BookShark Homeschool History Curriculum for 1st Grade
We have been looking for the perfect 1st grade homeschool history curriculum for a long time. I wanted something that would make each period of history come alive with picture books and read-alouds that make history fun for my kids. I finally found the history program I was looking for: BookShark Reading with History A Intro to World: Cultures! Keep reading to look inside this incredible program and learn how to use it with your first grader!
I received compensation and BookShark Reading with History A Intro to World: Cultures in exchange for my honest review, but all the opinions in this post are my own.
What is BookShark?
BookShark is a homeschool curriculum company that offers curricula for a variety of subject areas. They also offer all subjects packages which include a full curriculum for an entire year of homeschool. BookShark offers curricula for students in preschool through high school.
BookShark Reading with History A Intro to World: Cultures is a comprehensive history curriculum for kids ages 5-7.
BookShark’s curriculum is unique because rather than using textbooks or worksheets, students learn by reading real books. The great books on BookShark’s book lists are classics selected to help kids learn while they are reading.
BookShark offers secular curriculum options.
What’s Included in BookShark Reading with History A Intro to the World: Cultures?
BookShark’s Reading with History A Intro to the World: Cultures program is a boxed curriculum. This means that you can purchase all the resources that you need for a whole year of homeschooling and everything will be delivered to your house in one box!
Here’s what is included in the Reading with History A Program:
Instructor’s Guide
Each BookShark curriculum comes with a comprehensive BookShark Instructor’s Guide. The parent guide is organized into daily lesson plans. Families using BookShark can plan to homeschool for 5 days per week for 36 weeks.
The instructor’s guide is a critical part of the BookShark curriculum. I love the way the essential teacher’s guide is organized. Each week’s lessons are already planned for me, and this makes it so easy to just open the plans and use the curriculum. The books are broken up into short daily lessons that are perfect for my kids’ attention spans.
Each week’s schedule starts with a week-at-a-glance calendar. We use this page the most because if my kids get excited about a lesson and want to keep working, it is easy to see at a glance what we should do next. I also love that the page includes some blank boxes. I use them to plan any other activities we want to include as a part of our homeschool day.
If you are new to BookShark, make sure that you flip to the back of the Instructor’s Guide to check out the New User Information in section 4. This section is full of helpful tips for how to use the Instructor’s Guide, how to schedule your homeschool year, how to adapt the curriculum to fit your child’s unique needs, and much more.
Download a sample of the first 3 weeks of the Instructor’s Guide for BookShark Reading with History Level A here.
History Books
I love the way that BookShark uses engaging books to teach world history! The curriculum comes with a mix of reference books like The Usborne Children’s Encyclopedia and The Usborne Book of Living Long Ago as well as picture books and readers.
My son loves The Story of Exploration by Anna Claybourne. This book begins with ancient history and talks about famous explorers and their discoveries through time. It goes all the way up to modern history and the space program!
My son loves the interesting facts in this book. He has developed a huge interest in explorers as he has read the book. My younger daughter is always happy to listen along. She loves the beautiful illustrations and maps in this book.
Check out all the history books that are included in BookShark Reading with History Level A here.
Read Aloud Books
BookShark Reading with History A comes with 19 different read aloud books as a part of the literature program. I love the book recommendations in this first grade curriculum! The books are a mixture of classic works of great literature like Little House in the Big Woods and Beezus and Ramona that I remember reading myself in elementary school, as well as some new favorites.
One of my kids’ favorites so far has been James Herriot’s Treasury for Children. My animal-loving daughter begs to hear stories from this book whenever she gets the chance. She loves the beautiful full-color illustrations on every page.
My son enjoyed reading The Boxcar Children. He has since gone on to read other books in the series and he loves trying to solve the mysteries before the Boxcar Children do. I am so excited that this curriculum helped inspire a love of reading in my son that has gone beyond the books that are included!
Find a list of all the read aloud books that are included in BookShark Reading with History Level A here.
Readers
Reading with History A Intro to the World: Cultures comes with several different options for kids who are learning to read. The curriculum comes with a set of 27 early readers called Fun Tales, which are a great introduction to phonics instruction.
For kids who are already at a more advanced reading level, it is easy to customize the curriculum with Level 1 Readers or Level 2 Readers instead. I love that BookShark gives this option to allow parents to customize their kids’ early education to fit their exact level.
Download 3 of the Readers from BookShark Reading with History Level A for free here.
Maps and Timelines
I love that Reading with History A comes with a large wall-sized Markable Map. The map is laminated and comes with a set of wet-erase markers for labeling different places we are studying.
We are using the world map this year. On the back is a large U.S. map that will come in handy when we study U.S. history in the future.
I love that the map is giving my kids a better understanding of geography as they study history!
The curriculum also comes with a blank timeline book and a set of peel and stick timeline figures. My first grader has started adding timeline figures to the book as we study the different historical events. We plan to keep the book and use it throughout his time in homeschool. By the time he is taking high school courses, I think we will have a beautiful resource to remember everything that we have studied over time!
The curriculum comes with a blank calendar. This is perfect for teaching kids about days of the week and months of the year.
The Instructor’s Guide has reminders throughout to look for places on the map or add figures to the history timeline. This has been very helpful to remind us to use these resources.
Hands-On Kit
The Hands-on History Kit is an optional add-on available with Reading with History A Intro to the World: Cultures. This kit is my family’s favorite part of the BookShark curriculum!
The kit includes all the instructions and supplies we need to make 9 different hands on history projects. Each of the activities and art projects helps kids learn more about the time periods we are studying.
I love the directions that are included with this kit! As a busy homeschool family, I appreciate that they explain exactly what to do with lots of pictures. Each step is labeled so families know which steps kids can do independently and which steps require help from a parent. (And most of the steps are for the child.)
My kids had a lot of fun making the log cabin. This was a great way to help my kids appreciate how the early settlers made their log cabins, and to understand history from a deeper perspective.
Check out a full list of everything that’s included in BookShark Reading with History Level A here.
BookShark Virtual
One of my favorite parts of our BookShark history curriculum for 1st grade is the BookShark Virtual option. BookShark Virtual is a digital companion to the BookShark curriculum. It has lots of features that make it so helpful for homeschool families, including:
Digital instructor’s guide: BookShark Virtual is a digital version of the instructor’s guide that allows parents to view lesson plans at a glance. I love how easy it is to see exactly what’s on our schedule, without needing to check our big BookShark Instructor’s Guide binder.
This is especially helpful when we want to take our homeschool lessons on the go. I can pull up the Digital instructor’s Guide on my phone in the car and we can keep learning anywhere!
Teacher portal for parents: I love all the additional resources and features that are available to parents in the teacher portal. I could easily customize assignments from the Instructor’s Guide for my kids, add due dates, and create a custom schedule for our family’s homeschool.
It was also really easy to see at a glance which assignments my kids had completed and what they were working on next.
BookShark Virtual even does a lot of the grading for me! I love that it’s even easier to homeschool when I don’t need to spend time correcting my kids’ assignments.
Student portal for kids: I am always looking for ways to encourage my kids to be independent learners. I love that my kids can work on their history courses independently by using the student portal inside BookShark Virtual.
My kids were able to log in to BookShark Virtual and see their assignments at a glance. They could even do some of the assignments and quizzes right inside the app!
Learn more about BookShark Virtual here.
Reasons to Use BookShark Homeschool History Curriculum for 1st Grade
Based on Books
My family loves BookShark because the whole curriculum is based on reading books together as a family. My kids are always excited for us to read aloud together. Their idea of a perfect homeschool day is for us to spend the whole morning snuggling on the couch and reading a giant stack of books.
This is exactly what our homeschool looks like most of the time when we are using BookShark.
I love the way that history is coming alive for my kids as they connect with the characters and situations in all of the books.
And because there are so many books, there is a lot of variety in our homeschool. We are always finishing books and starting new ones, and this keeps things exciting for my kids too.
Easy to Use
As a busy homeschool parent, one of my favorite things about BookShark is how easy the curriculum is to use. The Instructor’s Guide includes all the lesson plans, already done, for the entire school year. That means I can spend less time lesson planning and more time with my kids. What homeschool parent doesn’t love that?
I also really appreciate how flexible the Instructor’s Guide is. My kids often get interested in the books we are reading. I love that the curriculum makes it so easy to follow their lead and keep learning. We can see at a glance what the next lessons are for each book and it’s easy to take as much time as we want to with each one.
The curriculum includes discussion questions, vocabulary, and timeline and map skills right in the Instructor’s Guide, so we never forget to do those things.
BookShark Virtual
The BookShark Virtual option is one of my family’s favorite parts of BookShark. I love that my kids can work independently using the student portal and that we can take our BookShark Lessons on the go without needing to bring the giant Instructor’s Guide binder with us.
Great for Multiple Ages
My kids are 3 years apart. I love that I can use BookShark to teach both history and language arts to both of them at the same time.
BookShark recommends choosing the lowest level that will work for the grade level of your oldest child. This ensures that your oldest child will be challenged by the curriculum while making the curriculum accessible for younger kids too.
Each curriculum is designed for a wide 3-year age span so there is flexibility built into each curriculum level. BookShark Reading with History A Intro to World: Cultures is designed for kids in kindergarten through second grade, but can be adapted for kids outside that range as well.
I love that BookShark allows my whole family to be able to learn together!
Learn more about how to choose a BookShark curriculum that’s the right level for your family here.
Challenging
I included BookShark in my first grade curriculum choices because I was looking for the best curriculum to make history fun. But, it’s still important to me that my kids are challenged to learn as much as they can during their homeschool year.
I love that my kids are going deep in their study of history by learning from books and other primary sources. This helps them learn more and remember better than they would if they were learning from history textbooks.
Check out the curriculum scope and sequence for BookShark Reading with History Level A here.
My Kids Love History
Growing up, I did not love history. My public school history classes were so boring. To make matters worse, I was never sure why it was that we were studying the subject.
I love that my kids are not having the same experience with history that I did. They love history and enjoy learning about different countries in the world with all the BookShark books. I am so glad that they are having a better experience as elementary students than I did. I hope that this will translate to a lifelong love of history that goes beyond our homeschool years.
Hands-On Kit
My family loves the Hands-On History Kit. This is an easy way to include projects in our history curriculum, without needing to plan activities or gather materials. Everything we need, and all the directions, are included right inside the kit. My kids love the projects and each one helps them go even deeper with what they are learning about history.
Try BookShark Homeschool History Curriculum for 1st Grade for Yourself
If you are looking for an easy way to make history come alive for your kids, and you would rather learn with real books instead of a textbook, I can’t recommend BookShark enough. My family is really enjoying this program that makes history fun as we share books together as a family.
Learn more about the BookShark Reading with History A Intro to World: Cultures program and get a copy for your family here!
