Disclaimer: I was compensated for my time in exchange for my honest review.
What do you think when you hear “Western Humanities”? In college, this required course included anything that was a discipline, featuring man at the center, that focused on the human imagination and thought. Long story short – The Arts, Literature, Drama, Religion, History, Language, Ethics, and Philosophy. It meant reading the traditional great thinkers of Western civilization such as Socrates, Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, and Burke. It’s the Culture and Values of a people.
So what resources are available to introduce your homeschool learner to Western Humanities before college? I submit for your consideration – Heritage Humanities!
Heritage Humanities is an online collection of important works that are the foundation of Humanities all in one place. Think “classics” and multiply it by ten. Specifically geared for learners 6 – 18, Heritage Humanities has easy to access resources without the need to head to the Library stacks or dig through endless text to find what you’re looking for. Want to look for work from Greece? It’s as easy as choosing “Greece” from the icon and filtering further if you need to by age or simply choosing a piece of literature directly from it’s icon.
So how do I use Heritage Humanities?
In many of our homeschools questions arise that require deeper research or thought. My kid is the king of “why?” and it’s those whys that often have us turning to text not already in our study or curriculum. Using Heritage Humanities, I can pull up supporting documents and have my son read from the original text. Sometimes, that reading turns into copy work and from time to time, memorization. If the language is too difficult for a younger reader, chose the option to listen to the text narrated. If the vocabulary is advanced use the dictionary search tool at the top of the text’s page. This makes the Humanities accessible to anyone, at any age. But those aren’t your only options for accessibility – change the text and size, change the background color for easier reading, change the justification and line spacing, bookmark pages, narration speed – how you use Heritage Humanities is up to you.
What will I find on Heritage Humanities?
The writing available on Heritage Humanities is not inexhaustible and is specifically focused on Western Humanities with a basis on Greece, Rome, and Judeo-Christian Theology, and the British Isles and is expanding daily. This probably won’t be your only resource but it’s wonderful supplemental edition to subject you may already be in the mist of exploring. Middle and High School Students will find the resource valuable immediately with their upper level literature and political studies, but there are still titles that younger learners will benefit from. It was a lot of fun sharing McGuffey’s Eclectic Primer with my 9 year old, and hearing his opinion of early education from 1900. Cash thinks that little kids are much more intelligent and better readers that kids from 1900. Oddly enough I think the kids from 1900 would have that same thought about kids from 2024!
How do I get Heritage Humanities?
Right now, Heritage Humanities is a no cost, open source web based program. Head to http://www.HeritageHumanities.com to create an account, and start reading. You’ll find everything from Aesop’s Fables and Nicomachean Ethics to Tales from Shakespeare and The Canterbury Tales. Right now, we’re reading “Robin Hood” by Joseph Ritson which even has the illustration etchings included with the story. We’ll read a few of the stories and then, I’ll pull out the old 1973 animated Robin Hood from Disney to enjoy over a bowl of popcorn. So, go sign up for a Heritage Humanities account and find something interesting to read and discuss with your kiddo.
@Mamasweetbaby 
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