Self-Paced History with Veritas Press #hsreviews

Recently with the TOS Crew we were introduced to Veritas Press.  I had never heard of them before and was eager to do a little looking around at their site before choosing a course that would interest my children.  They offer several different periods of history in a self-paced form and have one that should appeal to anyone.  Most importantly to us, Veritas Press offers history through the Biblical perspective.  They are intertwined together so that one cannot be taught without the other.

We chose the Veritas Press Self-Paced History: Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation as my son is into the middle ages and the times of knights right about now.  The castles, the battles, the knights and their kings; these are all things that interest my 7 year old who is starting into third grade.  With this online self-paced course we also received a set of Middle Ages, Ren & Ref Flashcards to help him learn the specifics that are more rote memory.

We received a full year of the course.  This is what you receive when subscribing as well.  You have a year from start date to end date to finish the course.  While it is self-paced I did want to point out that you do only have  a year to finish.  It really isn’t that hard to do from what we’ve done with the amount of lessons.  

Let’s start with the flashcards.  There are 32 cards for major events that happened during our session of history.  You can use them for the typical flashcard way of memorization or find fun new innovative ways to use them.  They are available to purchase for $19.95 on the Veritas Press website.  

The self-paced history courses are geared for children ages 7 and up or grades 2-6.  My son is 7 years old currently and going into the 3rd grade so this is a great fit for us.  The cost of the program is $199.00.  It is all online and perfect for the little one who doesn’t like someone telling them how many chapters they must do per day.  They are given a year from start date to end date to finish their course.  

 

My son loved the “do it myself” aspect of this course.  He is advanced which means he tends to get bored easily if he knows something.  The course has 160 classes covering 32 important historical events during the time period.  Those 32 important historical events are also on the flashcards to help and make sure that they are learned by the child.  

I have to say I was a bit worried at first that my 7 year old would get bored with the course.  It’s online.  Would it be just a lot of reading?  Would he get bored and not want to do anymore?  Was I going to have to force him to do his work?  He had seemed interested when we looked at it before being chosen to review, but was he still interested?

My worries were all for naught.  This program has interactive teaching which includes some clever games to help increase involvement and also help them with their memorization.  There is also some pretty fun video spots for the kids and even talking historical characters relevant to the time period.  This was the fun part!  I have to also let you know of a part that really made my son love this.  His daddy made him a wooden sword that takes two hands to wield just like the knights and people of the time period had.  I think it’s called a broadsword or a longsword.  I’m not hip on all that terminology, but his daddy knows and the two of them had mock fights and just had a lot of fun playing around with the information he was learning.

 

I on  the other hand, had to be the “mean” parent since daddy was the fun one and help him with his flashcards to make sure he was learning his dates for the tests.  Yes, there are tests.  And yes, he has some problems with his advancement which make him get very upset when he doesn’t do well.  It is my understanding that the tests can be retaken, but the first grade is the one that sticks.  So, when we took the first test and missed some questions he was NOT happy.  That made him want to try harder to learn the dates and people that he needed.  

I, as a parent, am impressed with this program.  My son, as the student, is happy with the program and has not gotten bored or wanted to quit.  I think if we were to start over I would want to start at the beginning with their first history program and do it in a timeline approach.  Help us learn all our history by doing it in order.  For now though, I’m glad we chose the one that most interested my son so that he would enjoy his history for this year.  

Don’t forget to check out Veritas Press on facebook, twitter, pinterest, and google + to see when they have updates and possible some fun things for kids!

Would you like to hear more of what others thought of the program?  Want to check out the other levels of history they cover?  Simply head over to the Main Crew Review Page and look at the other reviews.  We were allowed to choose which self-paced history level we wanted as well as some using the Omnibus history.