BF History of the Horse Unit Study
Ranked #196 in Education, #4,562 overall
A Curriculum Review
Welcome to my curriculum review of The History of the Horse.
Buying homeschool curriculum is a huge decision. Not only is it a large investment in money, but the responsibility of choosing the best materials for your child is ever-present. The more feedback you can get from actual users of a product, the more informed your decision will be.
For that reason, I like to post online my own opinions of the curricula I've used. Of course, these are my own evaluations and experiences. Everyone has her own ideas. Here are mine!
I was reading through homeschool catalogs, and I wanted to enlist my nine year old daughter's opinions as I made some curriculum choices. So I read her some product descriptions. When I read about the Beautiful Feet History of the Horse, she was excited! "That's what I want to study, Mom!" she said.
In doing online research, I couldn't find a lot of product reviews for History of the Horse. So the day I ordered the unit study, I started work on this lens, committing to share my own evaluation of this curriculum with other moms hunting for good material.
Photos from Sprite's Notebook
We used spiral bound sketch books as the notebooks for this course.
If you'd like to see another homeschooler's photos from her study of The History of the Horse, visit this Flickr set.
curated content from Flickr
Background on Us
when we used this curriclum
Of course, with any review, it's good to know who is offering the evaluation. Here is some background to help you weigh what I say.- My daughter, an only child, was 9 years old (actually close to ten years old when she began the study) .
- We did this as a long unit study between two years of American history (Winter Promise American Story 1 and WP AS2, to be specific).
- We used this as history, geography, and science. In addition, Sprite did math, artist study, composer study, nature study, and additional language arts which often came from the horse topics.
- We are a conservative Christian family.
- We have Internet access, but no library or bookstores. So I bought the entire set directly from Beautiful Feet Books.
- I've homeschooled my daughter since K.
- We are literature based homeschoolers, holding loosely to a Charlotte Mason style of education.
- Before being a SAHM, I was a public school teacher (middle school language arts) for seven years.
About History of the Horse
an overview
The History of the Horse is a living books based unit study published by Beautiful Feet (BF) books. This literature based approach to learning is common among Classical and Charlotte Mason homeschoolers.
Although I found many reviews of BF history packages, reviews of The History of the Horse were hard to find. I asked for help at the Home School Reviews forum, and did get some good feedback. The most specific review I found was of a mother of another 9 year old daughter just starting the material. Her review is at A Horse Study Begins.
I ordered the set online and had it shipped international airmail (we live abroad). The package reached me in just over two weeks. I was very pleased with the speedy service and BF's willingness to adjust the total costs after removing the three titles I already had.The course is broken down into 91 lessons, which are found in the book published by Beautiful Feet -- History of the Horse: A Literature Approach to Equine History. You can do the study at your own pace, completing three to five lessons each week.
The following books are used throughout the study with each of the novels:
- Album of Horses by Marguerite Henry
- Smithsonian Handbooks: Horses a DK book by Elwyn H. Edwards
- How to Draw 50 Horses by Lee J. Ames
These novels are used as the core of the curriculum, read in this order:
- King of the Wind RL=5.4
- Black Beauty RL=7.7 (by Anna Sewell; text in the public domain; Librivox free audio recording)
- White Stallion of Lipizza RL=5.5
- Justin Morgan Had a Horse RL=5.8
- Misty of Chinocoteague RL=5.3
- Brighty of the Grand Canyon RL=5.6
- Mustang, Wild Spirit of the West RL=5.3
(Except for Black Beauty, all of these novels are written by Marguerite Henry.)
Although Black Stallion (RL=5.2) by Walter Farley is also included as part of this study, I consider it optional. At the end of the 91 lessons, there are a few study ideas to go along with the book, about enough for one lesson's worth. But the book is not covered in depth as the others are. You could read it for fun or make up your own activities if you wanted to include it.
RL = reading level expressed in grade level
There is also a set of regular playing cards that feature images of various horse breeds. The idea is that as you play other card games, you will learn some of the names of horses and be able to identify them by sight.
Drawing Horses
This book is part of the BF package, and boy, am I impressed! Sprite picked it up and immediately drew this sketch!
Draw 50 Horses
Amazon Price: $4.96 (as of 02/16/2012)
Used Price: $0.35
My Evaluation
I found that the assignments for one lesson were actually quite short. So I would commonly assign Sprite to do two lessons worth in one day. In this way, The History of the Horse is really a few months long unit study.
Although the title is History of the Horse, I wouldn't consider this a true history program. There is some attempt to order the books in chronological order, but we read them out of order without affecting the flow of the program. BF History of the Horse seems to fit better as a language arts curriculum because of the amount of reading and the writing assignments. So when we used HoH, we didn't use our regular language arts curriculum but used this instead.
It is a very Christian program. There are relevant Bible verses throughout the lessons. And some of the discussion questions are written from a Christian perspective.
My daughter says this is the BEST curriculum she's ever studied. She loves how drawing is incorporated into the lessons. And, of course, the books are wonderful.
History of the Horse Poll
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Beautiful Feet Support
Yahoo Group
Looking for other Beautiful Feet users? Come join this Yahoo group exclusively for them. (Not an official BF group, just a bunch of moms hanging out online.)
Supplemental Horse Resources
- EduPics Horse Coloring Page
- EduPics is my favorite coloring page website because of the wealth of realistic and detailed coloring pages they offer. Many of them come from Dover coloring books.
- Stacey Mayer's Horses Coloring Books
- Fifteen categories of horses! Some of the images are already in color, so I'm not sure how well they would actually work for coloring pages, but they may be useful for graphics inside a notebook or lapbook.
- Horse Fan Badge Activity Booklet
- This PDF is a real winner!
It's published by the Girl Scouts of Atlanta, and leads a girl through earning a horse fan badge. But regardless of whether or not you want to earn a badge, this PDF has some great diagrams -- saddles, anatomy of the horse, facts about horses, safety tips, glossary, horse care, and even careers dealing with horses! - American Youth Horse Council
- Scroll to the bottom for free PDF brochures -- Horse Ownership and Basic Horse Care are especially useful fact sheets.
- Extension Horse Learning Lessons
- Sign up or log in as a guest to access the materials.
- Horse Notebooking Page
- A freebie made by Sheri, a homeschool mom.
- Project Hoofbeat
- This amazing PDF is from the Virginia Racing Commission. It's filled with lesson plans including vocabulary, crossword puzzles, descriptions of various breeds, horse history timelines, and more.
- Minnesota 4-H Horseless Horse Project Member Handbook
- This is another amazing printable with loads of nice diagrams and sketches of horses -- facial markings, bridles, horse anatomy, breeds, gaits, and more.
- Horse Breeds Poster
- First visit this blog post and see this child's horse breed poster, created after reading King of the Wind. The follow the links to the free printables to make your own.
King of the Wind
by Marguerite Henry
We spent two weeks on this novel and the assignments for it. I realized that the reading selections for each lesson were actually very short, so sometimes I assigned Sprite to read two lessons worth in one day.
King of the Wind was the 1949 Newbery Medal winner.
King of the Wind full text in PDF.
Here are some extra things we added to enrich our study of this book.
King of the Wind was the 1949 Newbery Medal winner.
King of the Wind full text in PDF.Here are some extra things we added to enrich our study of this book.
- Comprehension Questions
- A set of multiple choice questions for every 2 chapters.
- Mosque Coloring Page
- We used this in the notebook, labeling mosque, Islam, and minaret.
- Map of Morocco
- This is a labeled map of Morocco.
Bedouin Story: Training and living with Arabian Horses
powered by Youtube
Arabian Horses
powered by Youtube
Brighty of the Grand Canyon
by Marguerite Henry
Here are some of my daughter's notebooking pages from her study of Brighty.
Here are some supplemental sites that enriched our study of Brighty.
- National Park Service's Animals of the Grand Canyon
- Of course, the NPS is the one best site for information about the Grand Canyon. We chose to focus on the animals. This particular page has a two minute video clip and lists of various animals native to the park.
- Arizona Leisure Grand Canyon Wildlife
- This tourism site is packed with full color images!
- Lyrics of Onward Christian Soldiers
- This hymn is mentioned in the book, and the study guide recommends copying the lyrics. Here they are complete with a midi accompaniment in the background!
Use these pretty hymn noteboking pages if you'd like. - G is for Grand Canyon Teacher's Guide
- This PDF is a teacher's guide for the picture book G is for Grand Canyon: An Arizona Alphabet. It has some nice printables that you could use in your notebook. I also like the Grand Canyon coloring page that would make a good backdrop for a sketch for a burro.
White Stallion of Lipizza Lapbook
This lapbook is actually one we did back with Sonlight Core 2 using a lot of ideas from this lapbook page.
Check out these free worksheets and these Charlotte Mason styled language arts pages.
Assateague Island National Seashore
This video promotes tourism at Assateague Island National Seashore and discusses the horses in some detail.
curated content from YouTube
Misty of Chincoteague
plus Sea Star: Orphan of Chincoteague and Stormy, Misty's Foal
- The Assateague Naturalist
- The page with animals has some nice photos of the ponies lazing on the beaches.
- Assateague Island -- National Park Service
- Look on the right side for a link to a wonderful horse brochure that lists Q&A about the ponies. This is a great overview.
Sea Star
a sequel to Misty of Chinocoteague
Sea Star: Orphan of Chincoteague
Amazon Price: $2.86 (as of 02/16/2012)
Used Price: $0.01
Stormy, Misty's Foal
a sequel to Misty of Chinocoteague
Stormy, Misty's Foal
Amazon Price: $2.93 (as of 02/16/2012)
Used Price: $0.01
Buying Used
Here are some good places to buy History of the Horse used:Homeschool Classifieds
Vegsource For Sale Boards3rd-6th & 7th -12th.
Look for individual titles as well as entire or partial sets.
The History of the Horse Curriculum contains seven books written by Marguerite Henry. Here are some of her books for sale at eBay.
Guestbook
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LornsA178
Dec 16, 2011 @ 2:58 pm | delete
- I always wanted to do unit studies but just don't have the opportunity to do it. This is so neat! My daughter love horses too! Very interesting.
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Mary (Homegrown Learners)
Oct 2, 2011 @ 9:17 pm | delete
- Once again I find myself searching a subject and finding a lens or some other information you have created. Thank you, Jimmie! My daughter is taking a horse class at our co-op and has really gotten interested in them. We started reading "King of The Wind" and I have the In the Hands of a Child lapbook about horses ready to go. I ordered the Marguerite Henry book all about horses and also the drawing book your recommended! Thank you so much for being my homeschool guide (again!)
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eclecticeducation
Aug 30, 2011 @ 11:48 pm | delete
- I have not used any of BF unit studies. This study looks really wonderful, but I don't think my kids are a good fit for it right now. They like horses, but not enough to get this in depth. Maybe one day. Thanks for the info.
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Props-n-Frocks-Fancy-Dress
Jun 30, 2011 @ 4:05 am | delete
- As I am a qualified BHS Riding Instructor, I was just browsing your lens as anything to do with horses interests me. It's great that children can study horses from an early age.
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deldobuss
Apr 27, 2011 @ 3:56 pm | delete
- Our favorite book was the White Stallion of Lipizza! We took a trip to Oregon to see the Lippizaner rescue stallions perform. It was awesome!
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Annamadagan
Apr 15, 2011 @ 3:33 pm | delete
- THUMBS UP! This lens will be featured in my new horse lens, and I will be sending out a squid-cast in one week or sooner. CONGRATS!
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d-artist
Jan 16, 2011 @ 5:20 pm | delete
- Lovely lens...and lovely artwork by your daughter, I'm very impressed. I'm lensrolling this lens to my 'Gallop Home' lens it features the Horse Game, coloring book and Puzzles that I have designed...I'm a Christian equine artist and have lenses your daughter check out.
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WildFacesGallery
Oct 11, 2010 @ 9:37 pm | delete
- Really a great lens. I love you've included actual examples. :) I'm lensrolling to my Horse Books of Marguerite Henry lens.
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Swisstoons
Oct 9, 2010 @ 9:23 pm | delete
- An excellent, well-organized and very informative lens. Your daughter is fortunate to have you as her teacher! Thumbs up1
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Wysiwigs
Sep 12, 2010 @ 6:02 am | delete
- This is wonderful! I'm favoriting this lens so I can find it again for our home schooler program. We've hooked up with the Black Stallion Literacy Foundation too, which promotes reading in schools by having students visit a local farm to see real horses (after they've read the book, of course :o)
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partybuzz
Apr 16, 2010 @ 1:14 pm | delete
- Great homeschool resourses, or for anyone who loves horses. Lensrolling with my horse lenses.
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Jill
Apr 12, 2010 @ 9:16 pm | delete
- Jimmie,
Thanks for sharing my "origins of horse breeds" link from my History for Children site. So glad you found it and that people can find all this fabulous information you have put together through the comment you left! And yes, I created that template myself. I'm glad you liked it.
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HorseAndPony
Apr 12, 2010 @ 7:41 pm | delete
- I am back for another visit. This lens has been blessed by The HorseAndPony Angel. http://www.squidoo.com/horseandpony-squidangel
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Georgia
Apr 5, 2010 @ 8:32 am | delete
- WOW! Thank you so much. This is just what I needed to see. I hs 5 children with SL (3 cores this year), but I have one horse lover who needs a break between Core 6 & Core 7. She will be 12 when we begin, but you have convinced me that BF would be perfect for her! Thank you for taking the time to share this info.
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Flis
Mar 8, 2010 @ 11:34 pm | delete
- Cool horse lens!!!!
Love all the links!
Small note, I just followed to this link from HSlaunch & the pages for the Lipizzaner White Stallion worksheets there are much fuller that the ones you've shared here. http://www.hslaunch.com/mypage/file/2901
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by Jimmie
Jimmie
Hello! I am a homeschooling, stay at home mom who loves to teach, cook from scratch, write (and blog), sew, listen to great sermons, and travel.
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