These are answers to Footprints Homeschool Curriculum FAQ – frequently asked questions about our South African homeschool packages.
FAQ’s about Footprints On Our Land – South African Homeschool Curriculum
Footprints FAQs
“I can’t decide whether to use … [an imported curriculum] …or a Footprints programme next year. I need more information to help me make my decision…”
Our various Footprints programmes consist of a parent manual plus a selection the best South African children's literature. In December 2023, when we compared the topics and content of our programmes with the Department of Basic Education's Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement, also known as CAPS, we found that for Social Studies, our Footprints programmes meet and exceed the requirements. Read more at Footprints and CAPS - Astonishing Alignment.
Starting in 2002, after about six years of home educating using excellent imported curricula, we, the authors of Footprints, realised that our children were exposed to too many stories about Thanksgiving, baseball, bears and snow at Christmas and that they were lacking in knowledge of their own heritage and environment. Footprints On Our Land was born to fill this need.
Our vision was to put together South African programmes that would make our children proud to be South African, that would make them understand and appreciate the good in our country as well as its problems, and that would give them a desire to play a part in building a bright future for our nation.”
President Paul Kruger once said: “Search in your past for what is good and beautiful. Build your future from there.” After more than 20 years, the stories in our programmes have delighted hundreds of home educating families and our learning programmes have equipped the students for high school and the various Grade 12 exams that home educators write to achieve a school-leaving certificate. Footprints works and families love this way of learning!
Our various Footprints programmes consist of a parent manual plus a selection the best South African children's literature. In December 2023, when we compared the topics and content of our programmes with the Department of Basic Education's Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement, also known as CAPS, we found that for Social Studies, our Footprints programmes meet and exceed the requirements. Read more at Footprints and CAPS - Astonishing Alignment.
Starting in 2002, after about six years of home educating using excellent imported curricula, we, the authors of Footprints, realised that our children were exposed to too many stories about Thanksgiving, baseball, bears and snow at Christmas and that they were lacking in knowledge of their own heritage and environment. Footprints On Our Land was born to fill this need.
Our vision was to put together South African programmes that would make our children proud to be South African, that would make them understand and appreciate the good in our country as well as its problems, and that would give them a desire to play a part in building a bright future for our nation.”
President Paul Kruger once said: “Search in your past for what is good and beautiful. Build your future from there.” After more than 20 years, the stories in our programmes have delighted hundreds of home educating families and our learning programmes have equipped the students for high school and the various Grade 12 exams that home educators write to achieve a school-leaving certificate. Footprints works and families love this way of learning!
“Am I correct in thinking that it is a supplementary programme to [imported curriculum], i.e. if we’re doing the [imported] course then I can add the Footprints as an extra …or must I leave out something in the [imported] course for Footprints?”
Our programmes have been designed to be slotted in between other top imported home education programmes like Sonlight Curriculum and others... Where these programmes take a year to study American History and culture, our clients use our packages to study our South African heritage.
Some families use our Footprints - The Early Years programme (for ages 8-12) as a supplement to go along with other imported unit study programmes. For example instead of studying a unit about the American Pioneers, they use Footprints to study the Voortrekkers!
Our programmes have been designed to be slotted in between other top imported home education programmes like Sonlight Curriculum and others... Where these programmes take a year to study American History and culture, our clients use our packages to study our South African heritage.
Some families use our Footprints - The Early Years programme (for ages 8-12) as a supplement to go along with other imported unit study programmes. For example instead of studying a unit about the American Pioneers, they use Footprints to study the Voortrekkers!
Yes – we offer a range of story-based programmes in Afrikaans. Refer to the Afrikaans Produkte page
Our Voetspore programme for ages 8-14 is a one-of-a-kind Afrikaans literature-based homeschool curriculum for Afrikaans families and cottage schools.
We also offer Kaalvoetpret for children between ages 4-8 years.
Natuurskattejag is a natural sciences programme for children between ages 8-16.
Little Footprints: Although seventeen of the twenty-seven story books we use in our Little Footprints studies have been printed in Afrikaans, the Afrikaans versions are now out of print (except for about 7) so if you want to use them, you will have to locate them at the library or ask the librarian to order them via inter-library loans. The titles that are in print can be bought from your local book shop or online vendors.
Although our manual is only in English, the manual is written to YOU, the parent, giving instructions and ideas of things to tell or discuss with your children from the stories and also activities to do. This you can then implement in Afrikaans.
Read the testimonies of Afrikaans families that used Little Footprints and how they enjoyed it.
Footprints On Our Land: There are 8 books that have previously been printed in Afrikaans. We can supply these titles on request in place of the English counterparts. Due to variances in the reproduction and copyright costs of these books, the price of your package may vary slightly from that of the standard English package.
Little Footprints: Although seventeen of the twenty-seven story books we use in our Little Footprints studies have been printed in Afrikaans, the Afrikaans versions are now out of print (except for about 7) so if you want to use them, you will have to locate them at the library or ask the librarian to order them via inter-library loans. The titles that are in print can be bought from your local book shop or online vendors.
Although our manual is only in English, the manual is written to YOU, the parent, giving instructions and ideas of things to tell or discuss with your children from the stories and also activities to do. This you can then implement in Afrikaans.
Read the testimonies of Afrikaans families that used Little Footprints and how they enjoyed it.
Footprints On Our Land: There are 8 books that have previously been printed in Afrikaans. We can supply these titles on request in place of the English counterparts. Due to variances in the reproduction and copyright costs of these books, the price of your package may vary slightly from that of the standard English package.
On receipt of a deposit, we will send you our booklist for the programme you need. Some folk are shocked that we will not just hand it out for free, especially since we claim to be Christians. We believe that as the Scripture says in 1 Timothy 5: 18: “The worker is worth his wages.” (See also Matthew 10:10)
To justify all the effort and time away from our husbands and families that sourcing the literature and creating our programmes has cost us, we feel we have to offer our services as a business and not just as a ministry. And we find that we need to guard our Footprints “baby” from those who would seek to exploit us, by using our work without ever paying us for it.
What we do offer free of charge is online support via our websites, free ezines and our Footprints eloop. On the Footprints eloop we often post reviews of new books and resources, websites etc that we have found that fit in with our SA studies. We arrange field trips for our Footprints clients, hold “public” open days and allow home educators to visit us in our homes privately to view our products and ask our advice about home education in general.
To justify all the effort and time away from our husbands and families that sourcing the literature and creating our programmes has cost us, we feel we have to offer our services as a business and not just as a ministry. And we find that we need to guard our Footprints “baby” from those who would seek to exploit us, by using our work without ever paying us for it.
What we do offer free of charge is online support via our websites, free ezines and our Footprints eloop. On the Footprints eloop we often post reviews of new books and resources, websites etc that we have found that fit in with our SA studies. We arrange field trips for our Footprints clients, hold “public” open days and allow home educators to visit us in our homes privately to view our products and ask our advice about home education in general.
Orders can be collected from Bergvliet, Cape Town by arrangement. Please select the EFT payment option when ordering online and contact us to arrange collection.
If you use Little Footprints or Barefoot Days or Kaalvoetpret for a child in grade 1 or higher, you will need an age appropriate Language Arts programme (phonics, reading, spelling, dictation, grammar etc.).
Footprints - The Early YEars and Footprints - The Last Century include a Language Arts component. (Optional)
You will also need to add an Afrikaans language programme to Voetspore.
With all our packages, you need to add an age appropriate Maths programme. We have given reviews and contact details of a few of these for you to consider under Curriculum Reviews
“I have been told that Little Footprints is not “enough” for Grade 1 level. I personally disagree but would so appreciate your response to that.”
Being unit studies, with each of our programmes, you, the parent, can control to what depth or “how much” of a topic you wish to study and this varies from child to child and family to family.
“My 5 year old knows his alphabet (phonics) and is keen on reading. Will Little Footprints assist me in teaching him to read?"
The story books we use in our lessons are intended to be read aloud by you, the parent. Little Footprints is not a reading/phonics programme, so you will need to add an age appropriate Language Arts programme (phonics, reading, spelling, dictation) and an age appropriate Maths programme. Later on, once your child has learnt to read, s/he will be able to enjoy reading the Little Footprints stories alone!
Footprints - The Early YEars and Footprints - The Last Century include a Language Arts component. (Optional)
You will also need to add an Afrikaans language programme to Voetspore.
With all our packages, you need to add an age appropriate Maths programme. We have given reviews and contact details of a few of these for you to consider under Curriculum Reviews
“I have been told that Little Footprints is not “enough” for Grade 1 level. I personally disagree but would so appreciate your response to that.”
Being unit studies, with each of our programmes, you, the parent, can control to what depth or “how much” of a topic you wish to study and this varies from child to child and family to family.
“My 5 year old knows his alphabet (phonics) and is keen on reading. Will Little Footprints assist me in teaching him to read?"
The story books we use in our lessons are intended to be read aloud by you, the parent. Little Footprints is not a reading/phonics programme, so you will need to add an age appropriate Language Arts programme (phonics, reading, spelling, dictation) and an age appropriate Maths programme. Later on, once your child has learnt to read, s/he will be able to enjoy reading the Little Footprints stories alone!
Some of the story books are out of print, so we all use the library system to obtain copies of them and some books are from overseas suppliers, but since they are readily available in local book stores, we have not gone to the trouble to import them ourselves.
It is up to you if you want to buy all the books we sell or if you want to use the library to obtain the story books instead…or thirdly, you can buy the books a few at a time and stagger your payments.
Handwriting will also have to be included somewhere…I’m really looking for a guide and some “security”.
In practice we have found that learning the 3R’s takes up a quite large amount of time in Grade 1. For instance, the time spent on Language Arts may vary from day to day, according to the task at hand, the child’s interest and concentration span. You will need to learn to gauge for yourself how much you can expect from your child and be careful not to fall into the trap of comparing with others.
Home education should be tailor made for your child.
For practicing handwriting, the Little Footprints guide contains selected sentences from the storybooks for “copywork” which is an activity encouraged by Charlotte Mason.
In practice we have found that learning the 3R’s takes up a quite large amount of time in Grade 1. For instance, the time spent on Language Arts may vary from day to day, according to the task at hand, the child’s interest and concentration span. You will need to learn to gauge for yourself how much you can expect from your child and be careful not to fall into the trap of comparing with others.
Home education should be tailor made for your child.
For practicing handwriting, the Little Footprints guide contains selected sentences from the storybooks for “copywork” which is an activity encouraged by Charlotte Mason.
No, Little Footprints focuses mainly on contemporary South Africa. It will introduce your children to modern day SA and some of the various cultural groups of our rainbow nation. The stories are also distributed over a variety of different geographical locations – there are rural stories, city stories, a seashore study, a river study, a Karoo story, a desert story, and stories set in various provinces of our country. These stories also include lessons about our local animals and plants, foods, etc.
Footprints On Our Land – South Africa’s Heritage is built around historical fiction spanning the period from 1488-1910.
A number of families have run these two programmes together successfully. On request, we provide a lesson guide for families who intend to do this, indicating which of the Little Footprints stories correspond with the lessons in the Footprints On Our Land programme, so that the older and younger children can study the same topics simultaneously.
Footprints On Our Land – South Africa’s Heritage is built around historical fiction spanning the period from 1488-1910.
A number of families have run these two programmes together successfully. On request, we provide a lesson guide for families who intend to do this, indicating which of the Little Footprints stories correspond with the lessons in the Footprints On Our Land programme, so that the older and younger children can study the same topics simultaneously.
Our unit studies are literature-based and do not require extensive preparation and research by you the parent, so all our programmes are easy to use! On your planning day, you will need about an hour or so to source your materials and set out the lessons for the following week. All the lessons are written for you, you need simply slot them into your week.
In Little Footprints there are also themes like Obedience, Honouring Parents, Generosity etc, although each study is centred on a storybook. The Footprints - The Early Years programme offers Bible study themes as well. Footprints - The Last Century is also written with a conservative worldview and some Bible lessons.
In Little Footprints there are also themes like Obedience, Honouring Parents, Generosity etc, although each study is centred on a storybook. The Footprints - The Early Years programme offers Bible study themes as well. Footprints - The Last Century is also written with a conservative worldview and some Bible lessons.
Each Footprints programme and Voetspore is aimed at children between specific ages. However, if a family chooses to use a programme for multi-level learning including an older child, that child would probably find it interesting to select certain topics that interest him/her and study these in more detail, possibly by finding resources at the library. We do sometimes give suggestions of more advanced activities that an older child could do, as well as providing suggestions for additional titles that you and/or your children can read to enrich your learning experience.
In the manual there are reviews of a multitude of suitable books that can be obtained through the library system (or inter-library loans system if your local library does not stock all the titles). We also sell a limited range of additional books that will add to our respective programmes, for those who wish to buy further reading material.
- Little Footprints is designed to possibly be completed in one academic year. However, since many families like to use a curriculum as the “backbone” to their studies and then spend time exploring their own interests in more detail, it can be used over a more extended period too.
- Footprints On Our Land: We recommend taking 18 months to 2 years to work through Footprints On Our Land, so that you do not feel under pressure to get it done in one year and so that you have time for outings and holidays to places of interest.
- Footprints into the 21st Century was designed to be completed in one year, but as with all our programmes, it is self-paced and you have the freedom to expand your studies, and take longer to work through it if you choose.
- Voetspore too is intended to take 18 months to two years for families to complete, especially if you read all the recommended additional books to enrich the literature-based learning experience.
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