Do you ever reach a point in your homeschooling journey where you are either so overwhelmed by the abundance of available information that you can’t break it down into useable bits or there is so little information available about a topic that you don’t feel you are doing an adequate job teaching it? I know I reach that point every now and then. For quite some time, to me that point was in our history studies. I stay conflicted between trying to make sure my kids know about relevant points in history while trying to make sure they know how those things have affected us currently. What’s a parent to do?
Thomas Jefferson Education has come up with a resource that has greatly reduced my stress and workload with regards to history and the integration of history into other areas of our studies. What exactly is TJEd? TJEd gives you the “how” and the “why” to make the “what” more powerful, more memorable, more relevant to your children. It is an educational philosophy that operates under the premise that “Every person has inner genius. Thomas Jefferson Education consists of helping each student discover, develop and polish her genius. This is the essence and very definition of great education.” As part of this education system, the developers of TJEd have put together a comprehensive and engaging resource called “This Week in History.”
This Week in History is a subscription program, available for $9.99 / month, giving parents and students (adaptable to any age student) resources in math, science, language skills, geography, current events, the arts and so on – all tied to events in history. This resource is so much fun. It is like getting a gift in your inbox every week. Subscribers can access it via e-mail or through the This Week in History blog feed on the TJEd website. Resources range from audio/visual resources to print resources (through internet links). Suggestions are given for how to tie different historical events into many different subject areas. We have been using it as a history supplement over the summer and it is going to be tied into our overall history curriculum this Fall. How is that possible? With a subscription you have access to a year’s worth of This Week in History archived posts. These posts are searchable by date, topic, and keyword. So, if the current week’s topics don’t fit with your studies, all you have to do is search a bit to find something that works.
We are enjoying the eclectic arrangement of the topics. Yes, different topics are covered based on the week in history they occurred; but, those events are not necessarily chronological by year. It is fun to be in WWI one week and the American Revolution another week. For our summer this has been a great way to learn some fun facts, to integrate these into other areas,
A fun perk for adults is the opportunity to sign up for the TJEd newsletter and to receive 5 free e-book gifts. Information about this is located on the ‘freebies’ tab on the website.
I recommend this resource for any teacher of history, student of history, or history enthusiast. It is fun, interesting, thorough, and economical. With gas prices continually on the rise, one would be hard pressed to spend less than $10 traveling to multiple libraries to compile even a smattering of the information available through This Week in History.
Subscription information, as well as a sample week of This Week in History, is available through the This Week in History tab of the TJEd website. If you would like to read some other reviews, check out the Schoolhouse Review Crew page.
**As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I was given a subscription to This Week In History for purpose of review. The honest opinions expressed are my own. No compensation was received from TOS or TJEd.**
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