This review was written after having used this product for a full year or more. I purchased this curriculum with my own finances, and my review is entirely voluntary without any compensation from (or obligation to) the product’s author/publisher. Isn’t that refreshing? I’ve got you.
Note: WP’s AS1 has recently undergone a package “update” according to their website. This review pertains to the version of AS1 sold prior to the 2021 revisions. Much of the content looks to be the same, although you’ll notice it’s gotten a facelift of sorts.. and… ahem: you may want to continue reading to hear how I feel about the latest revision…wink wink.
To see my printing costs and money-saving tips, click HERE.
(Each point is expanded on in-depth below)
What we LOVE about this program:
- NOVELTY: no two days are exactly alike
- ABUNDANCE OF INFORMATION: A TRUE feast
- HANDS-ON: not essential, but we LOVE this feature
What we LOATHE:
- NO EXTERNAL EDITORS: abundant errors in Teacher’s Guide and ALL texts
- GRAPHIC PROBLEMS: sometimes affecting product usage!
- TIMING: even the bare minimum requires a nice chunk of time, tweaks needed
Expanding on our LOVES:
#1 = NOVELTY!
This curriculum is EXCITING! The biggest downfall of most curricula is that after only a few weeks they become repetitive and predictable, losing their luster. I often find myself then ‘adding in’ extras to keep interest high. One major perk of WinterPromise is that they do all that creative balancing FOR ME. And they excel at it! No two days are alike. One day we’re labeling the parts of a cannon, another we’re building a little model of Jamestown Fort circa 1607. (All of which are included in the student journals, ready to go.) The journals that come with the basic package contain a WIDE variety of activities that touch on several different learning styles. So even when we only have time for the bare minimum, which amounts to reading from the text and doing the accompanying journal page(s), our history lessons are NEVER boring!
I try to choose a few of the ‘optional’ activities each week, which are listed in the Teacher’s Guide and the “Live the American Story” resource. The buffet of options is one of my favorite perks — it is a recipe for rabbit trails on topics of interest. It does add a bit of teacher prep, whether it be gathering supplies or locating books/movies, but most are minimal. Some of the activities we’ve enjoyed include: planting heirloom seeds, watching documentaries, building models, and playing games with the included timeline cards.
For families like mine, who do best when each day holds a little newness and wonder — WinterPromise AS1 is a rare treat in the curriculum world. To recap: the novelty is built-in and requires as much or as little from me as I can give each week. Each history lesson feels like a different adventure. This has been, by far, our favorite year of history. ((EVER!)) Novelty for the win.
#2 = ABUNDANCE OF INFORMATION
Not only is this a full-color, beautifully interactive curriculum ~ it takes DEEP DIVES into very interesting information that other history curricula may skip. In doing so, curiosity is built day after day. For example, my children loved learning about the very first submarine, which played a small roll in the Revolution but: HOW FASCINATING! I also really like that several weeks are spent getting to know “fictitious” colonial residents and their roles within society. This really brought the time period to life for us.
Since I am infatuated with the colonial era… living in a colonial house… writing at a website called SaltboxCOLONIAL… you can imagine how I’m totally eating this abundance up. xoxo
The texts that come with the program (written by WP) are HUGE. Before buying WP AS1, I was VERY nervous about using a ‘textbook’ as our spine. We are allergic to textbooks! But, for the most part, the readings have been quite engaging. There are some sections that feel as if they are spitting facts–but mostly I have been pleasantly surprised.
In addition to the two main texts, the Teacher’s Guide contains a list of recommended book titles to supplement lessons. Every family’s bookish tastes will be wildly different, but we are really enjoying the suggested titles that coordinate with this program. The booklists are not as lengthy as we’re used to, which worried me at first… but I’ve come to appreciate them as succinctly curated. There is so much “meat” in the main texts that it’s refreshing to be given one or two really good picture books to make time for. The resource lists include: picture books, DVD’s, and chapter books. (A read-aloud schedule for the chapter books is written into the weekly plans.)
The Teacher’s Guide that I have (pre-2021) is organized in a way that allows the same topic to be covered at different levels. This means that there is a track for younger students and one for older students, but all are focused around the same topic and begin together with shared readings in the WinterPromise texts. I was using this with a high school, middle school, AND elementary school student and each was able to take exactly what they needed from the abundance offered.
UPDATE: Unfortunately, I see that the 2021 revision has separated the AS1 package into a younger student package and an older student package! E-files for all age journals and a Teacher’s Guide showing a plan for all age students used to be included. This may no longer be the case. (And instead of the price being lower for each package due to including less files… the price has actually INCREASED.)
#3 = HANDS-ON
To be clear: you CAN successfully use this curriculum without doing ANY of the hands-on ideas. You would simply use the textbooks and the journals, skipping any projects involving cutting/glue etc. It would still be an AMAZING adventure! The biggest perk of AS1 is the rainbow of projects and add-ons it offers, but it also has a bare-minimum track. Keep in mind the price of the package is quite high due to the bells and whistles, so those looking for a very simple history curriculum might be better off using something else and saving cash.
Since I love the pain and suffering of hands-on options, this curriculum has been a satisfying fit. On average, there is AT LEAST one cutting/pasting/building activity per week… some weeks daily. I highly recommend the optional BUILD-IT resource which includes templates for building a model colonial village. (The e-file was included with our e-book package purchase, and we had it printed at the Homeschool Printing Company. My cost estimate is —>HERE. I don’t recommend buying their printed version, which was running around $80 last time I checked–it’s good, but an $80 paper village is a bit obnoxious.) Note: I don’t like how they have the BUILD-IT models scheduled in the Teacher’s Guide… which I will expand on in the LOATHES. I will leave you with alternative scheduling tips!
Expanding on our LOATHES:
#1 = NO EXTERNAL EDITORS!
This is somewhat of a nightmare. WinterPromise is a very small, family owned business. They write and publish their own material, which means they review and edit everything in house. For whatever reason, over the years as they’ve expanded in their sales and reach–they’ve still chosen to run the business with only a small handful of family employees… which means they constantly experience growing pains that affect customer satisfaction. For example, they *desperately* need a professional, external editor. Every product they produce is riddled with errors. From spelling and grammar errors to misplaced content to unclear directions. This is not a new issue for WP. When I used their “I’m Ready to Learn” program over a decade ago, I experienced all the same issues. If you do a quick internet search, you will find heaps of similar sentiments. Errors are so prevalent in AS1 that I found myself truly questioning my trust in the facts and figures written within their self-published “textbooks,” which are the very spine of the program. That’s a little…terrifying! Thankfully we added in a LOT of external source texts this year, and we haven’t found any major misquotes or factual errors. Which is why I still rate the program highly. If you would like to see specific examples of errors, I try to list a few in the weekly snapshots of our AS1 work to help others who are using the program. But truly–the errors are so abundant, it would be extremely time consuming to document them consistently.
#2 = GOBS of GRAPHIC PROBLEMS
The ebook format of AS1 comes with a HEFTY price tag for digital material. It’s sold as an elite, full-color curriculum. But in truth: it still needs a LOT of graphic editing and feels as if it was published prematurely. It turns out… maybe it WAS. And that makes me a little cranky.
This program was pretty hot-off-the-press when I purchased it, and already in 2021 it has undergone a complete overhaul. I looked through the samples on their website and they’ve completely changed the format of the Teacher’s Guide (I actually think they messed up a good thing there) and the covers of all the journals/texts are new.
Yet–a major flaw remains UNFIXED… let me explain.
This is a sample journal page they have on their website. Notice the white ‘shadow’ lines around the graphics? The image below is smaller than the actual printed page, so I added arrows to accent a few of the misplaced white lines.
There are MANY pages just like it. I reached out to WP prior to purchase asking them what those were… and was told they were “probably something that happened when we sent the sample to PDF. This would not be the case in our finalized, full editions.” That was not true–they didn’t actually look at their ebooks for me. I trusted them and bought the package. I should also note: I was corresponding at the time with one of the authors.
After purchasing, I found these same shadow-lines throughout the full editions (!!!) and contacted WP once again. They seemed as baffled as myself when they finally looked at their ebooks and eventually determined that it’s called “stitching,” due to the software they used. They acted as if they hadn’t noticed it before (again, this points to the lack of editing and eyes scanning their final products). I was told that fixing the problem was complicated and time demanding, and they couldn’t give me a date on republishing. They assured me that the white lines, or ‘stitching’ wouldn’t show up on printed material, but I wasn’t about to take them at their word on that (again) — and asked if they’d reimburse me for printing if it DID show up in the final printed products. They clearly weren’t confident themselves… because they replied that they’d only “replace the pages with white shadowing/stitching.” Meaning: I’d have to page through hundreds of pages of printed product, find stitching, give them lists of specific pages to send me, unbind my books, hope their binding matched mine, and replace each page by hand. I didn’t find that to be very good customer care. Looking back, that would have been a nightmare considering their hefty textbooks don’t even come with page numbers!
Instead, at my own expense and their recommendation, I used gobs of ink printing a handful of full-color-saturated “test-pages” on our home inkjet… and thankfully they came out clean: free of stitching. I then felt confident enough to send the entire order to my printer. (You can read about what I printed and the costs HERE. Please note though that the packages have since been modified.) For reference, everything came back pristine. But it’s not fun to print ‘test pages’ before spending hundreds more on the actual print order–due to sloppy editing mistakes.
At the time of this review, the “updated” 2021 samples on their website STILL show the white shadow lines (stitching). This leads me to believe they have not remedied the problem on their ebooks yet. If you plan to use this product in its digital form, the stitching will show and you will have to endure the “rough draft” look of certain graphics sprinkled randomly throughout. It may or may not bother you. It bothered me on principle mostly… for the price tag of a digital program boasting full color stunning graphics–I expected a polished product. It is a little disheartening to have paid for a ‘newer’ curriculum package that has ALREADY been revised–it feels like I paid full price for a ROUGH DRAFT. This is a common feeling among WinterPromise customers, sadly. Great product with a wacky, unpolished presentation.
In addition, some of the workbook and paper projects did not line up as promised. There have been maps that don’t line up, walls on model buildings that are too short, wonky proportions, etc. We learned to expect these fauxpaus and to improvise, which perhaps has its own merits.
#3 = Timing
Expect to tweak! During the 8 weeks spent on Colonial America there are 2-3 paper models assigned WEEKLY, on average. That was overwhelming, and I have a history in model building! The boys got burned out on model making after the first 2 weeks. We ended up interspersing the Colonial America units throughout the rest of the program. This had us building models every few weeks instead. This is very doable–those 8 weeks are easily moved around. I suggest just slipping in a day or two here and there to study one of the colonial jobs, make the corresponding model, and then go back to where you were.
Then, there are 8 weeks dedicated solely to Lewis and Clark, which felt excessive. We actually skipped this portion entirely and plan to go back to it at a future date if time allows. It does have a TON of great information, especially on Native American tribes–but we may do a one-week intensive instead. I plan to look through the information myself and pull out the most important pieces.
Let’s talk TIME INVESTMENT. The (2) textbooks that come with the program, written by WinterPromise, are HUGE. (Textbook One is almost 375 pages, Textbook Two is 280 pages.) This means there are over 650 full-size pages of text to be read… presumably in ONE year. That is a hefty spine! The textbooks are necessary for the workbook pages, so ditching text gets complicated. Then there’s the abundance of other daily suggestions–novels to read from, models to build, documentaries… and quickly one realizes the biggest challenge with WP AS1 will be planning how much time to set aside.
In my opinion, the cost/content of this curriculum package would work BEST stretched out over a 2-year period. This is probably how long it will take us. We do not do everything–we do the basics and most weeks add in an option or two… but some of those ‘options’ are our favorite part and are time consuming (such as watching documentaries). We also do not have huge blocks of time set aside for history. Instead, we use what I call The Bookmark Method–setting a timer for our allotted history block, and simply bookmarking where we leave off.
Despite the flaws, we’ve stayed with AS1 and have enjoyed it. We will actually be wrapping it up into the next school year. However, after their immediate revisions of this practically new product, the [predictable] potential for errors, and the rather high sticker price for non-transferable digital files–I’ve chosen NOT to use their rather new “American Story 2” program (modern American history) going forward. I plan to look for something else. If you have ideas, drop me a line in the comments below! Your ideas may help other readers, too.
Thank you for being here. I hope you found this review to be open, honest, and helpful to your journey. From my hearth to yours ~ blessings on your curriculum planning!
Saltbox Colonial 