by Lorinda K. F. Newton

“The school is teaching my kids to hate America!” exclaimed Ann as I walked into the taekwondo school a year ago. “My son’s high school teacher made a long rant against President Trump and about defunding the police. I’m from a family of law enforcement officers. I’m done with teachers criticizing my family and my beliefs. I withdrew my kids today!”

For over a year, stories of parents standing in opposition to curricula and teaching philosophies that contradict their family values have filled the news and social media. The COVID shutdowns had opened a window to the public school classrooms, and many parents didn’t like what they saw. Signing petitions, joining protests, and voting woke school board members out of office, these parents are trying to restore pro-American views in the schools.

Others have shaken the dust off their feet and pulled their kids out of the system. This action has more than doubled the number of homeschooled children in the United States. Perhaps you represent one of these families.

If you now oversee your children’s education, do you need a way to teach them to love their nation and reverse the anti-American philosophy they received in their classrooms? Or perhaps you must stay in the public schools but still want to counter the woke rhetoric? The following resources will aid you in raising young patriots.

The Kids’ Guides

Co-founded by cultural commentator and former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee, The Kids Guides help children understand current events and see America from a conservative point of view.

“We created the Kids Guide series in response to an overwhelming need to make it fun for kids to learn about the concepts, people, places, and events that drive our nation and our world. From the greatest moments in American history to today’s hottest topics, the Kids Guide gives children a deeper understanding than they can get anywhere else.”

The publisher offers print and video versions of the lessons to accommodate different learning styles.

Print Guide

If you subscribe to this program, each month your child will receive a 20-page, full-color booklet that explores a theme in history or current events, such as The Kids Guide to the Birth of a Revolution or The Kids Guide to Free Speech and Cancel Culture.

The first page entices the reader with four “Did You Know?” questions on the topics discussed in the booklet. The colorful pages display a mix of photographs, cartoon drawings, and historical illustrations. The children depicted in the photos tend to be from preschool to early elementary age. The small chunks of text will make it easy for young readers to grasp the information.

Each booklet closes with a glossary and an introduction to the accompanying video on the website. The back cover lists all the topics addressed.

Video Lessons

The Kids Guide website provides a login for the parent and six logins for children. After selecting a video to view, the parent can download the Parent Guide. This guide lists short biographies of the historical figures and definitions of terms mentioned in the video, a timeline, an answer key for the student quiz, and discussion questions.

The animated videos feature five middle schoolers who travel back in time with a time-travel gadget attached to their bicycles. One of the boys is rather ornery and likes to stir up trouble. In their travels, the student familiar with the historic era will explain what they are observing. The kids also interact with historical figures.

When your child uses the student login, he will see a lesson summary printed below the video. Below this toggle heading, the student has access to the same material as the Parents Guide but not the answers to the quiz.

After your child views the video, he can take the quiz. These have true-or-false, multiple-choice, and discussion questions. The student can write anything for the discussion questions. After the quizzes are automatically scored, the program tracks the grade in the student’s Progress Report that both the parent and student can view.

The subscription for this program is $20.09 per month, which is pricey. Because the website has six student logins and most families don’t have that many children, I recommend families to partner with others to split the cost if this homeschool curriculum (or afterschool supplement) interests you.

PragerU Kids

Last year PragerU celebrated a decade of educating millions of people with short, entertaining videos on history, culture, current events, and life skills from a conservative point of view. They offer these free educational videos as an alternative to our left-leaning media, culture, and education.

They also launched PragerU Kids in 2021 to reach the K-12 audience. Through this project, PragerU seeks the counter the woke messages from public schools and prominent children’s video producers.

Early Childhood

The first Otto Tales book appeared in June 2021, and now eight titles are available. Each picture book features young Dennis Prager and his bulldog Otto learning about American holidays and traditional American values (paperback and Kindle).

Online, PragerU Kids offers storytime videos in which a storybook is read aloud and enhanced with animated illustrations. The author acknowledges that America isn’t perfect. Yet, America has also done many great things we can be proud of.

Elementary Students

In March 2021, the animated Leo & Layla History Adventures was released for third to fifth graders. The brother-and-sister team uses a phone app to travel back in time to meet influential people from US and world history. They simply dialogue with these people and don’t get into the action of the period. Still, each episode provides a mini-biography about the person visited. 

PragerU Kids has also produced a library of ten-page digital magazines that focus on great leaders (Women of Valor, Builders of America, and Presidents of the United States of America series), and geopolitical series: Children Around the World (12 pages).

The great leader magazines provide brief biographies and quotes from the individual featured, plus facts about their time period. All the magazines end with activities, puzzles, sometimes a glossary or a quiz, and a bibliography.

Secondary Students

The fast-paced, humorous TBH (To Be Honest) History videos teach teens history without a left-leaning bias. The first series features the Scientific, American, French, Industrial, and Russian Revolutions. These live-action videos feature two young men, Daniel and Lem. Illustrations or other actors dressed up in somewhat silly period garb depicting influential figures pop up on the screen as they narrate the history lesson.

These videos close with a question or two to think about. Watch until the very end for outtakes!

Several of PragerU’s general audience videos will appeal to teens as well.

The Adventures of Rush Revere

Rush and Kathryn Adams Limbaugh designed this juvenile books series “…to engage students in patriotic American history in a fun and memorable way. Instead of just memorizing facts, we hope students will love the story of how our country was founded and why the United States of America is truly exceptional.”

The five books in this series can be read in any order.

The first book opens with American history substitute teacher Rush Revere and his talking, time-traveling horse, Liberty, arriving at Manchester Middle School. Liberty can time travel, and Rush records live their interactions with the Pilgrims with his smartphone while the students watch. Later, some students join Rush and Liberty in their historical adventures.

Rush tells the stories in first person while Liberty makes wisecracks.

Each hardback book is printed on glossy, antique-looking paper and contains historical and Rush Revere cartoon illustrations. (Also Kindle and audio CD).

To aid parents and teachers in teaching with the books, the Limbaughs wrote digital study guides for each book. Each free PDF guide has three parts: an introduction for parents and teachers, a chapter-by-chapter summary, and quizzes for the students. The quiz answer keys need to be downloaded separately.

Free activity pages such as timelines, fill-in-the-blanks, and word searches can also be downloaded.

A 20-page Teaching Guide was written for the first book and contains sample lesson plans and accompanying activities such as vocabulary, discussion questions, or interactive activities for a student group. These ideas may be adaptable for the other books.

Try using one of these patriotic resources to supplement your history or civics curriculum. Or research many of the other patriotic resources that have recently appeared in the market.

Make sure your children know the values and the people that made America a great nation. Be proud to be an American.

Lorinda K. F. Newton began homeschooling her children in 2004, and her family joined Academy Northwest in 2014. Her family lives on beautiful Whidbey Island north of Seattle, Washington. On her personal blog, Lorinda’s Ponderings, she writes about faith, culture, and governing from a biblical worldview. ©2022 by Lorinda K. F. Newton.