Crew Review: A Thomas Jefferson Education

Regular readers of my blog know that we LOVE history! And are always thrilled to get to review history resources! So none of us complained when we were given the opportunity to review a subscription to This Week in History from A Thomas Jefferson Education.

So, what is "This Week in History"? It's a weekly e-mail that you can subscribe to for $9.99 per month. It gives a wide variety of historic happenings on each date that week. But it's not JUST a list of dates and events. It's a mini-unit study, and sometimes it's not so mini, for most, if not all, of those events. There are links to relevant sites, suggestions of activities to do, etc. You can see a sample week here, to get an idea how detailed this is!

The e-mail goes out weekly, but you can access the information anytime you want from their website.

If you're more organized than I am, you can look ahead and lesson-plan around historic events from that date.

But even if you're like me, this still works great. Most mornings, as we start history, I just click to the website real quick, and read them that day's things, if something catches our attention, we dig into it more deeply.

What did we think? We always love learning about more history, it's a fun bit of trivia each day. I REALLY wish there was a clickable calendar so that, when I go into the site each day, I can click straight to today's date. Because there IS so much information for each item, it can be annoying (yes, I'm impatient, why do you ask?) to scroll down to try to find the current day when we're in the middle, or near the end of the week.  Alternately, a daily e-mail with that day's events would be IDEAL for the unorganized like me, right in my inbox ready for me to read to the girls.

The girls always enjoy learning about new things. Some days, it took us off on long tangents, which are always a love/hate thing. They are so interested while we're in the midst of it, but then are sad later when it means skipping something else. Gotta love kids who love to learn!

I think this could be a great option for a year when you're not really focusing on history! While it might be hard to believe, considering what a large percentage of our days this year are focused on history, a couple years ago, we took a break from history for a year. We did a very brief overview of World History, just listening to audiobooks in the car. That year, this would have been a great way to incorporate a smattering of history without being overwhelming. This would also be a great way to whet a reluctant child's appetite for history, because the things they include are SOO varied, there's something for everyone, if not today, then coming soon! LOL.

I'm intrigued by the whole A Thomas Jefferson Education website! I signed up for their free newsletter and it has really interested me to learn more about the whole philosophy. I love the focus on teaching children to love learning, and delaying "heavy" academics until they're older. You can see all of their products here.

Be sure to read about how other crew members used their subscription, here.

Disclaimer: As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I received the above mentioned product in exchange for writing an honest review. No other compensation was received and all opinions are those of myself or my children, as stated.