Our Mission: Great Commission Curriculum series takes families through a study of the entire world over a three-year period, with…
- Mission: World Wonders exploring ancient to medieval history along with world cultures, religions, and missions (along with fine arts, biology, and earth science),
- Mission: Faith Forgers providing an overview of church history in the midst of world history from the protestant reformation through modern times (along with fine arts, astronomy, and physical science), and
- Mission: Lasting Liberty focusing on the history and geography of the United States of America (along with fine arts, anatomy, and chemistry).
Also available is a six-week study of Australia & Oceania that uses many of the same resources from the above programs. Mission: Pacific Peacemakers may be inserted at any point in our program as a summer study or may be used as an introduction to our program to see how the program is laid out before embarking on one of our full-year programs.
Mission: Great Commission provides an elementary and/or middle school credit in social studies (history, geography, and world cultures), science, Bible, and fine arts (art and music). You only need to add math and language arts (reading, writing, and English grammar). To check out the fantastic books in each program, hop on over to our shop: Mission World Wonders, Mission Faith Forgers, and Mission Lasting Liberty.
Written for families with students in Grades 2-8, this missions-focused curriculum plan provides a complete core curriculum for social studies and science while integrating the study of scripture, history, geography, missions, hymns, and fine arts. Although geared towards Grades 2-8, it may be used as a common family morning time for all ages. It includes:
✅ open-and-go lesson plans for elementary and middle school for a 36-week school year
✅ a story-based living history of the world
✅ a hands-on approach to science
✅ memorization of the countries and physical features of the entire world
✅ integrated fine arts which reinforce the geography and missionaries studied, including art projects, poetry, scripture, composer study, orchestra study, and hymn study
✅ booklists for additional reading
✅ middle school options which include writing lab journal entries and keeping a history portfolio
✅ Trip two plans for repeating the entire series with a slightly different missionary and science focus
For a small snippet of what is studied in this series, you can download our free Hide the Word Scripture Memory System which corresponds with the Bible memory work in Mission Lasting Liberty.
Want to see a sample? View it here ⇨.
And… if you’re looking to start a co-op, you can also check out how to use this program as a framework.
NOTE: For high school students, we are developing the Truth Trek series to overlap the subjects that would be covered in our Mission Great Commission curriculum. Currently, we have a corresponding high school curriculum plan for Mission Lasting Liberty (Truth Trek One) and Mission World Wonders (Truth Trek Two). You can also click here for other high school curriculum recommendations corresponding to each program to provide a “one-room schoolhouse” atmosphere in your home.
Where to start in Mission: Great Commission
This series was designed so that families can start in any of the programs. Mission: World Wonders begins with ancient world history. Mission: Faith Forgers begins with church history from the early church period and then later integrates world history into the narrative from the Protestant Reformation forward. And Mission: Lasting Liberty is a complete study of American history.
After completing one cycle of the three missions, families can repeat the entire program. We also have a six-week unit study on Australia and Oceania called Mission: Pacific Peacemakers.
Note: For families in Classical Conversations, check out Mission World Wonders for Cycle 1, Mission Faith Forgers for Cycle 2, and Mission Lasting Liberty for Cycle 3. These programs are completely independent of CC but have been used by many families to provide a more in-depth, faith-based framework of study for the Foundations program.
Just Add Math & Language Arts
Mission: Great Commission provides a credit in social studies (history, geography, and world cultures), science, Bible, and fine arts (art and music). You will need to add math and language arts (reading and writing/English grammar).
Math. Our family has tried many different options for math over the years, but we’ve finally landed on our preferred program, Math U See, which is a mastery-based curriculum with ongoing systematic reviews also incorporated. Using Math U See allows our children to begin with Pre-Algebra in 7th grade and complete upper level maths through Calculus I in 12th grade. Our oldest son (an honors chemistry + biology double major in college) used Math U See PreCalculus as a high school senior which provided a foundation for him to take Calculus I successfully during his first semester. (He only wishes he had started in Math U See earlier so that he would have had an even better foundation in Calculus before college.)
Language Arts. Before Grade 3, our children use All About Reading and All About Spelling for language arts. (You can read more about our experience with these programs here.) We also use Script-n-Scribe for handwriting, starting our children in cursive before writing in manuscript print. (You can read more about why we teach cursive before print handwriting here.) For composition, we suggest the following programs that would correspond to the content in Mission: Great Commission.
Writing/Composition Recommendations
For families who are unfamiliar with IEW’s Structure and Style program, or for those who prefer video instruction for teaching writing/composition, we recommend using two years of Structure and Style for Students. You can try out three weeks for free here.
For students in Grades 2-8, we recommend using either
- two years of IEW’s Structure and Style for Students Level A for Grades 3-5 (Structure and Style for Students: Year 1 Level A Basic and Structure and Style for Students: Year 2 Level A Basic) or Level B for Grades 6-8 (IEW Structure & Style for Students Level B Year 1 and IEW Structure & Style for Students Level B Year 2) or…
- using theme-based writing lessons corresponding to the history studied in each of the Mission: Great Commission programs as follows:
Recommendations for Mission: World Wonders
Grades 2-3: Bible Heroes Writing Lessons
Grades 3-5: Ancient History-Based Writing Lessons or Fables Myths and Fairy Tales Writing Lessons (or Structure and Style for Students: Year 1 Level A Basic)
Grades 6-8: Ancient History-Based Writing Lessons or Bible-Based Writing Lessons (or Structure and Style for Students: Year 1 Level B Basic)
Recommendations for Mission: Faith Forgers
Grades 2-3: Bible Heroes Writing Lessons
Grades 3-5: Modern World History-Based Writing Lessons or Fables Myths and Fairy Tales Writing Lessons (or Structure and Style for Students: Year 1 Level A Basic)
Grades 6-8: Modern World History-Based Writing Lessons or Bible-Based Writing Lessons (or Structure and Style for Students: Year 1 Level B Basic)
Recommendations for Mission: Lasting Liberty
Grades 2-3: People and Places in Our Community
Grades 3-5: U.S. History-Based Writing Lessons (or Structure and Style for Students: Year 1 Level A Basic)
Grades 6-8: U.S. History-Based Writing Lessons (or Structure and Style for Students: Year 1 Level B Basic)
We also highly recommend Fix It! Grammar for grammar instruction starting in Grades 3 or 4. Download the first lessons of all four levels of this gentle introduction to grammar and mechanics with thorough yet simple instructions for the teacher.
Penmanship/Poetry Options
If you’re interested in corresponding handwriting/penmanship and poetry curriculum, the following items correspond to each program in Mission: Great Commission:
- Mission: World Wonders: Script-n-Scribe Truth Traveler
- Mission: Faith Forgers: Script-n-Scribe Hymns in History
- Mission: Lasting Liberty: Script-n-Scribe Americana
Although each Mission: Great Commission program has been designed for use with Grades 2-8, we offer some additional suggestions for high school or for those wishing to work beyond the core program in 7th and 8th grade. In the future, we aim to write more detailed curriculum plans for middle and high school students. Until then, you can access the following links to select curriculum for further expanding the content for middle and high school students:
If you have questions about this program, feel free to hop down and leave us a comment or contact us at support@halfahundredacrewood.com. You can also check out our FAQ at this link.
This post was originally published in April 2021.