 Hi you guys my name is Brittany and welcome back to my YouTube channel. You guys in today's video I'm going to talk all about my history curriculum change and why we are no longer using beautiful feats early American history the intermediate edition. So if any of you guys are new here to my channel again my name is Brittany. I'm a homeschooling mom to three girls ages 10, four and two and I'm in my third year of homeschool you guys. So I am going to be as honest as possible and open in today's video especially as we are talking about history curriculum. I do want to go ahead and give you like a few disclaimers before we kind of dive in deep into I guess my discussion and my woes and my concerns about this beautiful feat early American history. I just want to say first and foremost I will never bash a curriculum company and just downright say no don't use that or just really talk negatively towards a curriculum company just because it takes a lot of work to produce and to come up with this curriculum a lot of thought a lot of effort and honestly at the end of the day I know we always hear this but no curriculum is perfect and I'm not going to bash a company or say anything bad about a company. However I am going to be open and honest about my opinions and my thoughts about beautiful feat curriculum. I am going to give my honest critiques and my honest opinions and hopefully if someone from the company sees this video hopefully it will bring about a good discussion and possibly changes within their curriculum in the future and I think that's the only thing that I definitely want to see is just a progression and always constant changing especially as we are evolving and we are finding better ways and better resources to study history. So you guys I'm going to go ahead and flip you guys around and we're going to do this video a little bit different. I actually want to show you guys inside of these guides. I want to show you in depth views. I don't want to just sit here and talk to a camera. I really want to dive in deep and let you guys kind of like see my thought process and see like where I was coming from with this big curriculum change that I did make within my home school. So I'm going to flip you guys around and we are going to talk about beautiful feat and we're going to talk about the new history curriculum that we are doing now in my home school which I am absolutely loving. So let's go ahead and get on to this thing you guys. Okay you guys these right here are the two main pieces of the beautiful feat early American history curriculum. This beautiful feat early American history curriculum is a literature based curriculum. So this right here is your guide to how you are going to be reading your books. This has your schedule. This has like all of the websites that you can go on. It has projects, cooking, just all the enrichment things you can add to your history and this right here is like your reference book or the main spine. Two beautiful feats early American history. So I'm going to go ahead and say first and foremost off the bat. I really feel like I got sucked into beautiful feat because I got so excited about all of the beautiful literature that you are reading throughout the course of this study and I think I made a initial flip through video of this showing all the literature. I'll probably try to put in some b-roll of all of the books that you will be reading with this curriculum. One thing that I do like about it is that if you were just to buy like I did from beautiful feat I just purchased the guide and the child's first history book and I only spent I believe about $60 for both of these and what I did was I purchased all of the literature used second hand. I just was on a hunt to find it affordably. So instead of me paying that big price tag of like $250 for this curriculum I definitely spent half. I think all together I only spent about maybe $113 including the literature for me to do this. So I really was happy I was able to break apart those pieces and find it and do it way more affordably because I definitely love literature style learning and that's what bought me and led me to do this beautiful feat early American history. So I'm going to show you guys we're going to start off right now just with the guide because the guide I actually really enjoyed this guide and I actually didn't have any problem with the guide and with the layout like I just said before here goes a glimpse right here of some of the literature that you're going to be reading with this it's broken down into the indigenous unit the golden age of discovery unit oh here let me zoom you guys in okay there you go so it's broken into the indigenous unit the golden age the colonies the revolutionary war the young united states and the civil war so you're definitely getting early American history is definitely broken up where you'll be able to you know do history within two years which I really enjoyed this is actually my first time doing a history with Brielle when we first started off our homeschooling journey you guys I mainly did like a lot of geography studies with her just because I really wanted to take my time to find a history curriculum for her and I knew I wanted to study things through literature with her and that's what ultimately led me to beautiful feats curriculum because I just love using living books I knew honestly as an african-american homeschooling mom I knew that I was going to have to add in other african-american resources like I already knew that that that was something I was going to have to do that was something that was important to me in my homeschooling journey but I just needed a guide you guys and I was like you know what this seems like a good guide my favorite part about this curriculum you guys is this part right here which is the rabbit trails so all of these books right here are rabbit trail books that we can go on within our units if we want to dive in deep but one thing I will say about this beautiful feat curriculum they really should have used their rabbit trail books as their main reference books and studying indigenous people this book right here turtle island I checked it out from my library so many times that I just went ahead and grabbed it because I really loved the breakdown and the reference of this book and talking about indigenous people it was such a great book it went over the Vikings and this was a it was really really good because when we read the Vikings book I was able to utilize this turtle island book for us to find like the actual reference because when you're doing like historical fiction you definitely still need to have good spines in order for you to bring in that history alive for your kiddos to understand because you don't want them to know or to remember the fiction story your purpose is for them to know the information and the knowledge to gain about that specific group but this book right here you guys like I said I loved it so much I went ahead and purchased it another book that I really enjoyed from the rabbit trail book was this book right here called before Columbus and this is just a great reference book and talking about the early Americas just how just indigenous people it's definitely a very very well laid out book talking and studying all about the indigenous people of the early Americas the structures just how the early Americas looked and this is definitely a great book and those were things I definitely loved about it so again as you go through each unit you are going to be reading a new living book we actually read the Vikings which this book you guys it was so boring I'm not gonna lie maybe we're just not into it but we really didn't like this we were so happy when we were done with this another book we read when we did the indigenous unit was the people of the breaking day this was a great book actually you guys I really really enjoyed reading this book and studying about indigenous people one thing I didn't particularly like about this book was that the Native Americans wasn't clothed and I feel like that's not a true depiction of all Native Americans and while I liked the information in this book I really feel like they could have possibly chose other books and studying indigenous people like I said before but overall this still was a great informative book and we enjoyed it we enjoyed hearing about the wampanongs and how the wampanags I believe that's how you pronounce it I know I'm pronouncing this stuff wrong and that's another thing to you guys um and I will go into it when I talk about the new history curriculum and changes that I made I am using more audible books because I definitely want to make sure I am pronouncing and saying these tribal names correctly as we are studying them uh but yeah so back to what I was saying um this book it was pretty good but again I wish they would have possibly picked another book from their rabbit trail book Hawatma and the peacemaker you guys this right here was one of our favorite books and studying about the indigenous people uh you guys I really really enjoyed this story my daughter did too and the illustrations in this book it was really really beautiful and I love the message behind this book it was definitely great it definitely celebrated this particular tribe and um these nations coming together so this definitely was a great pick kudos to beautiful feet for choosing this particular literature in studying the indigenous people so you guys if you see my update video when I got a little bit further into this guide uh in doing beautiful feet uh you would have known the guide began to ask us to use this book right here which is called a child's first American history or a child's first book of American history now before I open up this book I definitely want to make sure none of your kiddos are around because some of the images in here is pretty disturbing uh so you know hopefully I'm not on speaker or I'm not on your big screen tv if I am this is your opportunity to uh like put me either on a uh a phone or like uh put me on your headphones or something like that because I definitely don't want kiddos to see this information my daughter actually didn't see this book I'm so happy she didn't I'm happy I pre-screened it um but I will say I do not like the tone and I do not like the way the indigenous people you guys we're not even in it any further than the indigenous people I just do not like how this main reference book speaks about indigenous people um and when I originally seen that um I knew I wanted to I knew okay I can try probably make this work let me possibly change my spine to make this curriculum work but uh before we get to that point I'm just going to go ahead and just briefly I'm just going to turn the pages you guys I really feel like I don't have to say anything so I'm just going to go ahead you guys and just turn the pages and I'm just going to go ahead and let you guys see how this book looks on the inside this main reference book does not actually refer to indigenous people or Native Americans as such this book actually refers to them as Indians this book often refers to Indians as being lazy unable to provide for their families volatile savages and it just was awful the language in which they portrayed Native Americans and indigenous people as we are studying and learning about indigenous people all these things that are said about indigenous people and this book is known to be false and not true they often refer to Native Americans as not being prepared for the next day as being uh all they did was they smoked tobacco and um it just was really really bad the language towards indigenous people in this overall book and like I said that's the furthest I got in this child's first American history okay so I really feel like I was able to kind of give you guys a pretty good glimpse of this book and why I didn't want to use this book as a main spine and studying uh just history in general um this right here is actually an older publication book that beautiful feat pretty much what they did was they just came up with their own title and cover for this book but this actually was a old publication book that was made pretty pretty early on in the early 1900s um and I really wasn't feeling this book right here beautiful feat a lot of people and parents have been having a lot of concerns about this particular spine and reference books so beautiful feat on their instagram you guys they made a post about this book and I'm going to go ahead and put their instagram post about what beautiful feat said about this particular reference book and how they felt about it and um how they are actually reevaluating the use of this particular reference book within their curriculum so you guys can go over to their instagram page if you want to read more about it but I'm just going to like I said just put a screenshot so you guys can see all about this particular book and why it's a problem and cause for concern so you guys um what I did was I did not at that moment go ahead and stop using beautiful feat what I did was I just began to use my other reference books that I have so this early American history decay encyclopedia you guys I've had this book since my first year of homeschool and I really like this book it definitely is a great encyclopedia um I love just all of the reference points and the things and I love just how it's laid out uh just as far as um ease of use and it definitely was great as it was a great supplement for me to use in adding in I guess my own information as far as my spine but what was happening was as we were getting further along in this early American beautiful feat book I was finding that it was calling for me to use their main spine more and more and I was finding that this little bits of information wasn't enough for us to continue to study about the indigenous people so again like I said before I began to use my book for Columbus that I loved and I began to use my other book that I purchased which was Turtle Island to kind of like fill in the void in the gap of that original my peoples uh or my children's first book of American history and you guys this went okay for a little while but then I was finding that I was getting off schedule with the guide uh because I was reading the uh what is it I was more so written more the rabbit trail books and um you guys like at the end of the day I will say this I could have made this beautiful feat curriculum work but I just became became so frustrated about uh the particular reference book and I was becoming frustrated because I had to come up with my own spine in order to supplement our history and as we guys or as you know uh your spine or your main reference book is the mean of your history not necessarily the picture books the picture books is like your added bonus and I was just becoming frustrated and trying to piece together my own spine I purchased this beautiful curriculum just beautiful feat early American history curriculum because I needed a curriculum that was going to hold my hand and was going to uh just give me like that baseline when it came to history and at that point you guys this curriculum was no longer giving me that particular baseline that I needed in order for us to study and I really felt like it just did not do any justice of indigenous people and like I said before um I am looking for a history curriculum that is not only going to uh just briefly discuss the indigenous people but I want us to really dive into their culture I want us to appreciate their culture um I want us to find out whether this group of people was either oppressed or what happened to them and definitely a gentle way because this early American history curriculum is definitely geared for fourth to sixth like I don't expect my daughter to know everything and I don't want her to know everything at this point but I definitely feel like it's a gentle way in order for you to really talk about maybe the specific ways this group was oppressed how we can celebrate them today and kind of move on to the next unit that's what I was looking for but I really wasn't getting that from this curriculum and you guys I was just nervous just to continue with it so I just went ahead and I made the ultimate decision just to let it go like I said before I could have made this work but I just did not want to put the effort and the work to make it work so you guys I was stuck I was at a point where I needed a new history curriculum and so the search began for me so the history curriculum we are using if you follow me on instagram you probably already know is a river of voices from blossom and root you guys like I'm only two lessons in which is like approximately two weeks and I'm in love like first and foremost you know I really feel like I can't like go into detail about this particular curriculum just yet because like I'm so new in it but I will say I'm in love because the spines are what I want so the spines this curriculum is before Columbus which I already had which was so amazing another one of the spines is a kid's guide to Native American history this is really cool because this book you guys has like a lot of like hands-on projects and things like that that the kiddos can do as we are studying all about Native Americans their history we're celebrating it and one thing I really loved was when we went over the first unit of this particular book in the first chapter it spent the whole first chapter you guys just going all over stereotypes about you know Native Americans and what is to be true and it was so amazing for us to just like off the back just automatically dive into talking about those stereotypes how you know stereotypes are you know wrong for us to categorize a particular group of people and it was so beautifully told and my daughter really enjoyed that and that was just in the first chapter of this book another one of the spines that we're going to be using as we continue through this curriculum is going to be a kid's guide to Latino history Latino Latino history you guys I'm so sorry but this again is the same way it has like a whole bunch of recipes activities we can do as we are studying all about the Latino culture and for the last spine I chose the standard path so I am going to be using a thousand and one things everyone should know about African American history and again if I wanted to I could have chose this other spine that was that's from the same publication for the African American history but I just decided just to go ahead and just do the standard path so this beautiful beautiful feet you guys but this blossom and a river of voices is exactly what it says we are going to be talking all about different groups of people we are going to be really celebrating them again this is so similar to beautiful feet sky just because it's a living book history I have all of my spines as you guys can see and then we are going to be diving in each week by using picture books a lot of the picture books that we've used already I was able to find locally from my local library and I really really enjoyed it the guide is laid out really really nice um let's see this is lesson one you guys right here and it has the same thing where it has like different websites that we can go on different things and activities we can do and I really really loved it if you guys want me to do like a more in-depth like flip through and talk more about a river of voices as I become more comfortable with this curriculum I definitely can make a separate video for you guys but so far I'm enjoying the spines we're enjoying just all the information we're enjoying the notebook and pages because they do have notebook and pages same as a beautiful feet did which is great and another thing that I absolutely love about this curriculum is that this curriculum is actually a K through 12th curriculum so they have a gentle path a standard path and an advanced path so your gentle path is for K through two your standard path is for three through grades three through eight and then your advanced path is for grades nine through 12th so when you buy this beautiful feet curriculum you're actually buying a history curriculum for the whole family so some of the spines for the advanced path is actually some of the suggested reads that they have the adults are you as you know parent reading so right now the spine that I'm reading is an indigenous people's history of the United States for young people so this is what I am reading as we are studying about indigenous people and it's so great because I'm you know learning the information so as we're going over it in the picture books and things I can really be a active part in our history with my daughter and I really love that me as you know mom and parent I have homework now you don't have to do this as a parent but just me I just definitely am happy to learn alongside my daughter and learn things that I didn't know so this is one of the books that actually is for the advanced pathway and again it's for the parents to read as well if they choose to another book for the advanced pathway is Howard Zins a young people's history for the United States and again it's going to call for me as mom to read this book on my own as well so you guys like I will like I said make a separate video as I become more comfortable with this curriculum and I get like a better feel for it to come back and we talk more about a river of voices but so far I'm enjoying the spine I'm enjoying the literature and this is the way I want to study history and yeah okay you guys I want to mention one more thing before I go is I just want to let you know we are utilizing before Columbus the early Americas we are listening to this one actually on audible right now I'm finding that it's easier for us to really gain information and understanding of these indigenous cultures these indigenous tribes by actually knowing how to pronounce their names correctly and audible has definitely been a great resource for us in my home school and I'm so happy I went ahead and we're listening to this instead of reading it and it definitely has been so much better we're learning how to pronounce these tribes names correctly and we're definitely getting a better understanding of it so our read aloud that we are doing right now with the indigenous unit is The Children of the Longhouse which is actually one of the books that we were going to read next in the beautiful feats curriculum which is kind of cool um this book you guys we are actually also listening to this one on audible and it's so good this story is so great we are definitely enjoying The Children of the Longhouse uh my daughter she is like captivated as we're going through each chapter and it definitely has been so great uh using these spines using these resources um you guys like I said before this is the way I want to study history and we are happy we look forward to this I love how gentle this is we can choose if we want to do the minimalist approach for that week or if we want to add the book baskets and do all the picture books and I really like the flexibility of this curriculum so far uh but like I said before as I get more comfortable with this curriculum I will come back to you guys and we will talk about it more but I am definitely loving a river of voices from uh blossom and root okay you guys I really hope you enjoy hearing all about my review and my experience with beautiful feet early American history the intermediate edition like I said before I really don't think that this is all around a bad curriculum I just think that it wasn't what I was particularly looking for in studying history uh beautiful feet um they definitely are going somewhere they definitely are on the right path in studying history especially through living books I definitely think that they just need to make a few little tweaks in order to make this just right uh but so far you guys I'm so happy with my switch uh and it's just so crazy how this curriculum of river of voices was so much more affordable this guide I believe was only 36 dollars I'm going to put the price down here uh for you guys but it was definitely so much more affordable uh especially for what you're getting you're getting like a whole family's history in one which is amazing this is something we can come back and revisit as Brielle gets older uh but so far I am loving uh river of voices I am loving the change that I made and I'm so happy that I made it sooner than later like you guys like I'm really hopeful that this is like one of my last curriculum changes that I'm making for our school year um hopefully things can kind of like die down as we have like you know we are technically uh in our second six week term so um I feel like we're like you know mellowing out but I hope you guys enjoyed my review today I hope you enjoy uh just watching and chatting with me as we talk all about history so you guys thank you so much for watching I look forward to seeing everybody in my next one bye