Uncle Sam and You Review

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How Uncle Sam and You Works

Uncle Sam and You is a civics course from Notgrass History for grades 5 thru 8. It teaches American government, holidays and the role of citizens in America all from a biblical worldview. It’s an excellent introduction to civics for the middle school student.

Uncle Sam and You Part 1 and Part 2, The Citizen’s Handbook and the Answer Key booklet are essential components of this course. You can also purchase either the Student Workbook (for younger grades) or the Lesson Review workbook (for older grades). There is also a literature option (which we did not use) that goes along with this course. Find out more about all these options on their website. And watch me unbox our Uncle Same and You curriculum to see what we used.

The two Uncle Sam and You textbooks cover civics and holidays. Every unit has 4 civics lessons and one American holiday to study. Students get to choose an American holiday to study each week. These holidays are located in the back of the book. All the holidays will be studied by the completion of this course. Each unit should take a week to work through.

At the end of each lesson are Lesson Activities which include things like Vocabulary, Literature, Creative Writing, Find Out!, Picture This!, Thinking Biblically, and assignments from the Student Workbook or Lesson Review.

Parent’s can choose which lesson activities to have their student do each day. The literature option is either a selection from The Citizen’s Handbook or an assigned reading from the literature component of the course. I suggest requiring your student to do the literature options that are from The Citizen’s Handbook as this reading enhances the lesson.

At the end of each unit, you can choose to have your student take a test. Tests are provided in the back of both the Student Workbook and Lesson Review.

Uncle Sam and You Review

The Uncle Sam and You lessons are written in a narrative format which made it a lot easier to read and understand. My daughter enjoyed all of the colorful pictures and interesting facts throughout the curriculum.

The variety of activity choices kept the course from getting dull and boring. There were activities geared toward every type of learner making this a great course for the entire family. While I only had one child using it this year, I can see myself using it with multiple children in years to come.

I also appreciated the primary source documents found in The Citizen’s Handbook. I think it is important for children to read the actual historical documents for themselves.

My favorite thing about Uncle Sam and You was that it taught civics from a Christian worldview. While much of the curriculum is facts about how the American government works, my daughter was asked to think critically and biblically about each aspect of our government.

She had to articulate, with Scripture, what characteristics make a good leader. She also had to compare the pardons a President gives with the pardon Christians receive through Christ. She had to write about which attributes from Proverbs 31 should be attributes of a First Lady. Critical thinking questions like these allowed her to analyze aspects of American government from the lens of Scripture.

Uncle Sam and You is an enjoyable introduction to American Government. I wish I had learned civics this way!

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