Review: American Heritage Education Foundation

American Heritage Education Foundation(AHEF) is a non-profit, non-partisan educational foundation (501.c.3) dedicated to the understanding and teaching of America's factual and philosophical heritage to promote constructive citizenship and Freedom, Unity, Progress, and Responsibility among our students and citizens.

AHEF accomplishes this patriotic mission by writing, producing, and distributing FREE K-12 lesson plans to teachers, students, and families in all 50 states and through additional initiatives, programs, and partnerships.

AHEF is inclusive of individuals of every race and creed and every religious or non-religious persuasion.

I was sent a CD version of social studies/ civic K-12 Lesson plans titled "America's Heritage: An Adventure in Liberty." The CD is valued at $150.00 but the American Heritage Education Foundation (AHEF) has made it available to educators (public/private/& homeschoolers) for free. There are two forms of "America's Heritage" the CD, which is free, and a printed binder version, which costs $19.50 to cover printing and shipping.

All the AHEF asks is that you write to them and let them know about your experiences using the resource. This helps them continue support for teachers and social studies/ civic education.
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What better way to teach American History. You know, honestly, one of the major decisions to finally change our family to homeschooling from public schools was the fact that **we feel** children these days are not brought up to having knowledge on American History. Knowing this knowledge provides the citizen the sense that you love something that you'll be more apt to take care of it, to love it, and to support the values based on that foundation. Today, many children don't know the orgins of Thanksgiving, and/or even what this country (what men did to free it from oppression)-which loses all affect to keeping it's (AMERICAN) values and what I feel is happening today.

My children need to know what this country was founded on and that means having a Christian-based knowledge and that this country was based on those values; whether it's political correct or not...this country is a Christian nation. We feel that it is vital to teach our children the basic but most unbiased truth of how this country started and to not leave out the Christian-based view. In public schools, that is a guarantee.

This curriculum has been so excited to recieve, and the BEST part of it...it's FREE!! The CD version is FREE for you and for me. I love it also because the CD version also has the Elementary curriculum in English and Spanish. Since Spanish is our foreign lanquage; we can also use this curriculum as a supplement to Spanish-it helps to reinforce it.

I whole-heartedly encourage homeschoolers and EVEN public-school parents to ask for this CD. As a homeschool-parent I am glad for the content and free availability. I commend the founders, Dr. & Mrs. Richard J. Gonzalez & Mr. John R. (Jack) Kamrath
for producing and distributing this great product.

And for public-school parents, I would recommend as a supplement, a tool for learning or extra reading as a family. A quote I read on their website and I agree with immensly is:

"The story of America's heroes, accomplishments and ideals is getting surprisingly short shrift in a place of great influence: the nation's public schools." -Albert Shanker Institute

Samples Page of all curriculum is located here.

So get online and order your FREE CD! Go here for more information.

The AHEF resources are divided into three levels; which touch upon all, or some of the four themes (Freedom, Unity, Progress and Responsibility) vital to this curriculum:

1. Elementary
2. Middle Grades
3. High School

Originally designed for the public school classroom, homeschooling families can easily adapt the material to fit their needs. Each level provides an ample selection of lessons to choose from. For those families with a wide range in ages, the units can be used in conjunction with each other. They have enough similar content, but with slightly more difficult material for older children; so that the whole family can easily study it at the same time.

NOTE: I am not paid to do the product reviews, so my review is exactly how I feel about the educational product and how my family used it.

For more product reviews on AHEF please visit the TOS Homeschool Crew Blog.