TOS Crew Review — Easy Classical

The demands on homeschool mother’s schedule are many and I enjoy finding products that make our life a little easier. The company Easy Classical has worked to put together a number of schedules to help homeschoolers incorporate more great materials into their school days.

They offer schedules for specific grades, subjects, and topics. Their schedules are thorough and offer abundant information. They do require additional purchases as they do not include the books you actually read, but merely provide book lists that their schedules incorporates. Most of the books you could either view online, order through CBD, or borrow from your library or Interlibrary loan.

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Product: Early Modern History Schedule

Details: A thorough year-long schedule including book lists of history texts and read alouds, quizzes, activities, and tips to get the most out of this year of study

Price: $29.95 for downloadable product. Or, $35.95 if  you would prefer a physical product shipped to you.

What we loved . . .

  • Loads of resources. This is far more than just a couple page schedule to get you through the information in a year. They have gathered some great titles and put them into bite sized pieces for an educationally rich year of history study.
  • Favorite titles. Although I don’t recognize every book that they recommend I do see many familiar favorites and others that I have heard others rave about.
  • Classical approach. Well, I don’t know if I should say we love this, but I know many others would. I lean more toward Charlotte Mason if anything, but I do see some of the benefits from a classical approach. So, that said, this schedule does build on a Classical educational philosophy (hence the company name — Easy “Classical”), which is a time proven method.
  • Permission to adapt. One problem I have run into with schedules is my self-imposed need to do it all. This schedule says at the outset that you should not attempt to complete everything that they recommend. They just want to offer enough variety for the many different students and teachers that they are serving. And, they also acknowledge that life will sometimes get in the way and we won’t accomplish all that we had hoped in a given week. That is of course okay, and they reassure you that they expect that in the formulating of these materials.
  • Age range. It is sometimes challenging to teach a wide age range of students on a daily basis, but Easy Classical is designed to teach kids in grades K-6 and I felt that some of it could be adapted to older kids as well. I would have no trouble using this for all of my learners, pre-K through 8th grade.
  • Look before you buy. By looking through their website and downloading the samples you can get a good feel for this product and see if it is right for you and your family before purchasing it. Sample schedules could be used to give it a trial run in your homeschool and you just might find this product a great fit for your homeschool.

Some considerations . . .

  • Would still require some advanced planning. While the schedule is made out, you would need to round up the books and have other supplies on hand. They make it as simple as possible without selling you hundreds of dollars of books to go with it, but you will need to track them down. They do have a wonderful page on their site that links to all of the books and resources that they recommend.
  • Might not work for everyone. Any time that you find a great product, it will not fit every family. Some kids won’t enjoy the books, some won’t like the writing (which I felt this schedule was a bit heavy on, especially for younger kids). But, you can try it before you commit, so that is definitely not something to hold you back.

I have used schedules in the past from various sources and always get away from them. I prefer book based programs because I get so bogged down and “check-box” driven when I use a schedule. I end up using them more as a book list than an actual schedule. I also prefer oral narration to quizzes, but that comes from my Charlotte Mason bent. That said, I think this is a great resource. It looks easy to use, fits a wide range of ages, and uses top-notch books as its spine. This would be a great asset to any homeschool looking for a quality history program.

For more TOS Crew reviews on this product, check out the TOS Crew blog.

Disclaimer: This product was provided to me free of charge through Easy Classical as part of my participation in The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew. I received no additional compensation and the opinions expressed here come from my personal experiences and sincere thoughts.