Talking History

Planning our history curriculum for next year has been fun. Ciara is finishing up her study of Ancient history this year so it seems logical to me to continue teaching history in chronological order. So next year we will be doing the Middle Ages.....from the fall of the Roman Empire to the beginning of the Renaissance. About a thousand years of history to get through in a year. Phew!

So after looking at all the different programs that are out there I have decided to use a couple...and do a bit of my own thing.

A fantastic starting point for elementary aged kids is Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer. It tells history in a story format rather than in the manner of a traditional text book. I will be working through Volume 2 which covers the Middle Ages with my 1st and 4th grader. You can buy an Activity book that goes along with it and it has a lot of fun activities to tie in with each historical era covered. The Usborne Encyclopedia of World History is a great summary for younger kids. We bought the internet linked one which is awesome...it has links for every page in the book to a whole lot of child friendly sites with added information and activities.

My 7th grader needs something with a little more "meat" in it. So as a jumping off point for her we are going to start with History Odyssey. The wonderful thing about this is that it uses great works of literature to reveal history . I think we will use the Kingfisher Encyclopedia of World History as well to give her some broad details. It covers the same material as SOTW so all my children will be studying the middle ages but at different levels which is helpful for me.

We will also be using a lot of the free online books that I blogged about in my last post ...and some lapbooks and notebooks that I'll blog about next time.