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BookShark offers students from Pre-K to Age 16 the chance to learn all the required educational subjects through the engaging lens of books. BookShark’s curriculum is designed to develop creative and academically successful minds in children by teaching them to view the world and historical events not through rote memorization but through unforgettable stories that span history and the globe.
Website: BookShark
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(2 Reviews)
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Cons: Everything else (busy work, western-centric, Christian-centric, nonsensical study questions)
Grades Used: Level H
Very disappointing. While the idea behind it is good, the execution is terrible. The curriculum requires hours of sitting down busy work, the questions are repetitive across history and ELA (literally the same question three times in one day, across multiple days), the science is not engaging (we ended up scrapping the proposed experiments and looking up new ones to use in sessions), the books are largely written by white people about cultures they do not belong to, using specious sources and having little to do with the curriculum section they're placed in, and the history texts themselves are largely inaccurate and heavily based in Western-centric,Christian-centric ideals.the history section is also too crammed and doesn't follow a logical order. My kiddo is in 8th grade and we'd been looking for a new curriculum to try that was more challenging and interesting than previous years, and Bookshark was highly recommended. Now we're stuck having spent nearly 1000 dollars for this mess and having to make the best of it for the rest of the school year, but it is a disappointing waste of time and money.
Cons: Pricey if you buy the ready prepped sets
Grades Used: 9th
It took us a couple of year to finally dive into Bookshark. Our son is in 9th grade this year.
We used Level I US History and LA sets.
Our son has never been a reader and struggled to stay focused on any book given to him.
As with any curriculum change, there was a learning curve. We started in September and it took him a couple of months to find the right momentum. Once he did, his reading interest took off. This curriculum has improved his reading comprehension skills, reading fluency and vocabulary. The questions in the lessons are interactive. We supplement by going on field trips and taking our curriculum out to the park (on nice days). We also use their note booking folders, that go hand in hand with US History (there are two sets)
I will be honest, we supplemented the writing, with a speech writing class our DS took this year. We are now starting to use the LA writing portions of the lessons. They do not take up hours of time and their technical approach is steady and comprehensive.
The curriculum can be pricey but you can just buy the teacher lesson plan packets and go to your local library to use their chapter books.
You can also find many of their history spine books on eBay or Amazon.
I highly recommend this curriculum. It is the right fit for us because we both interacted with it. That’s the type of learner our DS is. However the curriculum also lends itself to be self guided, while parent monitors the child’s pace.
We are very happy we found BookShark, it’s never too late to find the joy for reading.