September 14, 2000 - Bibliography / Large Families

The bibliography at the end of the introduction is a list of books that I used to write this book. A majority of the books are at an adult level and would not be appropriate or even interesting for use for your children in this study. It may even get you way off track in terms of each theme, as some have just a small portion taken from them as research for the book as a whole. I have listed the books in the beginning of each unit that would be good for your children to use. They are more focused on each unit and its theme. You will find additional books on the shelves of your own library on each of these topics - those are the ones that you should check out too.

Regarding how to use each of the adventure manuals with numerous children: if you want to truly pull out all your hair in one year - use all of them at once! They are really meant to be used by an entire family (for the bonding to occur) one at a time. You are missing all the benefits of a unit study if you try to do more than one at a time. Furthermore, it will confuse you and your children. Large families often simultaneously go through a lower level unit study for their younger kids (some are using Five in a Row, some are doing their own study like Lori is on Creation, etc.) and they supplement for their older high school kids with a few high school textbooks. You can do what you want of course, but I HIGHLY recommend that you ALL do as much of A World of Adventure together as you can - until you are finished with the book. Supplement, in your case, at the bottom, with your younger kids with phonics, language arts, and math at their level. IF necessary, use a literature-based unit study, like Five in a Row for the little ones. (MANY parents find that they don't need to do this, though - their younger kids WANT to be a part of the Adventure book because the older kids are enjoying it so much.) Don't try to teach Ancient AND American history in one year though - it is too difficult. When you have all finished the first book, have the whole family move on to the second, and then the third after that, etc. When all five books have been completed by your family, THEN start over with A World of Adventure. This is how the classical approach to education works - you do the ancients and move through history until you hit current events, and then you start over again.

The BEAUTY of this approach is that by the time your oldest children have finished the series, they have gotten a deep look at each segment of history and are now ready for a good review of the whole thing. This time you go through the series, you can supplement with older, more advanced books (those I suggest in the beginnings of many of the units as "More Learning Adventures") for your older kids, while your younger students will look at this as a fresh look at each historical segment, because they were too young to totally take advantage of all the knowledge the first time around. You work in a cycle like this until all your children have completed the cycle of history, and have reviewed it as well.

I hope this helps you understand better how it will all work. Try to always stay in chronological order, but as the younger ones join your study, they won't be starting at the beginning. They will learn from their own point of entry (whichever book you are on at the time they are ready to enter the study with you). They will eventually get a chance to start back at the beginning and truly work their way through history chronologically as well.

Check out the Institute for Creation Research (address listed in the introduction of the book) for some excellent creation books. There are also some good creation unit studies available in the homeschool market.
Happy hunting!

Dorian