Footprints On Our Land
South Africa's Heritage

Literature Based Curriculum

It begins in 1488 when Bartholomeu Dias rounded the Cape, which was inhabited by the Khoi-san people, and continues through time, ending in the early 1900's just after the South African War.

By reading the story books included in this programme, your children will get to know historical characters like Van Riebeeck, Van der Stel, Mzilikazi, Shaka, Rhodes, Kruger and others who played a role in shaping South Africa's colourful past. Instead of reading facts and dates so typical of history text books, they will discover the facts about our country's history through the eyes of the characters in the readers.

Footprints On Our Land - South Africa's Heritage is NOT just a history curriculum, however. Being a unit study, the lesson plans are built around the children's literature which is included and in this way other subjects are also covered namely:

Footprints On Our Land - sample lesson You will need Adobe Reader (the latest version is recommended) installed on your computer in order to open and read this sample lesson. You can get Adobe Reader here (a new window will open so you can download without leaving this page).

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THE PACKAGE

We have carefully chosen more than 25 books in this literature based curriculum, that will ignite your children’s thought environment and enrich them in knowledge and character.

A comprehensive Curriculum Guide, four non-fiction books, a unique South African timeline book and a South African dry-write map are also included to give you a well-rounded programme. A picture disc representing each story is supplied that can be placed on the map, giving your children a visual reminder of each story and its geographical setting.

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ADDITIONAL BOOKS

The essential books are supplied in the Footprints package, but there is also an extensive list of books that you can add to your daily reading. These books are generally still in print or available at libraries and we sell many of them as well. In the Curriculum Guide there are also suggestions of related books for older and younger students.

THE CURRICULUM GUIDE

At the beginning of each lesson in this literature based curriculum there is:

• - a summary of the story
• - suggestions of possible field trips,
• - relevent internet websites, and
• - titles of additional reading material

Since forward planning is needed for some hands-on activities, lesson plan at a glance, is provided to facilitate this.

One parent said the following about our guide:

"I especially am very appreciative of all the effort and extras you have put into the manual. You have it all there for me. For example, just yesterday I was wondering how I could make a melktert – and then I found your recipe! Again, when we did one of the books, it talked about baking bread. My son had asked me what yeast was and hey presto, there was your answer, complete with an easy, child friendly method to make bread AND experiments! Perfect!!" (Kerry, United Kingdom)

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LANGUAGE ARTS

A Charlotte Mason-style language program, based on the natural way of acquiring language skills, is included. Narration is the main tool for developing language arts skills but copy work, recitation, dictation, spelling and creative writing are used as well.

The language arts assignments are suggested for you in the Curriculum Guide. Charlotte Mason’s way of using gentle and age-appropriate methods to help your children become great thinkers and users of the English language are encouraged.

Footprints Heritage Program now has a full grammar and word study program to go along with the readers and read alouds, thus being relevant to what your child is reading about in each book. These lessons are supplied on two levels, beginner and advanced.

WHAT ELSE SHOULD I KNOW?

You will be able to fit the lessons into a 9 month school year should you wish to make this a one year study only. However, it could take up to two school years to work through in its entirety. We feel that to gain the most benefit from all the books and lessons that it should rather be studied over an 18 month to 2 year period.

You will need to add a grammar and maths program. We recommend that you use Simply Grammar by Karen Andreola for your child’s grammar lessons, as this is a gentle way of learning grammar.

We have found that parents have used the lesson plans to springboard other lessons or to dig deeper into topics that we raise in the manual. Should you try and run on a very tight 1 year schedule, you will certainly miss out on this wonderful opportunity to cater for your creative bent and your children’s delight directed studies.