Veritas Press sells grade-level packages of complete curriculum, including Bible courses, for kindergarten through twelfth grade. This is a classical Christian curriculum that teaches Latin as early as second grade. Their packages include many resources they publish themselves (e.g., Bede’s History of US, the Pages of History series, Phonics Museum, the Legends and Leagues series, Composition One and Two, and the Omnibus courses) along with resources from other publishers, such as Saxon math courses, Shurley English, The Thinking Toolbox, The Phonetic Zoo, the Latin for Children series, and Wheelock’s Latin.
They sell “Good,” “Better,” and “Best” packages for each level. A mixture of two or three types of courses are used in each type of course: You Teach, Self-Paced, and Live Online. The latter two types of courses are only offered for some courses in third grade and above. You Teach courses are taught by parents using a textbook and other course resources offline. Veritas Press’s Self-Paced courses for Bible and history use online videos, exercises, games, quizzes, and exams that can be used on your own schedule. Live Online courses, which meet at scheduled times for live interaction with a teacher and other students, require students to also have physical course materials. Note that Live Online courses, when included in a grade-level package, will add a substantial additional cost. Only the deposit for that course is covered in the initial cost of the program.) Even with the Good, Better, and Best packages, there are many ways to customize them with the different styles of courses.
The Good packages include your curriculum for all subjects, but they do not include lesson plans. Some Good packages include Self-Paced courses, and the Good packages for high school even include some Live Online courses (again, only the deposit for Live Online courses is covered in the basic package fee). Some of the customization options are your choice of a book-based course or a Live Online course, but you might occasionally have the option of choosing a course about a different era of history, a different level for math, or another such option. Some courses allow you to deduct from the cost if you already own books or components.
Let’s look at the three third-grade packages as an example. The Best package for third grade includes all of the following plus scripted lesson plans:
- Self-Paced Bible course "Judges to Kings"
- Live Online Grammar & Writing 3 course (only the deposit is covered) that uses either a combination of Shurley English, Classically Cursive handwriting, and Structure and Style for Students OR several resouces from Classical Academic Press
- Self-Paced history course "New Testament, Greece, and Rome"
- Legends & Leagues East You Teach course for geography with the Live Online course as an option at extra cost
- Live Online beginning Latin course (only the deposit cost is covered) with You Teach courses as an option
- linguistics course that uses The Phonetic Zoo A, either Live Online or You Teach
- Live Online literature course (only the deposit cost is covered) with no options
- Live Online math course using either Saxon Math 5/4 or Math-U-See Delta
- You Teach art course using the book Drawing with Children
- Live Online Memory Period course (to work on memorization and recitation) (only the deposit cost is covered)
In all packages, students can substitute a course at a different grade level if needed.
The Good package for third grade does not include art or Memory Period courses, and lesson plans (when available) are an option at an additional cost. The package includes Self-Paced courses for Bible and history. The Grammar & Writing course provides you with the books and course material you need. The geography and linguistics courses are the same as in the Best option. The Latin course includes books, DVDs, and a CD, and there is an option for a Live Online course. Literature is a book-based course.
The Better package for third grade includes scripted lesson plans, deposits for the Live Online Latin course and other courses that are in the Good package, the art course included in the Best package, plus options for Live Online courses for Grammar & Writing 3, history, and Memory Period.
Summary
The Veritas Press packages are unusual because they include a mixture of online, live, and offline courses. I think this is just what many parents are looking for because many students do better with a mixture of course delivery options. Depending upon the package and options selected, Veritas Press helps parents provide their children with a customized classical education program using some great resources.
