Dr Ruth Beechick is a wise woman. Her quiet, calm, commonsense approach to
homeschooling has been refreshing and relaxing homeschool moms for twenty years now. I would strongly contend that the only book you need to teach your children in grades one to three is her Three R’s: A Home Start in Reading; A Strong Start in Language; An Easy Start in Arithmetic ($12.00).
Dr. Beechick has an uncanny ability to examine a subject and think clearly about how it should be taught and how it can best be taught easily. She has a firm grasp of the history of education that makes her almost immune to educational fads and hype.
Last year, she published a foundational book that I cannot recommend too highly: A Biblical Home Education ($14.99).
Her central thesis is that Christian homeschoolers ought to make the Bible the foundational book of their children’s education. Amen!
Her first four chapter discuss practically how to do this:
Bible for Homeschoolers
World History to Match the Bible
Science to Match the Bible
Worldviews to Match the Bible
The next five chapters of her book focus on skills rather than content: Thinking, Reading, Studying, Writing, and Grammar after Writing. Cyndy (the beautiful Mrs. Greenleaf) strongly endorses Ruth’s ideas about “grammar last,” AFTER your students have mastered speaking clearly and have acquired basic writing skills.
Finally, she gives us a wonderful chapter on “Informal Beginnings,” that takes much of the sensible observations of the “unschoolers” and sets them in context as she talks about how young children first begin to acquire skills by conversation, manipulation, and play. The best line from this chapter, “. . . moms need to know that what their children need most is their natural, loving, peaceful home environment.”
The last chapter is titled Curriculum Materials. The opening line offers some of the best advice I’ve heard, “Curriculum materials are less important than we tend to think.” Dr. Beechick gives a concise summary of the many types of curriculum and offers her concise advice on the strengths and weaknesses of each. Of course, I like her advice on how to teach history, “use real books not textbooks.” Though I would quibble a bit with her dismissal of doing thing in chronological sequence. I agree its not absolutely necessary, but I think, overall, that it makes things easier.
This is a great book to recommend to new homeschooling moms. It will give them a valuable perspective and help to reassure them that homeschooling does not have to be hard.
A Biblical Home Education is $14.99 and can be ordered from Greenleaf Press.
The Three R’s is $12.00 and is also available from Greenleaf Press.
– Rob Shearer
Director, Schaeffer Study Center
Publisher, Greenleaf Press
The book is a sort of almanac of “boy’s lore.” The typography, the illustrations, and the article selections are laid out in a sort of cross between the Boy Scout Manual and the old World Book Encyclopedia. The entries are an eclectic mix of lists & lore on topics that boys naturally gravitate to, like “Famous Battles” and “Extraordinary Stories.” There are also some practical academic tips like “Latin Phrases Every Boy Should Know” and three articles on “Understanding Grammar.” But these are not what boys will look at first.
Boys will most likely gravitate at first to “First Aid,” “Five Pen-and-Paper Games,” “Secret Inks,” “Spies – Codes and Ciphers,” “Making Crystals,” and “Making a Go-Cart.” Also included are the rules for “Stickball,” “Table Football,” and a table of the winning hands at Poker. Near and dear to my heart is the list of “Books Every Boy Should Read” at the end, which includes both Lewis and Tolkien as well as Kipling, Mark Twain, Douglas Adams, and Ian Fleming. I’m less happy with the inclusion of J.K.Rowling, but willing to overlook it and politely disagree.
The new Lincoln book is the one that came to my attention first. It was published in September of this year. Chuck Wills is an accomplished author and he does an excellent job outlining Lincoln’s life and political career in nine chapters. The text is interspersed with hundreds of photographs and shots of newspaper headlines and front pages. But what really sets this book apart is the inclusion of facsimile reproductions of original documents. About a dozen are included, each 
on a tinted separate heavy-stock sheet slipped into a translucent pocket at the appropriate place in the books narrative. With the chapter discussing Lincoln’s boyhood and education, there is a reproduction of a page from his “sum book.” In the chapter on his marriage and young family, there is a reproduction of his marriage license to Mary Todd. In each case, holding an original document (even it is only a well-crafted facsimile) makes the historical account richer, nearer, more tangible and provokes a more visceral, emotional response. It makes Lincoln much more real, much less abstract. The text is written on an adult level (though certainly not too advanced for high school students), and many students will need some help in absorbing and understanding the historical documents, but I can’t think of a better way to introduce students to the raw materials of history and historical research. For anyone with a historical sense of who Lincoln was (and the text and photographs will give it to you), seeing a flyer for a play at Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865 and then seeing the “wanted” poster issued in the manhunt for Lincoln’s assassins produces a profound effect. For anyone with an interest in Lincoln, I highly recommend this book – especially if your students have an interest in understanding how historians conduct their research. Note: 2008 will be the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth. I know its a cliche to study Lincoln around President’s Day, but 2008 will be a special year. Here’s a list of the historical, facsimile documents included in the book:
The second book of this type is 
In