Why You’ll Love Experiencing Our American Story

You’ll Enjoy Lingering in Full Color History Resources

Look out across the Atlantic Ocean, get a first glimpse of the New World, scan Revolutionary battlefields, and study the new-fangled Erie canal — all in the picture-filled pages and historical figures to lead the way through our American reading text.  Designed to work with a wide range of ages, American Story shows you what history is all about with paintings, illustrations, drawings, maps & photographs.

Your Family Will Enjoy the History Notebooking

This year’s Early American Journal is in full color!  Large maps, interactive color pages,respond to questions, create artwork, solve puzzles, and other paper activities throughout the year.  You’ll try out Norse math, pick an original Thanksgiving menu, make a colonial business sign, draw a colonial postal route, decode a message about Benedict Arnold, and more!  You’ll make a colonial board game, send secret messages through the Culper Spy Ring,and meet new Native Tribes with Lewis and Clark.

They’ll Learn & Remember 100 Key Events and Their Importance!

We’ve assembled 100 dates from this year’s timeline dates and created a reinforcement Timeline Card set that you can copy and use for games and drill. On one side is the “EVENT” and on the reverse is the “DATE” and “HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE” of the event, to maximize learning and retention!

You’ll Make Memories with a Wealth of Easy-to-Complete Activities

You’ll enjoy so many activity resources to give your family even more choices each week.  One of these resources is an “Build the American Story,” where students can build colonial homes, tradesmen and craftsmen buildings, and many more!  The “Flip & Fold” resource will help your student visualize the geography of important events like Paul Revere’s ride, the Erie Canal or trails to the West.

Short Instruction Periods

The other resources we provide allow students a wealth of different learning experiences, so each is kept streamlined.  Live the American Story offers many unique things to try and do related to the culture of early America, including patterns to use, period crafts to try, and even virtual tours and videos to view!  Meanwhile, Build the American Story is a resource that allows students to build a colonial village large enough to re-enact key events in colonial history or narrate about what each shopkeeper in town does and how, based upon their reading.  This resource allows each learning style to engage with it differently!

Nature Study & Science

Each week provides a nature study or science experience or experiment for students that is linked to their historical and cultural studies.  In colonial times, they try Benjamin Franklin experiments, and as they journey with Lewis & Clark, they discover the natural world that these explorers beheld for the first time!

Learn more about our American Story 1 Reading Text!

What makes this such a great resource?

#1 You’ll Be Reading a Living Book!

Color, Color, and More Color! –  Every page of this illustrated book has beautiful pictures for your family to enjoy as it is read together.

Detailed & Historically Accurate Illustrations – Each illustration in this book is carefully researched so your family will see how early Americans wore and what they created.

• Native American Indians – each tribe represented in their clothing
• Native American Houses – different regional Native American homes shown like wigwams, tepees, longhouses, and others
• Revolutionary War Uniforms – Minutemen, Rangers, British soldiers, Hessian soldiers, and more a shown wearing their own uniform.
• Lewis & Clark’s Keel Boat – see the ship that rode the Missouri River.
• Colonial Printing Press – see what a colonial printer would have used to print newspaper and other pamphlets

Full Color Two-Page Spreads – as you read this book together as a family you’ll feel like you’re inside a Dorling Kinderley book.  You’ll visit places like Valley Forge, the Boston Massacre, at camp with Lewis and Clark, who fought for who during the French & Indian War, and many more!

“Go Inside” Illustrations – look inside a Native American tepee, an early colonial submarine, colonial courthouse, French & Indian War fort, a log cabin, and more!

Large In-Depth Maps – as you learn about the discovery of this new continent, colonial trade, and expanding west maps are essential!  We’ve provided many maps to help your student understand the movement of early American history.  Here is a list of a few:

• 13 Colonies Map
• Moccasin Map (this map shows the different moccasins worn in each region)
• Triangle Trade Map
• Paul Revere’s Ride
• Lewis & Clark’s Expedition West Map

#2 Written to Make History & Science Memorable!

Combination of Topical & Chronological Coverage of Material – this book like our many other WinterPromise exclusives covers material in chronological order but covers people, historical events, and movements topically.  This can be seen from an overview of the history below:

Link to Weekly Overview of Topics

As you can see these different time periods and topics are arranged in the order they happened.  As you go deeper, week to week, students will have a main focus that week of learning different events that all occurred in a similar place.  In week 13, Revolutionary Boston, we look at the revolutionary events that helped start the Revolutionary War.  These events happened over the course of many years but are all linked by occurring in the same city.  This arrangement makes it not only easy for tell the events that happened but it also helps students to see the movement of radical thought in Boston from its beginnings to its climax with the opening battles of the Revolutionary War.

This is a perfect example of how the combination of chronological and topical can effectively teach and make history easy to remember for students.  This method makes it easy for students to see how history and movements unfolded.

Unique, High Interest Topics – this book will draw your kids in with fun and interesting topics from American Story 1.  These high-interest topics are essential to our program.  Each week there are kid-engaging topics related to the weekly topic, which are are most easily remembered by students.  These topics then become the starting point for learning.  Students will remember these topics first and then it recall the other information they learned that week as well.  This method makes it easy for your student to recall more history, culture, and even the movement of history more easily with these high-interest flag topics sprinkled throughout the program.

• How did Native Americans use every part of a Buffalo?  
• What kind of jobs did colonists have?  What tools did they use?  
• How do wolves communicate?  
• How did Benjamin Franklin’s discoveries, experiments, and inventions change things for colonists and science?  
• What was life like in a Continental army camp?  
• What was it like to be a pony express rider?  
• What was it like to meet new Native American tribes?  
• How did women help during the Revolutionary War?  
• How was Beaver pelts used?  What was it like to be a spy during the Revolutionary War?  
• What was it like to live like a colonial gentleman?  And many more. . .

Weekly Science Topics & Experiments – each week you’ll study nature and other sciences related to your historical study that week.  Take a look at some examples from this book.

• Ecology – learn how the science of nature conservation began from Native American views on how animals and habitats related and effect each other.  Take a look at some examples below.
• Staying Healthy – learn how colonists stayed healthy and how we stay healthy today.  We’ll also look at how George Washington cared for his teeth.
• North American Animals & Habitats – as you study Lewis and Clark’s expedition you’ll learn about the new animals they discovered along the way like – Grizzly Bears, Prairie dogs, wolves, etc.
• Basic Chemistry – how did Revolutionary spies use lemons to reveal secret messages?
• Nature Observation – learn what kind of tree the Liberty Tree was.
• Electricity – Benjamin Franklin’s experiments with static electricity.
• Sound Waves & the Human Ears – learn about sound waves, how our ears hear sound, and the parts of our ears.
• Light, Color, and the Human Eyes – learn how we see color and the anatomy of our eyes.

Easy to Read Writing – This book to with WinterPromise’s adherence to quality and excellent writing easily communicates to children of all ages.  This title is written to be easily understood and followed by both younger and older students.  The wonderful color pictures and high interest topics draw in younger students making the history memorable.  Older students will love the in-depth topics and the amount of content.  There is plenty to read and learn so older students will have much to study and love!

Key Historical Movements & Transition Passages – part of WinterPromise’s adherence to quality is the to cover historical movements and thoughts that influenced that period of history.  These topics are sprinkled throughout at key points in the study to help you student grasp the historical period.  They are written in such a way for younger students to listen in and enjoy along with their older siblings, who will grasp the less concrete ideas.  These more difficult topics are written in long-distance look so students can see the topic as a whole.  Some of these transition topics, historical movements, and changing thoughts include: how the ocean between the colonies and Europe created an American character, Age of Enlightenment, the Tea Trade, road to American Revolution, Westward Expansion, formation of our government, and the Louisiana Purchase.

Biographies – a look at the lives of exciting and key figures in American history make for history easier to remember for students of all ages.  Students will also learn how these people lived and looked at the world they lived in.  Some of the historical figures you’ll learn about include: Pocahontas, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Molly Pitcher, Lewis and Clark, Harriet Tubman, American presidents, and many others.

Looking at Early American Culture – as you study early American history in this program you’ll also get to learn about their daily lives and culture.  Below are some of the amazing things your family will learn.

• Colonial Holidays
• How a Colonial Town worked
• Life in a Military Camp
• Life on the Prairies
• Johnny Appleseed
• Native North American Clothing
• Colonial Clothing
• Colonial Tea Time & Customs

#3 Additional Living Book Suggestions

You will be venturing in to our usual set of adventure readers, this time selecting from three lists based upon your students’ ages.  Titles include classics such as “The Sign of the Beaver,” and new titles like “Regina Silsby’s Secret War,” to take you inside the history and culture of early America.

What Will We Study?

You’ll study the history of America in stories of explorers, colonists, revolutionists, and frontiersmen.  You’ll discover the amazing trades and crafts in colonial towns, heroes that fought in the Revolutionary War, smart presidents who led our country in its first years as a nation, and the pioneers and forty-niners that pushed into the West!

Discoverers & Explorers

• Native Americans
• The Sea-Going Vikings
• Explorers Discover Amaierca
• Spanish Conquest
• Explorers Map the Americas
• Explorers Brave the East Coast

Colonists in Colonial America

• First American Colonies
• Establishing Colonies
• Colonial Health and Faith
• Everyday Life for Colonists
• Colonial Clothing & Pastimes
• Colonial Craftsmanship
• Slaves Come to the Colonies

Revolutionaries

• The French & Indian War
• The English Anger the Colonists
• Revolutionaries Want Independence
• The Revolutionary War
• Revolutionary Spycraft
• Americans Win the War!

Founding Fathers, New Americans

• Coming Together as a Country
• Framers of the Constitution
• First Presidents

Corps of Discovery

• Lewis & Clark’s Great Journey
• Going Along the Missouri River
• Lewis & Clark Head for the Ocean
• Lewis & Clark Make It Home

Western Settlers

• Life of a Pioneer
• At Work in the West
• The Frontiersmen, or Furs, Forts & Sports
• Wagons Go West
• Cowboys, Cavalry & Cattlemen
• “Forty-Niners” Rush for Gold

People in Changing Times

• Native Americans Lose Their Lands
• Ingenious Americans
• Railroad Men & Canal-Builders
• Pony Express Gallops West!
• Lives of Slaves & Abolitionists

What’s in the American Story 1 Guide?

Your American Story 1 guide will come alongside you to help you keep your school days organized.  It is designed to be easy to follow, with each week’s assignments laid out on just one page!  The introduction to the guide offers you oodles of teaching helps that may feel like Charlotte Mason just “friended” you — like advice she’d give you on how to grade student work!  It’s all here!

• A 36-week, 4-day schedule is laid out clearly in a grid-style on just one page
• Introductory material helps you mentor and “learn together” with your student
• Supply lists and other helps make planning quick and painless
• Narration ideas in the front of the guide help you prompt your student through the year
• Weekly schedule page reduces your paperwork and is easy to follow, with clear notes
• Resources offer a focus on activities that are “Open & Go!”
• Ratings systems for activities help you find the ones you want!
• Independent study schedules for older students eliminate writing out homework lists
• 100 Timeline Cards and games provide fun drill to retain key events
• Website and DVD suggestions take your family back to early American times
• Above all, WP offers a practical, “Can-Do-and-Want-To-Do!” approach
• Additional library Suggestions
• Multiple age level Adventure Reading scheduled

What Materials Are Included?

This program is designed for students from K – 7th grades.

WinterPromise Exclusives You’ll Love

• American Story 1 Guide
• The American Story: Discovery to Revolution
• The American Story: A New Country to Westward Expansion
• Older or Younger Make Your Own American Story 1 Journal: Discovery & Colonial America
• Older or Younger Make Your Own American Story 1 Journal: New Country & Westward Expansion
• Live the American Story
• Build the American Story
• Early American Painters Picture Study
• Flip N Fold Maps – EBOOK ONLY
• Early American Nature Study – EBOOK ONLY
• WinterPromise Early American Timeline Cards – EBOOK ONLY
• WinterPromise Early American Timeline Figures – EBOOK ONLY

What Signature WP Experiences Await Us?

WinterPromise considers itself a curriculum that embraces the “Experience Approach,” offering Charlotte-Mason style learning opportunities with up-to-date materials that make the most of technology, too.  In each WP program, you’ll encounter a lot of our signature “Experiences.” Some of them come in key resources like our “Build the American Story” resource, while others are in the guide or ready to discover in other resources.

Here are just a sampling of the experiences your student can choose to make a part of their year:

• Delve into American tribes by region and discover their histories and traditions
• Try a Native American Friendship Dance or Make Apache Playing Cards
• Complete science experiments linked to your weekly study
• Read Viking runes and sketch some yourself
• Make a Viking Home, Native American Teepee & Longhouse, and boat used by Lewis & Clark
• Go inside the homes and workplaces of colonial people
• Build colonial shops and other buildings like a church and merchant shop
• Visit the landscape of places like the California coast or the Mississippi River or Great Plains
• See for Yourself What the Mayflower or Frontier Log Cabins Were Like
• Visit the Jamestown Fort or Tour Plymouth Plantation
• Study Benjamin Franklin’s life and discoveries with online websites and integrated science experiments
• Follow heroes like Paul Revere or Lewis & Clark on maps of their adventures
• Look at Early American Icons like the Liberty Bell, Mount Vernon, and Independence Hall
• Try Out Colonial Occupations or Pioneer Recipes
• Send Secret Revolutionary Messages, Name the Three Sisters, and Try Finger Spinning
• Travel to America, Move Across the Plains, and Follow Pioneer Trails

How Do I Use Ebook Versions?

While many of our families do enjoy books, most of our ebooks would better be considered resources, rather than the types of books that families typically desire to enjoy as “books.” With all this in mind, not only might our ebooks sets be right for your family, you might just discover that they really offer you a better way to do school!  And remember – most of our programs include bonus ebook resources you can’t get any other way!  Take a look at the ways you could utilize our ebook resources:

• Consumable materials can be printed out looseleaf, and you are able to print as many copies as you want!
• Some resources are designed to function as easily flippable “Tablet Books” that look great on a tablet screen, and are in beautiful full color. They are easy to cuddle around, just like books. NOTE! These books function on any device, not just a tablet!
• Some resources just offer more functionality, as they jump you to websites and more!
• Ebook resources are most often in full color, and look unbelievable on your device!
• Almost all resources allow you to customize your experience, whether filling in assignments or printing just the right number.

Take a look at the “American” resources below. Discover how they function as ebooks, and the advantages to making them a part of your library, and then decide!

The American Story 1 Guide in Ebook Format
This guide brings you a wealth of functionality not present in a print guide.  Take a look:

• Recommended websites link directly to the web on devices that have web access
• Separate “Independent Study Schedules” files allow you to print off your student’s Independent Study Schedules
• Guide pages are viewable in full color
• You can customize your experience: select and print any pages you’d like from the guide and view others

American Reading Text: Book 1 & 2
Students will be able to read both the American stories and discover the Native American tribes on any device.  This book reads very easily on a tablet or laptop and is a great one to use on the go!

Younger (K-3rd) and Older (4th-7th) American Story 1 Journals)
This can easily be printed for one or multiple students.  The many full color pages makes this an excellent resource to print in color.  There are three journals, so you’ll be printing out pages from each one as you progress through the year.  Look below at topics/sections covered in each journal.

Live the American Story
This is an activity resource that doesn’t need to be printed as you’ll only need to refer to it for activities.  It can easily be viewed on a device or computer.

Build the American Story
This resource contains full color pages that you can print out as  you need them each week.

Flip N Fold
This resource is black and white so the students can color it themselves.  Easy resource to print on own at home.

What Items are Related to American Story 1?

Below you’ll find information on products related to American Story 1, including the consumables in the program, language arts programs you might want to consider, and what else to add to complete the learning.

Start by Deciding if You Need Extra of These Consumables in Print:

• Older and Younger versions of Early American Story Journal Parts 1 & 2

Next, Consider if You Want to Purchase a Coordinating Language Arts Program:
Coordinating language arts programs offer scheduled readers that coordinate with this theme and typically offer creative writing or narration suggestions that coordinate with this theme as well.  This theme coordinates with:

• K/Adv K Syllables to Sentences
• Adv K/1st Grade Paragraphs to Pages
• 1st/2nd Grade Stories to Short Chapters
• 2nd/3rd Grade Readers to Real Books
• LA 3 – “Tracking Down Good Grammar”
• LA 4 – “Solving the Mysteries of Grammar”
• LA 5 – “Digging Into Paragraphs”
• LA 6 – “Exploring Word Pictures”
• LA 7 – “Exploring Great Genre Writing”

Add Your Choice of Timeline Figures
Add a Science Program – This isn’t necessary for younger and middle grade students.
Add a Math Program

And, If You Want Adventure Reading to Coordinate with American Story 1 . . .
WinterPromise has always included family reading with their themed programs, but as we’ve watched prices on these books go up, we feel it is better to offer parents the option to choose whether or not to purchase these books as part of their program. This way parents have the choice to collect new or used books, borrow them, or take advantage of the advent of personal reading devices and use ebooks on their devices.

We have three sets in this program:

We have our Older Student Set, Younger Student Set.

What About Ordering?

When you’ve learned enough about American 1 resources,  you can either continue on to our store explore other options or go to the “Ready to Purchase?” button above to see our packages.

What About Updates?

(2017) This program has been updated this year and is brand new!