Homeschool History Curriculum: Pathway to Liberty
Our family recently reviewed the Pathway to Liberty’s History Curriculum for the Middle Ages from Pathway to Liberty Homeschool Curriculum.
What is Pathway to Liberty?
Pathway to Liberty is a curriculum that was created by homeschool mom, Jayme MacCullough. Unsatisfied with the depth of other history curriculum’s on the market, she sought to develop a curriculum that held a strong Biblical worldview and understanding of our nations foundations. She also wrote The Chain of Liberty, which serves as one of the core books needed for the course.
Pathway to Liberty History’s Curriculum is broken into four years.
- Universal History
- The Middle Ages
- U.S. History
- World History
Each year is broken into four different levels depending on grade level.
- K5 – 3rd Grade–Level 1
- 4th – 6th Grade–Level 2
- 7th – 9th Grade–Level 3
- 10th – 12th Grade–Level 4
The years do not have to be done in order. Likewise, you can adjust the levels depending on your child’s skill level and understanding.
About The Middle Ages History Curriculum
We reviewed all four levels of Pathway to Liberty’s The Middle Ages.
The twenty-six week course is broken into six sections:
- The Noble Stream of Liberty
- Roman Republic & the Heroic Age of the Church
- Canon & Conversion
- Transforming Nations
- Blood & Ink
- The Age of Exploration
The first section is unique to this curriculum. It sets the foundation for the author’s point of view and establishes her “Chain of Liberty.”
What is the Chain of Liberty? The Chain of Liberty is a series of “links” that connects people, ideas and events.
Scriptures used in the curriculum are all taken from the NIV version of the Bible.
The Teacher’s Guide
The Teacher’s Guide contains the syllabus and lesson key for all four levels. Under week 1, you would have week 1/level 1, immediately followed by week 1/level 2, and so forth. Each week contains four lessons. I found this a little difficult to navigate at first.
You can find the list of required reading for the course, the weekly overview and an explanation of how to use the curriculum in the beginning of the guide.
The curriculum is set up so that you could do it all together as a family. I found this did not work for us. Even though the same material is covered in all levels, there is quite a discrepancy between the depth of material between Level 1 and Level 4. Levels 1 & 2 or Levels 3 & 4 could be done together nicely. Other pairings, even Levels 2 & 3, would be more difficult.
My children ended up doing it all individually.
The Student’s Books
At the beginning of the student books is the same syllabus that is found in the Teacher’s Guide. My children disliked that it included the work for all four levels as opposed to just there own. They complained that instead of being able to easily find their assignments, they first had to find their level and corresponding week on the grid. It was at best a minor inconvenience, but one they all pointed out.
All four levels cover the same topics, with one exception. While Levels 2-4 study and learn about Muhammed and Islam, Level 1 students study Leif the Lucky.
What My Children Thought
Level 4–My 11th Grader
Raena felt The Chain of Liberty Study Guide took a lot of time.
She also felt that the authors reasoning was lacking at times, even if she agreed with the point being made. An example of this she gave was in the Creation link. The author’s reasoning for an infinite God is as follows: the heavens are infinite; our numeric system is infinite; therefore, God is infinite.
Level 3–My 8th Grader
Allie thought that the Middle Ages would also cover the Medieval Ages. While they happened at the same time, they refer to different aspects and there was not any of the subjects she was hoping to learn about. I gave her free range to pick any week she wanted. She was not very interested and reluctantly put in the minimum amount of work.
Level 2–My 5th Grader
Ellawyn had the hardest time with the differences in religious beliefs between the author and ourselves. She greatly disliked that the curriculum solely used the NIV version of the Bible and really didn’t work with the KJV that she knows and loves.
She spent a great deal of time looking up the “real” scripture in the KJV and talking about how it was different. Despite my many reassurances that is was, in fact, okay to use the NIV scriptures, it really bothered her.
Level 1–My 3rd Grader
Haydn was probably the only one that didn’t dislike this curriculum. In part, because while he could notice the differences in doctrine, he didn’t let it bother him. He even found it a little interesting to learn how they were different. Also, he isn’t old enough to analyze everything, so he was happy to just do the lesson and answer the questions.
My Thoughts on the History Curriculum
Pathway to Liberty’s History Curriculum was not a good fit for our family. While we hold to a Biblical Worldview, our personal religious beliefs differed enough from the author’s that my children just never got into it. With the exception of my son, this meant I was met with enough resistance that is it not one we will continue to pursue.
However, the curriculum itself has merit. This is going to fit best with families looking for a history curriculum with a Biblical Worldview (who don’t mind NIV) and who love teaching and learning about how liberty plays a part in our history.
Be sure to read the other Crew reviews to see how it worked for them and to check out the other years.
Yes! I agreed about the biblical worldview being heavily in the personal beliefs department. My boys were going nuts during the very first week’s activities as they tried to answer the study guide questions since our Bible was so different! (we like NKJV). I can’t even IMAGINE doing all 4 levels together. My boys TOTALLY operated independently because they weren’t reading the same things at the same time. We only had like 3 pages we could do together and we were Levels 2-3.