshaping my understanding of myself, and in the process, giving me a greater appreciation for the gifts with which I've been entrusted. Stories hold great power, both individual narratives, and broader ones dealing with families, communities, and even nations. 

Here we often extol the power of story to educate, develop character, encourage, etc. And research clearly shows that developing a "strong family narrative" is one of the best things you can do for your family. Dr. Marshall Duke, a psychologist at Emory University has researched families for decades and honed in on one aspect of his work to try to discover what kept families together. In an era where divorce and family dissolution is rampant, he was interested in finding out what families could do to counteract this trend. In a fortunate twist, his wife works with children with learning disabilities and she was noticing that the students who were the most successful in navigating the challenges their disability posed were those who seemed to know a lot about their families. So Dr. Duke decided to dig deeper. Read the article here for the whole story as it's definitely worthwhile. 

Points that stuck out to me were that in numerous tests the results were always the same: "The more

children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned. The “Do You Know?” scale turned out to be the best single predictor of children’s emotional health and happiness."

This finding was tested in an extreme way when the September 11 attack happened. And the results held. The children who had a sense of who they were in relationship to a family history were better equipped and more emotionally resilient.

As a child I loved hearing the stories of my parent's childhoods. My dad had hilarious stories about his friends, who he gave nicknames like Meat Man and Bean Bun. My mom would tell us about how she and her seven siblings once thought their neighbor was hanging his wife, only to discover she had a bad back and was being suspended by her feet to get some relief from her chronic pain. We would laugh over the bullies who stole my dad's lunch and smashed bananas on his head. Both of my parents are consummate story tellers and I doubt that they were intentionally trying to create a "family narrative" but that is what they were doing. I also spent hours reading through a collection of stories recorded by a great aunt about her father, my great grandfather, growing up in North Dakota when it was still pretty wild. There were funny stories, boring stories, stories of adventure, stories of failure, and stories of success. And that brings me to a very important point. In the research, the psychologists found that there are three types of family narrative:

"First, the ascending family narrative: 'Son, when we came to this country, we had nothing. Our family worked. We opened a store. Your grandfather went to high school. Your father went to college. And now you....'
Second is the descending narrative: 'Sweetheart, we used to have it all. Then we lost everything.'”
'The most healthful narrative,' Dr. Duke continued, 'is the third one. It’s called the oscillating family narrative: "Dear, let me tell you, we’ve had ups and downs in our family. We built a family business. Your grandfather was a pillar of the community. Your mother was on the board of the hospital. But we also had setbacks. You had an uncle who was once arrested. We had a house burn down. Your father lost a job. But no matter what happened, we always stuck together as a family." ' ”

It is essential that the family story not be whitewashed, nor ought it to be all doom and gloom. Of course, waiting until a child is of an appropriate age to reveal more mature details is wise, but children need a realistic and accurate understanding of their roots.

And I think this can be extrapolated out to a broader level. Could it be that one of the reasons our nation is so fractured is because we have failed to maintain a national narrative? History is taught not as a story but as facts to memorize and forget after a test. Both on a national level and a wider human level the loss of our story has very sad consequences. If knowing the stories of our families makes us want to work harder to keep them together and gives us a strong sense of belong and identity, wouldn't the same be true about a national narrative? Wouldn't it be helpful if our elected officials had a historical perspective and knew that our country has been deeply fractured in the past but pulled together for a greater good? Might it be better to have a fully colored history taught in our schools that recognized our nations strengths as well as her failures? And is it possible that greater human narrative may show us that we're not so different from everyone else? It may be a simplistic to think that but perhaps if we instill a strong sense of our family story within our children, they will go on to think more broadly and see the benefits of working together to preserve the things we love.

So if you don't already, start telling your children the stories of your childhood. Tell them how their grandparents met, if their marriage was a happy one or maybe a strained one. Tell them about that strange uncle who was always off doing his own thing, or that gossipy sister, or the caring aunt who was a second mother. You'll be surprised by how much your children absorb and take with them. And spend time reading about our human history. Here are some of our favorite titles for learning about our nation and this incredible world we inhabit. It's something we at BFB believe in passionately and is a driving force behind why we publish the following titles. These are all books that inform us of who we are as a nation. They tell us of our place in a greater international narrative. These are the books we love to rescue from being out-of-print. 

A Child's First Book of American History

The d'Aulaire Biographies

The Genevieve Foster parallel histories

The James Daugherty histories

Albert Marrin's histories

You may also enjoy reading:

Are books just magic? 

Using fiction to teach history, or how to educate the soul.

The Power of Story

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Using BFB's Early American History

Today Jessica from jessicalynette.com updates us on how things are going with our Early American History for Primary grades! Love this window into their homeschooling experience. Check it out! 

It’s been a while since I posted about our journey through Beautiful Feet Books for our history. I didn’t mean to take such a long break, it’s just that when you are a part of the journey – living very much in the moment of it – it can be hard to sit back and reflect upon the journey. Especially when Spring is in the air and our history involves sitting in the sunshine, reclining in a hammock, and delving into beautiful stories that feed the soul and imagination – all while educating the mind. It doesn’t feel like work.

{term 1 with Beautiful Feet books and Term 2 with BFB can be read following their respective links – this is a combo of term 3 and 4}

There is something about this gentle manner of learning that makes it hard to talk about … As if any embellishments on my part might complex the wondrous beauty and simplicity that BFB has pulled together. We have, and are, thoroughly enjoying this journey through early American history with our new found friends – Grimalkin the cat, the brave boy from The Matchlock Gun, little George whom wished to know what George Washington ate for breakfast (a fantastic story!) and many others.

Beautiful Feet Books for Early American History has been a wonderful fit for us – and it has been so neat to see the history we read “come to life” around us through various events.

I have been thankful for other tools that have helped to reinforce the learning – while we aren’t quite at the civil war we were able to watch a reenactment of Sherman’s march. And weeks ago while in Savannah we saw a rail tie like what Sherman was doing to the tracks – Sherman’s Bow tie as they are famously called. These visuals will be powerful learning aids when we reach this part in history.

Layers and layers and layers – that is (in my opinion) a wonderful way to learn. And these BFB give such a deep layer of character and, when the books are illustrated, beautiful visuals, too.
More layers – they learned how girls would roll bullets during the revolutionary war; 

They got to see the actual canons George Washington gifted the city of Savannah: 

Last week we had a particularly windy day. I brought out our kite and as we were struggling to get it up in the air (we never did succeed) my nine year old commented that he wished he had a key. And then he bemoaned the fact that, even if he had a key, there was no lightening flashing across the sky. It made me laugh (and make a mental note to closely supervise kites and stormy weather) – but Benjamin Franklin made his mark in the minds of two boys. 

Thank you Jessica! Love how your travels and adventures are lining up with what you're learning. So fun when that happens. 

We would love to hear what you think! Chime in below in the comments section and share your thoughts. Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Pinterest pages.  To learn more about Beautiful Feet Books, click here.

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Medieval History Update!

Audria's back with another update on her family's journey through our Medieval History: A Literature Approach for Advanced Intermediate and Junior High. I have so enjoyed following her as she and her children explore this fascinating time period and seeing how she uses the flexibility of the guide to personalize it to her children. When I was writing it I had no idea that someone would draw inspiration from the assignments to create an authentic medieval village using Minecraft! I love hearing about the adaptations and creative applications. So, here's Audria:  

We’ve just wrapped up weeks nineteen through twenty-four of Beautiful Feet Books’ Intermediate Medieval History covering from the 1290’s to 1400 or so. The book selections for this session were some of our very favorite of the study so far. The books are so wonderful, in fact, that my younger crew abandoned their history studies and insisted on listening in with their older brother. I just modified a few of the assignments to suit the younger kids so they could participate with their older brother. This is what happens when you read quality books aloud! Everyone joins in the fun…

In the first book, Adam of the Road, we learned about minstrels, heraldry and even more about medieval society. I found a fun heraldry prompt on Pinterest for my crew to dive into. The kids enjoyed making their own symbolic shields and I was so pleased with the results that I put their projects in a safe place. So safe, that I cannot remember where…(please tell me that I am not the only one who does this!)

The European World resource book.

At this time Oldest came up with his own history project for the rest of the study. He is using Minecraft to build a medieval city. For the past six weeks he has been building locations from the books. He even added one of the medieval Robin Hood ballads to the tavern he built to represent the Canterbury Tales. I wasn’t sold on this Minecraft build since the BFB guide includes several projects as well. It seemed more like an excuse to play video games to me at first. However, after watching how much research he put into each addition to his city I lost my skepticism. After the first week the middle two joined him on the project. The three of them are working together, checking out medieval history books from the library and learning so much on their own just so they can build their city. I’m pretty sure this is what is referred to as “delight-directed learning”…the sweet-spot of home education. I sincerely believe the quality literature and discussions prompted by the guide led to my children’s curiosity to learn more on their own.

Illustration from The Canterbury Tales Adapted by Barbara Cohen

The next part of the study was on The Black Death and John Wycliffe through the book Morning Star of the Reformation. We found this book to be just a wee bit preachy in favor of Fundamentalism. For us it sparked a discussion on world views, respecting other’s beliefs and the importance of reading and understanding the Scriptures in our own language. The book does provide a rich portrait of a clergyman’s life and the description of The Plague and its aftermath on a culture is vivid. Oldest then gave us a presentation on The Plague aided by a nice map and website references in the guide.

Read aloud time is cozy time! 

In our next book, Crispin: The Cross of Lead, we learned just how difficult and harsh life could be for the common people. Thus far into the study this is probably my favorite book. It really captured the importance and hold the Catholic Church had on the medieval mind. We could feel the beginnings of political and religious unrest unfolding in society. The kids were just heart broken over the unjust cruelty shown toward Crispin and his mother.

The Minecraft tavern!

Our last two weeks for this section of the guide was on Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales. The book provided by BFB is beautiful! The illustrations are just gorgeous! We also read Chaucer: Celebrated Poet and Author, Life on a Medieval Pilgrimage and anotherCanterbury Tales adapted by Geraldine McCaughrean. All three books were recommended by BFB. The kids, to my surprise, really enjoyed the Canterbury Tales and the Chaucer biography. The guide gives several websites on pilgrimages and suggests the student write a report. Since we were reading a book together on the subject I did not give Oldest the assignment. After we read the book I told the kids about the two pilgrimages I went on many years ago. My first pilgrimage was to the Ava Maria Grotto in

Horse from Adam of the Road

Cullman, Alabama. My second pilgrimage was to the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows during my time with the Franciscan Order. I’m pretty sure that my kids think I’m weird…

We’ve been studying Shakespeare this term as well. We wrapped up our Shakespeare unit by reading and watching Hamlet since the story occurs during the late Middle Ages (1300-1499 or so). Hamlet is not a part of the BFB study at all but it does fit in nicely. We watched the Mel Gibson movie. It was pretty good and on Netflix.

Hamlet

Right now Oldest is writing his own Canterbury Tale. For most of the written assignments in this study I have accepted first or second drafts with oral discussion. For this assignment we will be going through the entire revision and editing process which takes about a month for us. Once his story is completed and if he gives permission I will share it here in the blog.

We spent a great deal of time discussing religion, justice, the unfairness of the feudal system and the breakdown of society due to the plague and the Little Ice Age. These conversations led to the kids understanding the importance in literacy and the ability to think critically as a defense against tyranny. If only it were so simple as their sweet idealistic hearts believe. Oldest then made a comparison of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages to Sharia Law today. Now that, is a chilling thought…

We have about nine weeks remaining for this study. Our tradition with history studies is to have a feast. In the next few weeks we will be researching recipes and final projects to share.

Medieval Market Square

At the end of March and first of April Oldest and I will be hanging out at the Beautiful Feet Books’ booth at the Great Homeschool Convention in Cincinnati. If you are going then please stop by and say “Howdy!” We’d love to meet you! Beautiful Feet Books will also be at the Great Homeschool Conventions in Texas and California as well this year.

Thank you Audria! 

We would love to hear what you think! Chime in below in the comments section and share your thoughts. Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Pinterest pages.  To learn more about Beautiful Feet Books, click here.

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Catching up with Jessica

Today we're catching up with Jessica. She and her boys are working their way through our Early American History study. If you missed the first entries in her series, here they are: Part I and Part II. Today Jessica talks about how homeschooling through difficult times poses unique challenges and sometimes you just have to press through. We have structured our study guides to take these sorts of circumstances into account. We know as homeschoolers ourselves that life is unpredictable and everyone needs flexibility. So if it means stretching a six week term into eight weeks like Jessica did, our studies are easily adjusted. We also want your history studies to be a time of connection where you can take a break from all the pressures of school, curl up on the couch with your kids and get lost in great literature and story. 

Here's Jessica: 

I can just hear this long, deep sigh emitting from my oldest when I look at this picture – and that is how I feel.

Term two has been rough.

Outside circumstances have been unpredictable and tossed us to and fro on the waves of uncertainty and we have learned to cling to the rock that is higher than us and stronger than our problems.

So much in these past eight weeks have been miserable and just buckling down and getting through. Yes, eight weeks. Our six week term turned in to an eight week one as we just plowed through as we were able.

It’s the beauty and handicap of home education – the weight of it all is on you, and sometimes rest is required in order to handle it at all. So over the past eight weeks a bit of a lighter load was distributed and we focused on joy and good attitudes and thanking the Lord for His provisions and just breathing.

And things are looking much brighter as we head into term three and no one is worse for the wear for having taken things at a much slower pace. In fact, I would venture to say we are better off for it. We read some delightful books this term through our Beautiful Feet History curriculum. It is perfect timing as we head into the Thanksgiving season – we started with Pocahontas by Ingri and Edgar d’Aulaire. Can I convince you that these masterpieces are worth having in your collection?! The art work is beautiful and the stories are captivating. We are so enjoying reading through them and saturating ourselves in their beauty.

(See the blow dart gun in the above image? That is my life. Blow dart guns accompany many outdoor school adventures.)

From Pocahontas we moved to Jamestown, New World Adventures by James E. Knight which was another rich story (not quite the same compelling illustrations!) But written as a mother recollecting her father’s adventures and journal entries in the New World it is detailed and intriguing. 

 {a game we played – one that is said to have been played by the Native Americans and taught to the Pilgrims – see how to play the bowl game here.}

And from there we went to Pilgrim Stories by Margaret Pumphrey – I had never heard of this book before and, to be honest, it didn’t look like an exciting book. But wow! I was so wrong. This collection of stories about the Pilgrim’s adventures is excellent and the conclusion of each chapter had my kids asking for more and left me with a deeper appreciation and understanding over what the Pilgrims endured.  It is a great book to read leading up to Thanksgiving, and one I am going to be including in our Thanksgiving basket for years to come.

The guidebook for Early American History walked us through thought provoking questions and enrichment activities – and I added a bit extra in the form of a lapbook on Jamestown just because they enjoy such activities.

I am thankful for the Lord’s sweet provision and grace while homeschooling through hard times – we need to be faithful in our charge to educate our children and yet a thorough education is so much more than just open book learning. And the balance to be found can be hard. And maybe we leaned too much towards rest and taking things easy while homeschooling through hard times, but we can only do what we can do – and (I think!) we made it and things are looking up.

Thank you Jessica for sharing this part of your homeschooling journey with us! You can read her complete post here. 

Our new 2015-2016 catalog is now available! If you want to view it right now it's available online here. And if you would like to request a hardcopy, click here. 

We would love to hear what you think! Chime in below in the comments section and share your thoughts. Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Pinterest pages.  To learn more about Beautiful Feet Books, click here.

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