Our Nation Under God focuses on God's sovereignty over all nations. Kids learn about self-government, family government, civil government and church government, and how all of these fall under God's government. After the first two chapters the focus switches to U.S. history, but it is still discussed in view of God's sovereignty. Many of the concepts and topics will be familiar to students who have read CLP's earlier two history texts, though this one is definitely written to children with a higher reading level.
How Does This Work?
The book has nine chapters. The first two chapters include several activities (including making a family tree and drawing pictures of parents and grandparents); the subsequent chapters only include end-of-the-chapter fill-in-the-blank review questions. The chapters are fairly long for most 2nd graders, but there are plenty of black and white illustrations, and since there are a number of sub-headings throughout it wouldn't be too difficult to have students read less than an entire chapter at a time.
A teacher's manual and a test packet round out the course materials. The teacher's manual includes answers to all in-text and test questions, as well as detailed lesson plans. Unless you plan a lot of supplemental readings or extra activities, this text won't take much of your time; just assign readings and exercises, and share what information you think necessary from the teacher's manual.
Like the other CLP history texts (especially the early ones), this is a Providential history, an account of God's hand in history, particularly in the United States. On one hand, of course, it's good for kids to have this emphasis, but at the same time the K-3 history texts from CLP are all written so much from this perspective that students are basically getting the same text four years in a row. And while it's true that God has things under control, this is supposed to be a history book, not a doctrinal treatise.
OurHonest Opinion:
If you've used CLP history texts up to this point, this would be a good year to take a break. A lot of the information is the same, and there isn't really anything to especially recommend this text. It's treatment of U.S. history is more detailed than the two texts before it, but if you plan to use CLP texts in the future, your students will definitely continue to get healthy doses of U.S. history that will certainly fill in any gaps. Not a bad book, but not the best from CLP.
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