Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Mike Farris:
Thank you for joining me again today, Sherrie. Your Around the World in 180 Days curriculum is created to be taught multi-level, to all the children in the homeschool. Can you explain the benefit of families learning this way?

Sherrie Payne:
Oh, this is a hot topic for me! It didn’t take me too many years before I realized what a blessing and benefit it is to teach the same subject to the whole family. With Around the World, it didn’t matter what grade the student was in—he could even be a preschooler and participate.

Something to be aware of with this curriculum is that each student has their own notebook divided up by continent. And then their work with geography, for instance, entails tracing a map of the continent, outlining the countries, labeling the capitals, rivers, mountains, etc. This works just fine for those probably in grades 5 or 6 and up.

The younger ones can trace the outline of the continent and maybe a little more, depending on where they’re working, and then you could provide the youngest ones with an outline map and have them trace it and color it. It’s great small motor skills. Think how this makes the younger ones feel, to know that they are doing the same thing their older siblings are doing!

At the end of each study, there’s a list of suggestions for things to do with that study. Just by the very fact that they are all together, the kids will automatically have more learning take place than what was in their own lesson plan.

Mike:
Sherrie, that’s a great way to get everybody involved in learning together. Thanks for joining us this week! I’m Mike Farris.