Notgrass History and God’s Faithfulness, Part 3: 2010-2017
As I said yesterday, the next part of our story may seem obvious, but it took several years for us to realize what we should do next.
Middle School Curriculum. During those early years, parents would ask us if they could use our high school curriculum with younger students. As strange as this may seem, it took us years finally to realize that we should write an American history curriculum for middle school students.
You see, we didn’t have some great business plan we were following. Looking back, we believe that God had His own plan for us.
America the Beautiful. While John and I were driving home from a homeschool convention in Virginia one weekend, we discussed how we might write a one-year American history for middle schoolers (or students in grades 5, 6, 7, or 8). As with our high school histories, it would be a one-year course with 30 units of five lessons each. John came up with the idea of a different type of lesson for each of the lessons in a unit. By the end of the trip, he and I had come up with a skeleton plan.
Soon we had decided on our five different types of lessons. Lessons we called Our American Story would tell about the major events of a time period. The other four lesson types would continue to tell the history of the time period when those major events occurred, but would focus on specific topics. An American Biography would look at a person who lived at the time. Another lesson would be about Daily Life. One lesson would explore An American Landmark, such as the Statue of Liberty. The fifth lesson would focus on one of God’s Wonders, such as the Grand Canyon. We decided that the title America the Beautiful would illustrate both the beauty of America and the story of its history.
I had the privilege of writing the lessons for the first edition of America the Beautiful while other family members chose literature and primary sources, wrote the review material, and created hands-on family activities, such as the Pocahontas Museum seen below.
We published America the Beautiful in 2010. For the first time, some of the pages were in color. Very soon we were having the textbooks and the We the People primary source book printed in hardback, a practice we soon implemented for all of our curriculum.
Uncle Sam and You. In 2012 we published our middle school civics course, Uncle Sam and You, covering such varied topics as how a stop sign is installed, the daily routine of a president, and how Americans celebrate Flag Day. In the photo below, Mary Evelyn works on Uncle Sam and You. This photo was taken in the office where she, her husband Nate (who joined our team in 2011), Ray, and I then worked while Nate and Mary Evelyn’s one-year-old daughter played happily at our feet. Beside Mary Evelyn’s desk is the cardboard box playhouse our granddaughter enjoyed.
I used the poster hanging on the wall behind Mary Evelyn to record the places we mentioned in the curriculum in an effort to make sure we talked about places all around the country and not only places on the East Coast. In the photo below, the first shipments are ready to go to the post office.
As our children married and began families of their own, Ray and I began being the Notgrass History representatives at most of the homeschool conferences we attended, but we also enjoyed sharing the responsibilities with our children, . . .
. . . our children’s spouses, and sometimes with our grandchildren, too.
And as the company grew we began to need team members other than family members. We hired our first non-family team member in 2012. I began writing Daily Encouragement for Homeschooling Mothers posts in 2013. Some of you have been reading since then, for which I am very humbly grateful.
From Adam to Us. In 2016 we published From Adam to Us, our world history for middle school—three down and one to go. Our next middle school curriculum is to be a world geography.
The pictures below show some of the process of writing and publishing one of our courses—in this case, From Adam to Us.
Writing
Proofreading
Approving proofs from the printer
Receiving the first copies
In 2017 we published the first audio supplements to our curriculum, which we enjoyed recording at a studio on Music Row in Nashville, seen below. I recorded From Adam to Us, and Ray recorded Exploring America. To lower recording fees, we spent 12-hour days at the studio, taking turns reading for an hour at a time. The process taught us a great deal, so that now we plan to record in-house to add more audio supplements to our offerings. It is a long process.
From Adam to you and me, God has been working His great plan throughout the history of the world. You can trust His plan for your children.
I will instruct you and teach you
in the way which you should go;
I will counsel you with My eye upon you.
Psalm 32:8