We signed up for the free 12 hour history of America DVD that was being provided to educators (including homeschoolers.) We recently received it and played some of it last night. We were shocked. Maybe if our son was older it wouldn't have been such a big deal, but for our 4 year old it was too much.
Now, I'd expect some recreation of battle scenes, but when we started out with the pilgrim era we thought we'd be okay. One of the first scenes they show is a man being burned at the stake for killing his pregnant wife with plans to eat her. You can imagine how a 4 year old would react to seeing a person being burned (he wasn't actually on fire, but he was tied up and surrounded by flames.)
So we looked through the table of contents. Most chapters were about wars so we figured we'd just pass by on those. "Cities" seemed a safe bet. All was fine until they showed a fire in a sweat shop. One young woman was dragged onto the elevator towards safety as she screamed for her sister. The narrator stated the sister died. That's when we turned it off and cuddled our son and told him sometimes bad things happen in life. However, because of that fire they now put sprinklers and smoke detectors in buildings and they make sure people can get out of the buildings if there's a fire. Don't know if it's true (per se) but he felt better.
So, if you got this dvd and you're planning on watching it, just be aware that it's not appropriate for all kids. I'll probably watch more on my own, but certainly not with my kids for many years.
Now, I'd expect some recreation of battle scenes, but when we started out with the pilgrim era we thought we'd be okay. One of the first scenes they show is a man being burned at the stake for killing his pregnant wife with plans to eat her. You can imagine how a 4 year old would react to seeing a person being burned (he wasn't actually on fire, but he was tied up and surrounded by flames.)
So we looked through the table of contents. Most chapters were about wars so we figured we'd just pass by on those. "Cities" seemed a safe bet. All was fine until they showed a fire in a sweat shop. One young woman was dragged onto the elevator towards safety as she screamed for her sister. The narrator stated the sister died. That's when we turned it off and cuddled our son and told him sometimes bad things happen in life. However, because of that fire they now put sprinklers and smoke detectors in buildings and they make sure people can get out of the buildings if there's a fire. Don't know if it's true (per se) but he felt better.
So, if you got this dvd and you're planning on watching it, just be aware that it's not appropriate for all kids. I'll probably watch more on my own, but certainly not with my kids for many years.
And we're not even doing US history this year. So, I tossed it into the dark corners of our video collection.
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