America's Story by Masterbooks vs Gather Round US History
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Published 2023-04-10
This video will be a comparison of America's Story vs Gather Round US History. We have done parts of both. I'll try to explain similarities, differences, and why I'll be switching back to America's Story after 3 units of US History from Gather Round.
Both are from a Christian worldview.
Both are made to be conversational with your kids.
Both utilize a teacher's guide and a student book. (We only use the teacher's guide as a read aloud without student worksheets).
I really wanted to like Gather Round and for a while I did! But it was TOO much information too quickly, filled with lots of details and facts for each event.
I'm not concerned with memorizing a ton of dates (a few yes, but not tons). What I want is for my kids to have a general understanding of when certain historical events happened, and the main points of what happened. I'd like them to hear a name in History and know a few things they were known for.
But with so many facts in Gather Round, it was difficult to keep attention and also difficult to feel like we were retaining as much as I'd like. It got dry and a little bit boring to be honest.
We were splitting lessons in 2 and that helped a lot! But I felt the information was almost too wordy in some ways for the early elementary level.
I like that Gather shows you how both sides might feel (during battles, during westward expansion, etc) and sets you up to have deep conversations with your family.
I like that it comes with book suggestions, online YouTube suggestions, and hands on activity ideas for each lesson. It's full of rabbit trails! But the style of the reading is what I didn't end up loving.
Links:
America's Story 1 Flip Through: • Flip through of America’s Story 1 by ...
Gather Round US History 1 Review: • US History 1 Review from Gather Round...
Gather Round US History 2 Review: • Gather Round US History 2 Review: Usi...
Gather Round US History 3 Flip Through: • Gather Round US History 3 Flip Through
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All Comments (11)
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We have felt the same with some of our Gather Round units. We love them. But sometimes its nice to just sit and not have all of the side blips and extras randomly placed. So we appreciate you saying that, I thought we couldn't be the only ones. We really loved it when we used it as a unit that we skipped through most projects, but lately the units we have gotten have had a lot of information and writing and side activities that we just got bored. We have used lots of Masterbooks and believe your review to be very accurate! Thank you!
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Angela O'Dell has such a great podcast too! Its called Real Cool History for Kids. I learn so much!
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Thank you for sharing and I love your simplicity 😊
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From my experience with both curriculums, I think you did a really great comparison video! Thank you.
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This was so helpful!! Thank you!!
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That was a helpful comparison! I need to find a history curriculum for my son for 4th grade next year. :)
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What age did you start your kiddos on master books history? I have a preschooler and I am just trying to come up with options for later on ❤️
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I totally agree with you. I have used both and Gather Round would be an excellent choice for middle/Highschool American history course. But for elementary ages, American’s Story is such a better fit. It is written for 3rd to 6th grade and is written not so wordy like GR. I also love to hear you aren’t making history a formal subject at these ages! I have always done it this way with my kids and history isn’t a formal subject in our house until middle/Highschool! Before then it’s all about exposure (mostly through just reading books with my kids) and then we have done the America’s story 1 as a read aloud and I’m planning to get the audiobooks of America’s Story 2 and 3 for my kids to listen to this year as we do American history via Classical Conversations this upcoming year. No pressure with history (and science) at these ages! Not many have this perspective when it comes to history in elementary so it’s nice to see you do!
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They are both really good! GR beats out MB in our home because of the coloring pages and mp3 stories 😊
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Not to mention GR sources aren’t exactly stellar. Check into it. You might be surprised where they get some of their sources.
