When I was in school, I wasn’t the biggest fan of history and nothing seemed to engage me. I knew the basics and I passed the classes. Then I became a mom of a daughter who not only loves history, but can quote famous heroes, presidents, knows about how the west was really won, and doesn’t water down her thoughts on the progression from The Mayflower to President Donald Trump.

When she requested to study early church history for her 8th grade history course, I thought that was such an important topic to study as a Christian and I was quite intrigued by her thought process in doing so. I did discuss that we needed to expand our studies a bit since the curriculum we picked only covered one semester. We decided to expand our studies by including American Heritage and how faith and the church tied into the founding of the United States of America. Good thing this is what we did because all this time I thought President Thomas Jefferson was Agnostic at best.

“I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man,” Thomas Jefferson.

For You They Signed: The Spiritual Heritage of Those Who Shaped Our Nation written by Marilyn Boyer is a one semester course in American Heritage studies for your middle or high- school aged student. It provides a biographical study on each of the signers of the Declaration of Independence along with timelines and quotes from each Founding Father.

Each biography is grouped by the state from which each signer hailed.  There are childhood stories, historical information, quotes, spiritual heritage background and illustrations throughout.  At the end of each biography there are comprehension questions which students can discuss with the educator or answer on their own.  They provide an opportunity to prompt the student to learn more about each signer.

This book is a great tool to expand your study in a full American History course, use as we as stated above in our expansion on church history, or to use as a family devotion.

You may purchase this at Master Books where they offer many excellent resources for adults, children and homeschoolers.