Journey To The Eastern Hemisphere

by April Lotempio

Sonlight's Core Eastern Hemisphere Package, 2016-17 ed. This bundle includes most, but not all books in the original package. See list below. 1. Sonlight F Instructor's Guide (includes daily schedule and assignments, but not activity sheets.) 2. China Kit 3. Journey to the Eastern Hemisphere 4. Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes 5. Whatever Happened to Penny Candy 6. All the Small Poems 7. Beat the Story Drum Pum Pum 8. Breaking Stalin's Nose 9. Call it Courage 10. Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters 11. Daughter of the Mountains 12. The Horse and His Boy 13. I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade 14. Journey to Jo'Burg 15. The Land I Lost 16. A Long Walk to Water 17. The Master Puppeteer 18. Rickshaw Girl 19. Seven Daughters and Seven Sons 20. Shadow Spinner 21. Teresa of Calcutta 22. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon 23. Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze 24. Ali and the Golden Eagle 25. Around the World in Eighty Days 26. The Big Wave 27.Born in the Year of Courage 28. Burying the Sun 29. The Cat Who Went to Heaven 30.A Girl Named Disaster 31.Habibi 32.House of Sixty Fathers 33. Just So Stories 34. King of the Wind 35. The Kite Fighters 36. Li Lun Lad of Courage 37. Listening for Lions 38. Mission to Cathay 39. A Moment Comes 40. Red Sand, Blue Sky 41. The Turning 42. Water Sky 43. Dry Erase World Map to use with the program ***free*** Two Semester's Worth of Ancient History for Grades 5-8 (or ages 10-13). This program is comprehensive and also teaches language arts through literature. If you and your children love to read, and especially love to read together, you won't be disappointed with this choice of curriculum. Originally bought in 2016 for $560.00 and used gently by me and my children.

Genres: History, School, Childrens, Geography, Asia

431 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Tara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not as big of a fan of this book as I hoped I'd be. For some pretty amazing facts and countries, the language is too dry, in my opinion. Someone needs to use it as a base, but breathe some life into it.

[Devon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the second time reading this book through for our homeschool program. The information is there… it’s fine… but it’s SO boring!!! I have two more kids coming up to read this and I think I’m going to find something else. I think my eyes glaze over every time I open the cover… I can’t subject more of my kids (and myself) to the bland pages.

[Doug · Rating 1 out of 5]

All facts in the Korean section of the book are mostly wrong and the author doesn’t know what she’s writing about.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book certainly fills a gap, because from my own history programs growing up, I remained unaware of Asia's and Africa's history unless and until it interacted with European or American history.

Journey has sections for each country/continent. So for example, you get Vietnam's geography, people, everyday life (subdivided into city life, country life, recreation, education, religion, and health care), government, culture (subdivided into arts, theater, music, literature, fashion, food and drink), wildlife, economy (subdivided into agriculture, forestry and fishing, mineral and energy resources, manufacturing, services, transportation, and communication), and history. I certainly benefited, especially from the history sections. I appreciated the evenhandedness of the descriptions of the religions, including my own.

Did my kids benefit? I'm divided. While each chapter was very thorough, none of it besides the narrative histories was related in a memorable way. Often even as I was reading aloud, a sentence that perfunctorily listed its facts would appear, like, "Other important rivers include the Indus, Brahmaputra, Narmada, Tapi, Godavari, Krishna, and Mahanadi." And I'd think, "Why am I wasting my breath here?" Honestly, unless (and possibly even if) you're willing to drag out a map, what purpose does the sentence even have other than perhaps to check a box? No book we've read so far for homeschool has reminded me so much of the textbooks I grew up reading in public school. A "living book" this is not. In other words, it is boring.

Still, I think it was valuable for my kids to march through a book that isn't fun but contains good info, to be repeatedly exposed to words like "economy" and "agriculture," and to get a 30,000 foot view of other cultures. I think it helps them have a wider set of categories. It was extremely handy to be reading literature set in each area as we went, so that I could pause and relate it to something from Journey. It's hard to say whether I'll do it with my son when he comes of age. I may just use the histories--and have all the other sections for a reference.

[Abbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The kids and I really enjoyed learning about non-Western nations and cultures. Every once in a while the history section about a country dragged on (Australia comes to mind 😴), but most of it was fascinating as a former public school kid who never knew anything about China, India, Africa etc. My children were grades 4-8 this year.

[Gregory · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good overview, fair and balanced. It's written for junior high or high school students. Part of the Sonlight homeschool curriculum.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good spine for our study of the eastern hemisphere. I liked that it was broken up into the same categories per country.

[Agnes Steffanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book has an excellent way of explaining.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great resource on the countries of the Eastern Hemisphere.

Not too out of date yet, but will need an update soon.