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ABOUT US

First, just a little about ourselves. We are the Weber family, and we live and work as missionaries in a remote location in Africa. We are also a homeschool family, so everything that you see on this website is all just part of our homeschool history program.

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WHAT WE BELIEVE
I think it is important to point out that our family comes from a Protestant Christian background, and in both our life and work we have a strong desire to see unity in the Church, which makes us a lot less about labels and denominations and a lot more about living out the truths in Scripture as followers of Jesus.
 

We believe that the whole of the Scriptures are the very words of God, “breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). As this relates to history, we believe that the Bible is reliable and historically accurate. So in all our studies of history, we always go back to the Bible and use it as our reference point for determining how all of history ties together. 
 

With all this in mind, I think it is important to share with you the fact that what we teach, and how we teach it (right down to the choices we’ve made regarding what resources we use and share on this website) all center around our core beliefs about the Bible and our savior, Jesus Christ. 

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THE MYSTERY OF HISTORY CURRICULUM
You should know, right off the bad, that we use the “Mystery of History” student reader books as a big part of our history program. Of all the history programs out there, this one was my favorite. I really love the layout, and the content it teaches. So, you will see references to this program quite a lot, with frequent recommendations to read specific chapters in the Mystery of History books. So, in order to get the most out of this program, I would certainly recommend purchasing the Mystery of History reading textbooks. Whether or not you get any of the extra “additional accompaniment” resources that go along with this program are completely up to you, but those “extras” aren’t essential for following our program, only the actual textbooks are necessary. Here are the links for purchasing those books:

Mystery of History Volume 1: Creation to the Resurrection
Mystery of History Volume 2: The Early Church and the Middle Ages
The Mystery of History Volume 3: The Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Growth of Nations
The Mystery of History Volume 4: Wars of Independence to Modern Times

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DIANA WARING: HISTORY REVEALED CURRICULUM
Another curriculum program we use and reference to a lot in our history program is the works of Diana Waring. This is especially true for older students, since a lot of her works are too advanced for younger students to follow along with. How much you choose to use the History Revealed program is entirely up to you. It is not essential for using the program we have on this website, but it would certainly enhance the experience a lot, especially if you have older students using the program (8th - 12th grade).
Diana Waring: History Revealed

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INTERNET VIDEOS / LINKS
As you explore this website you will find links to many youtube videos, or other websites. There are many resources that I developed on my own and share on the site, but the majority of the content are ideas and resources that I have gathered from other sources. This being the case, I can’t guarantee that there won’t be some youtube advertisements, or ads on other websites that may be inappropriate for children, so please use discretion and consider previewing content on your own before showing it to your kids. 

 

Personally, I prefer to do our schooling completely offline with the kids, and just take the time to download what I need ahead of time so that there isn’t any concern about what might pop up unexpectedly on the screen when we’re online. 

 

Even all the online videos that you will see links for are all videos that I found online, but I always download them first, before showing them to my children. KeepStreams Video Downloader is my software of choice for downloading content. It isn't free, but I think it is worth the cost for my kids to be able to watch content offline, free of ads, pop-ups, and other distractions or concerns that come with giving your students access to the internet. 

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Aside from that, I also wanted to point out that I have tried VERY HARD to filter through all the resources on this website to make sure that they appropriate for children. I have even gone so far as to edit and censor certain videos to take out content that I did not want my children exposed to. 

That being the case, you SHOULD be able to use any of the resources on this website without having to worry about there being any swear words, fowl language, any LGBT content or other hidden agendas, or any “dark” content (witches, ghosts, wizards, sorcery, black magic, etc).

 

I should also mention that there are several resources that mention evolution. In our home we believe the Bible and what it says about God creating the world, so we do not believe in evolution, and I have done by best to keep any evolution based content to a minimum. However, there are resources we use that are coming from secular sources, which has made it difficult to completely avoid the mention of evolution, though we have done our best to keep it at a minimum. 

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HOW WE DEAL WITH EVOLUTIONARY CONTENT
As I mentioned in the last section, I have not been able to completely filter out evolutionary content in the resources that we share on this website, but I have done my best to keep it to a minimum.  I have even gone so far as to edit videos that I downloaded from the internet to take out the bulk of the evolutionary content, when possible.

 

But even though I have tried to keep evolutionary teaching to a minimum, I do like having small amounts of it come up from time to time in our classroom, since I find it to be a good teaching opportunity, and you will certainly see notes and content in the lessons that directly address the teachings of evolution.

 

The truth is, the teachings of evolution are everywhere, and our kids are going to be bombarded with evolution-based ideas all throughout their lives, so, this being the case, I do intentionally allow a little bit of evolution here and there, and use them as teaching opportunities. 

 

In everything that we do in school (books, videos, activities), I am always right there doing it right alongside my children, so whenever there is a mention of evolution or “millions of years”, I always take a moment to pause and talk about it with my kids.

 

We also do a lot of Scripture based science and Bible learning that really helps to give them a good foundation for Creation science. So with all the things that they have learned about Creation and Christian science, along with my intentionality about talking to them about evolution whenever it comes up, I have actually found that my kids are getting really good at catching false teachings themselves, and many times they will point out the evolutionary content even before I do. In this way, they are learning how to identify it and how to respond to it.

 

NEEDED SUPPLIES
There is a lot of flexibility in how you can teach this program, so a lot of supplies you’ll need will depend on what all you decide to do. But if you are really wanting to get the most out of this program, and follow the same kind of model that we are doing, then you might want to consider having on hand these following items:

 

Printer. A lot of the resources we use are ones that we download and print. So being able to print things off at home has been really helpful. 

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Laminator. Having a laminator has been a real game changer for our homeschool. Whether it’s making flash cards, reusable dry-erase worksheets, or icons for our timeline, a laminator sure comes in handy for a lot of different activities! I really like this one. 

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HOW TO USE THIS WEBSITE
I have tried to design this website to be as easy to use as possible. If you are just looking for resources to supplement what you are already doing in your classroom, then using this website could be as easy as looking up whichever time period in history you are studying, and browsing to see what extra resources we found that could supplement your program. 
Or, if you’d like to use this website as a complete curriculum (the way that we are using this program in our homeschool), then I would highly recommend purchasing the Mystery of History student reader books (mentioned above), and consider starting with the first lesson and working your way through each of the lessons in order. 

The lessons really do build on each other, so doing them in order is the best way to really get the most out of this history program. But, I also recognize that there are a lot of lessons, so feel free to skip the occasional lesson if you want to shorten the program a little, only know that there is a huge advantage to doing all of the lessons in chronological order. If you do this, by the end your kids will have a very complete and clear view of history from its start to finish. They will also be very familiar with most of the key figures and events in history, which will lay a very strong foundation for them in life. 

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PEOPLE TO KNOW SECTION

In addition to the many “Lessons” featured on our HOME PAGE, we also have individual lessons for “People to Know”. Some of these people are included in the actual history lessons, but others are not. 

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In our classroom, we tend to just pick a random person to study each month, in addition to whatever people are being featured in the lessons. There are just so many great people in history, and I want my kids to be familiar with as many of their stories as possible, so we have a lot of fun just learning about different people in history. 

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The “People to Know” section is listed by categories (ex. musicians, politicians, etc), but you can also check out our “Alphabetical List of People Know” if you have a specific person in mind that you are looking for. Either way, I hope you will make use the the “People to Know” section of the website as a great addition to this (or any!) history program! 

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DON’T FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING
History can be a very overwhelming subject to teach, simply because there is always more to learn about. And as if that isn’t hard enough, there are also multiple learning styles and multiple ways of reinforcing the lesson. So, this being the case, it is important to recognize what your particular style of teaching is, as well as the particular learning styles of your students, and to use discernment as you pick and choose which activities to do, and which to pass on. In compiling these lessons I have tried to include activities for the many different learning styles, but trying to do everything can really wear you down. In our classroom, we mostly just read the chapters from the Mystery of History book, then watch a couple YouTube videos that help to expand the lesson, and maybe do one or two fun “hands-on” activities to reinforce the lesson. If there’s a person to learn about, we might take a separate day to do a lesson on that person. But other than that, we keep our history classes as simple and straight-forward as possible, and then we move on to the next lesson (even if we haven’t completed every activity we may have wanted to do). 

We don’t typically spend more than a couple hours on a lesson (unless we happen to really be getting into it, then we might take a little longer). As a rule of thumb, I always aim to end the lesson WHILE WE’RE STILL ENJOYING IT. If the kids are starting to get tired, bored, or are losing interest, then I know we spent too long on that lesson and need to aim to shorten it next time. History should be fun! And ending a lesson while they are still having fun really helps to leave them “hungry for more” and eager to keep on learning.

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