Creek Edge Press was started by a homeschool mom, Amy Kate Hilsman, who wanted to provide materials for her daughter that would combine the methods of Montessori, Classical, and Charlotte Mason styles of teaching. As she started developing these tools for her own family, Amy saw that other families and schools wanted the same types of tools, so she began to produce the materials for others. It was from this beginning that Creek Edge Press was born last spring.
For our review, we received the Modern World Task Cards Set ($20 for set of task cards and teacher’s guide) which cover Victorian England through the dawn of the 21st century. The task cards are designed to help reinforce key concepts studied during the specified time period. Each task card in the set has the student perform several activities about a certain topic such as:
- Encyclopedia Research
- Further Reading
- Define
- Sketch and Label
- Summarize
- Biographical Summary
- Literature Summary
- Information Booklets
- Posters
- Collages
- Lists
- Display Board
- Compare and Contrast
- Timeline or Century Book
Not every task is assigned for each topic/task card. As the student completes the task, they check off that task on the index card. Generally, a student would complete one task card per week. If you have older children, you could have them move at a faster pace or just require the completed tasks be more in-depth. Younger children will require assistance at completing tasks – especially as they get use to the process.
The teacher’s guide contains information on how both the teacher and student should approach the task cards. It also contains a book list and task card topic list which includes viewing recommendations as well as maps needed to complete tasks. Due to the nature of the task cards, there is no answer key.
I personally think the task cards are a wonderful idea, but they didn’t work that well for us because these types of tasks are already built into our current history curriculum. If we were using a different history curriculum or just studying time periods using books, these would have been wonderful. While I personally prefer a notebook style format (index cards tend to go mia around here), I can see the value in using index cards as it allows students to file away the cards as they are completed. For durability, I would probably laminate the cards and use a dry erase marker to check of the completed tasks.
I received a set of task cards as part of the TOS Homeschool Crew to help facilitate the writing of a frank and honest review. A positive review is not guaranteed, and all opinions are my own.
