Philosophy Adventure by Stacy Farrell {Curriculum Review}

I want to thank Home School Adventure Co. for providing me with a copy of Philosophy Adventure in return for my honest review.

When my husband and I decided to homeschool our youngest two boys, we decided that we wanted to spend time and effort teaching them to think critically. In fact, it’s from that commitment to raise biblically wise and discerning kids that Thinking Kids was born. We don’t want to waste the time we have with our children, and we want to share our journey with you in the hopes that it may help clarify your family’s vision as well.

After all, teaching the basic skills of reading, writing, and math truly doesn’t take that much time when you educate a family rather than a classroom. We decided we would school a full day and use the extra hours to educate our kids in God’s Word, theology, logic, and schools of thought.

We want to teach our kids how to think.

For that reason, we’ve chosen a four-year repeating history cycle and a three-year repeating study of the Bible. Feel free to take a look at Bible Road Trip if the deepening study of God’s Word appeals to you. In our first four-year history cycle, we emphasized Christian history and a basic knowledge of the grand story of Scripture. As we enter middle school, we’ve chosen to introduce theology, logic, and philosophy. We want our kids to be able to identify the main theme of an argument and discern the worldview and school of thought from which it originates.

I was so thrilled to find a curriculum which comes alongside our efforts to explore the history of ideas from a biblical worldview.

Philosophy Adventure by Stacy Farrell (Home School Adventure Co., 2013) is a course in Pre-Socratics which distills early western philosophy into eight easily understood units or schools of thought. The units are engaging, visually attractive, and include challenging assignments in thinking, writing, and speaking. Students will learn about Thales, Pythagoras, Xonophanes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Protagoras, and Democritus. As you read through the curriculum with your students, it should be easy to begin identifying the teachings of these ancient philosophers in our world today. And that’s really the point, isn’t it? How these ideas affected the world matters. Ideas have consequences, as RC Sproul would say.

You can choose to complete one unit every month with all of the activities for a one-year program and a total of up to 2 high school credits, or take the pace of one unit every two weeks (one semester) or a more intensive pace of one unit per week (one quarter). It’s flexible, which is my preference.

My boys have been really excited to read the engaging stories Mrs. Farrell writes about the philosophers, and we’ve had some pretty great discussion so far about the different schools of thought versus biblical teaching. Because they are still very young and we just began middle school, my emphasis has been on notebooking and memorization. As we go through the history cycle again, we will use this curriculum more than once and begin to introduce the wonderful writing and speaking exercises as well.

There are several resources available with Philosophy Adventure. There are a number of curriculums I’ve purchased and later I wished I had only bought one resource or the other. That is not the case for me with Philosophy Adventure. Each resource is different and has a distinct purpose.

Philosophy Adventure – Pre-Socratics Reader ~ Available in Digital (CD or Download) or Print Format

The reader is the primary text for the curriculum. You’ll find a narrative introduction to each philosopher and later further analysis of his teaching, a writing assignment, a critical thinking section, a memorization challenge, geographical information, a section on the school of thought spawned by the philosopher, source material, and a contrasting biblical worldview analysis. The information included is excellent and the writing is engaging. As a highly visual learner, I love the layout and artwork included.

There are several appendices, on with checklists for writing, and another with writing assignments. Mrs. Farrell also includes a lengthy bibliography section and index.

Philosophy Adventure – Pre-Socratics Student Workbook ~ Available in Digital (CD or Download) or Print Format

The student workbook includes for each unit: notebook pages, maps, and space for creative freewriting (I really like Mrs. Farrell’s freewriting structure), and a write/think/speak journal. There are copies of the writing checklists along with peer critiques and evaluations, and also a glossary which allows students to record their own information in a structured format.

Philosophy Adventure – Pre-Socratics Teacher’s Resources ~ Available in Digital (CD or Download) or Print Format

The teacher’s resources includes memory cards (the visual design is really nice), timeline resources (images, pages of visually designed timelines), maps and keys, and quizzes with separate answer keys.

I am highly enthusiastic about this new resource and won’t hesitate to purchase anything from Home School Adventure Co. I’m including a video on Philosophy Adventure. Below you’ll find a complete list of Home School Adventure Co. resources. By clicking on the picture below of Philosophy Adventure, you can even download the first unit on Thales for free to take a look at it, which I think is very generous.