Crash Course make great videos. World History was one of their earlier courses, and my son has watched it all the way through. Some of it shot over his head, some he really got, all of it he enjoyed.

Now Crash Course have branched out a little and created a curriculum to go with the course. It uses the existing videos, but also references other resources such as the Big History project. There were 42 videos in the World History course, and these have been grouped into six units for the purposes of the curriculum, each of which has a student workbook and a teacher pack.

http://thecrashcourse.com/curriculum.html

(The videos without worksheets can be accessed direct on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBDA2E52FB1EF80C9)

The curriculum is quite long, and seems to be aimed squarely at teens to me (certainly kids older than my son). There’s quite a bit of reading and writing, so this will appeal to parents who have a structured approach to home ed more than it will appeal to unschoolers. Of course, there’s nothing to stop you watching the videos without using the curriculum, as we did, so Crash Course World History still works without the curriculum as a semi-structured video course.

Still, the curriculum adds quite a bit if your child is ready for it. There are worksheets, activities, and research topics organised around ‘Essential Questions’. Each section looks at the essential question at the beginning and end of the work, so that the student can see how their ideas have changed.

Verdict: A bit too advanced for our house, we’re not ready to work through quite that much material as yet, but it looks well planned.