Heroes of History: Christopher Columbus – Review

This spring we’ve settled in for a study of the Age of Exploration, so I was excited to have the opportunity to review “Christopher Columbus: Across the Ocean Sea” by YWAM Publishing from their Heroes of History series.

Last year, we had the opportunity to review the George Washington Carver book from this same series. You can read that review here.

I’ve heard of Columbus, of course – what American hasn’t? I had no idea, however, what kind of man it really was who ‘sailed the ocean blue.’

Columbus was more than an Italian who wanted to reach Asia by sailing west: he was an adventurous man of great faith. He was a husband, father, and self-educated member of the Portuguese upper class who ran a successful business with his brother and learned navigation in bits and pieces as the opportunities arose.

Who knew?

I love the way that these Heroes of History books read. They’re structured like a story, sorted into chapters with cliffhanger endings and explanations where necessary. This makes them easy to read and to understand, and they’re more fun than your typical school biography, as well.

You’ll learn a great deal of information just from reading the book. You could, of course, read straight through and have gained a wealth of information about Columbus. I found it surprisingly hard to put down; I kept wanting to read the next chapter to find out what he did next!

If you’re reading “Christopher Columbus: Across the Ocean Sea” for educational purposes, however, one could learn far more than just what’s in the pages of this story: there’s a whole study guide to accompany it!

I’m pretty hard to please where study guides are concerned. I want rigor but flexibility and multidisciplinary options, and that’s exactly why I love YWAM Publishing’s study guides: they have it all!

I feel as if the term ‘study guide’ is something of a misnomer; there’s really enough material for this to be a whole unit study. With history, art, geography, and lots of ELA material, this study guide can definitely fuel an interdisciplinary unit for your homeschool or classroom. A benefit that I particularly like is that the author of the study guide recommends that you not try to do everything – there’s purposely more than a single teacher needs! – so that you can choose the activities and learning styles that best fit your student(s). While many people claim to want education to be differentiated, in reality the super-strict testing requirements make that difficult. This YWAM study guide provides a wealth of information so that you can tailor the learning activities to your students and know that they’re learning well and deeply.

After explaining how to use the study guide, the author moves on to share a series of quotes that connect to exploration and to Columbus. Ideas for how to use these in a variety of learning styles and ways are included.

The next section contains ideas for how to build and use a display corner; essentially, how to curate a museum-like display all about Columbus and his time period. You could, of course, collect these items as suggested, but this could also be a collection of student work and art.

The next portion of the study guide directly references the book. This is a more traditional study guide, with questions relating to vocabulary, comprehension, and interpretation for each chapter of the book. I can see this being particularly helpful with younger children or students who are growing their reading skills.

Following that is a really great list of potential projects. These could be extension projects, assessment work, cooperative work, or a combination of the above. Included are creative writing assignments, art projects, craft projects, audio visual projects, … and that’s just what’s in that section. The next one holds the social studies work, which includes vocabulary, maps, and more creative projects.

Finally, there are directions for a culminating event as something to look forward to and put the cherry on the top of your Columbus study. I love doing this with my students, and there are great ideas in this section.

All in all, we really enjoyed this Christopher Columbus study. My Little Man and I were excited to learn so many new things about the man himself, and I was excited about the variety of work to accompany the book (that I didn’t have to plan!). I love when resources come ready to go, and that’s exactly how this study guide works.

Don’t take my word for it, though – click on the graphic below to read more reviews about this product.