Philosophy Adventure Mega Giveaway

As I mentioned previously, I am part of a special review team for a very interesting product for middle and high school students – Philosophy Adventure.   I wrote a first post back in May and today I am writing more about it.  Life has been crazy over the summer months with us investing in renovations on the second and first floor.   You see we have installed laminate flooring on the 2nd floor and hardwood on the 1st floor which required a lot of moving the furniture around and packing temporarily.   Though the floors are now complete, I still have boxes to unpack.  But this is not the purpose of this post as I need to tell you how amazing the Philosophy Adventure is as a curriculum for homeschoolers.

Philosophy Adventure - Learn how to write skillfully, think critically, & speak articulately as you explore the history of ideas.
Written by Stacy Farrell
Published at Homeschool Adventure

The course includes a reader which contains philosopher stories, images relevant to the time the philosophers were alive, writing lessons, critical thinking lessons, public speaking lessons, historical geography, and a biblical worldview analysis.   It also contains detailed checklists for the writing exercises as well as numerous writings prompts.   The student workbook includes philosopher notebook pages, mapping assignments, quizzes, tests and more.   Finally the Teacher’s Resources includes the keys to the quizzes, tests, and mapping assignments, timelines and easy to follow instructions.   The CD would contain the digital edition of the Reader and all the resources.

How the material works

This specific curriculum will introduce students to academic content and help them to develop practical skills  like writing, presentation of ideas and critical thinking.   The lessons are easy to follow and incremental as the child will learn to be more expressive in his writings and organized in the presentation of his words. 

In the Reader, the student will learn more about the leaders in the pre-socratic way of thinking.  He/she will discover Thales, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Protagoras, as well as Democritus. In each lesson, you will encounter the philosopher and receive assignments in order to develop your writing, thinking and speaking skills.  You will also be able to do a bit of geography based on the life of the philosopher, discover during which School of Thoughts the philosopher participated or founded and learn whether the ideas of the philosopher align with a biblical worldview. 

The Student workbook contains all your student will need in order to answer the questions, complete the notebook pages, Add details to the maps, and complete your assignments in the write think speak journal section.   A checklist helping the student to make sure he/she has thought of everything also complete the document.

In the Teacher Resources documents,  you will find memory cards, timeline resources, master maps and keys, as well as quizzes and keys.   I think it is absolutely fabulous that the Teacher Resources document is included in the package in order for me to be able to refer to it and correct the work my son has done.   Planning this curriculum into your daily work is quite easy.   You can easily adapt the schedule into a four or five days week.   In the end your student will be able to complete one lesson every two weeks in order to complete le curriculum after 16 weeks.   The curriculum is also flexible for your student to complete it in a more advanced intensive program on a 8 weeks period.    This specific curriculum will cover English Composition, World History/Geography, Speech and Communications as well as Logic/Critical Thinking and you will be able to assign credits to your high school student.

Now that I have presented the various documents included in this curriculum, I would like to present some of the things I have learned about one of the philosophers included in this curriculum.   What do you know about Pythagoras?   Your first thought might be the Pythagorean Theorem.  But what else do you really know about him?   I was quite surprise by the information I read through the pages of this curriculum.   From what I understand, he was the leader of what we would call today a sect.  He was very strict with his followers to the point of having them obey bizarre requirements like for example not eating beans.  This fear of beans that he had brought his life to an end because he refused to cross a bean field while running for his life. 

Needless to say we are still exploring this marvelous curriculum and I find it very interesting for any middle school or high school student.   I would like to suggest that you make sure that your child is mature enough before going through this material.   My oldest son is very mature for his age and we will continue to use it for his grade 7 year.  However, I have other children and I suspect that for some of them I will have to wait until they are in grade 9 before I include this curriculum in their lessons.    I am very pleased with what we have learned and covered so far.  I can’t wait to see how my son will change as the weeks go by.

Now, here’s a great news….   During the month of August, there is a MEGA GIVEAWAY going at Homeschool Adventure.   You have the opportunity to win the Philosophy Adventure Pre-Socratic curriculum along with other great products for homeschooling (see image below to see what you can win!).

MEGA GIVEAWAY – OVER 800$ of curriculum

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Wondering how much does Philosophy Adventure cost?   Well the physical set will be sold for the price of 89.95$ US while the digital set will be available for the price of 39.95$ at Homeschool Adventure.

Philosophy Adventure

Philosophy Adventure - Learn how to write skillfully, think critically, & speak articulately as you explore the history of ideas.
Written by Stacy Farrell
Published at Homeschool Adventure

I recently saw an opportunity to review a new product on the market for students in grade 6 to 12.   Having one child finishing grade 6 and slowly starting his grade 7, I thought it would be nice to explore how to cultivate and defend a biblical worldview in learning how to write skillfully, think critically, and speak articulately.   This specific course allows the student (and the teacher) to explore the history of philosophy.

The course includes a reader which contains philosopher stories, images relevant to the time the philosophers were alive, writing lessons, critical thinking lessons, public speaking lessons, historical geography, and a biblical worldview analysis.   It also contains detailed checklists for the writing exercises as well as numerous writings prompts.   The student workbook includes philosopher notebook pages, mapping assignments, quizzes, tests and more.   Finally the Teacher’s Resources includes the keys to the quizzes, tests, and mapping assignments, timelines and easy to follow instructions.   The CD would contain the digital edition of the Reader and all the resources.

How the material works

This specific curriculum will introduce students to academic content and help them to develop practical skills  like writing, presentation of ideas and critical thinking.

My Thoughts

I didn’t know what to expect from the curriculum when I signed up for it.  I had read the description and thought it would be a great way to discover philosophy combined with biblical worldview.    I was open to check out the product, explore it and share my thoughts about it.

I received a first draft of the document via email and quickly uploaded it on my iPad.   Imagine my surprise and delight in the material to read when I discover Thales and Pythagoras.   I only explored these two philosophers so far and I am impressed by the information contained in the pages I have read.   Intertwined with the story of these two philosophers, you can also get some quick one page lessons on writing, thinking and speaking.  At the end of each of these lessons, there is a little exercise to do based on what you have read.   For example, in the first writing lesson, the student is asked to answer three questions:

• Where did I come from and why am I here?
• Why is there evil, suffering, and death?
• Is there hope for my future?

The author also mentions that the answer “I don’t know.” is perfectly okay as long as it is not a way to avoid work in the process.   I like that kind of thinking because sometimes the student might not be able to express himself and might not be able to find an answer for a specific question.

In each lesson, you will have many components that will be repeated –

• the Philosopher’s Story will highlight interesting parts of the life of the philosopher, describe the time and place where he lived, and present his main accomplishments and beliefs.
• the Write, Think and Speak articles and assignments will complement the concept learned and are placed across from the story of the philosopher.
• The Geographical information will allow the student to identify the place and time when the philosopher lived and the School of Thought will highlight what kind of school of thought the philosopher participated or founded.
• Finally, the Contrast section will allow the student to become familiar with some of the material written by the philosopher and permit him/her to explore whether the ideas of that philosopher align with a biblical worldview.

Essential you could use this curriculum in a four or five days week.    Read the complete philosopher’s story from the week’s lesson and complete the philosopher’s notebook page and mapping assignment on day one.   On day two, you can read the Write sidebar and begin the assignment,   Day Three will allow the student to explore the Think sidebar and do the assignment on this lesson while day four consist of reading the Speak sidebar and begin the assignment.   Finally, day five consist in completing the Write, Think and Speak assignments as well as complete the timeline and mapping exercises.    You could also take the lesson quiz.  

The Student book contains notebook pages in order to answer some questions on the philosopher of the week, mapping exercises in order to label and record facts on specific places linked with the philosopher, detailed assignments for writing, and much more.  In the Teacher’s Resource you will get instructions on how to guide the student in the lesson, a list of vocabulary words and memory cards to help the student memorize the information for a specific philosopher,and all the answers to the assignments and quizzes of the student.  The material is well presented and very colorful.

What I particularly like about the writing assignments is that it is specifically indicated in the instructions to set a timer with a time assigned for each exercises.    At this point in time, my son is currently learning to write with another curriculum specialized in writing and he is enjoying it taking more time to write and work on his assignments.   Knowing that the writing assignments in Philosophy Adventure are time restricted will help him quite a bit in knowing how long he need to develop his answers.   The student is definitively guided step by step in order to help him/her in developing ideas to write and expanding their critical thinking at the same time.   And knowing that this course material intertwined the biblical worldview with the lesson is fabulous because it will give the two sides of the coin – philosophy thinking versus biblical thinking.

On Wednesday night, I was reading about Pythagoras and learned quite a bit about this philosopher.  Almost at every paragraph I had a reaction in my mind – no way!, really?, seriously?, wow!.   I know he was linked with the Pythagorean Theorem but that was about it.  I learned more about this philosopher in the few pages included in this curriculum than I had before.   I asked my son if he knew who Pythagoras was.  He answered the mathematician.  To which I told him he was more than that and tomorrow we will sit down together and read about this specific philosopher. 

Needless to say I am very impressed with the quality found in this curriculum.   I seriously think that Christian homeschoolers should go through it in order to prepare themselves in being able to write, think critically and speak with confidence about their beliefs.

Wondering how much does Philosophy Adventure cost?   Well the physical set will be sold for the price of 89.95$ US while the digital set will be available for the price of 39.95$ at Homeschool Adventure.

GREAT NEWS!

One of my reader have the possibility of winning a full digital set of the final publication!   It would be a great curriculum to guide your child to write skillfully, think critically, and speak articulately.  This curriculum is perfect for grade 6th to 12th.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

You can blog hop to other moms who reviewed the Philosophy Adventure to have the opportunity of entering more giveaways.  

Oh and there will be a Philosophy Adventure Twitter party on Tuesday June 4 at 9 p.m. EST. There will be physical prizes of all of Stacy Farrell's amazing products!!!