A couple of years ago after a quick run through of British history we started looking at world history.
Many home educators use The Story of the World as a basis for world history, so we began by investigating this.
Story of the World
See on Amazon
The first story grabbed my then eight year old daughters attention, but we soon discovered that these books didn’t work for us. We found the layout and writing pretty boring. Past the first story the tales lacked characters and everything lacked enough variation to make things interesting. The Activity book didn’t really work for us either, as we’ve found conversation and story telling to be more useful. The slight Christian bias also didn’t suit us.
I was however quite taken with the idea of the four year cycle of ancient, medieval, early modern, and modern.
Well-Trained Mind, The Story of the World
Our approach
Rather than use The Story of the World I decided on a research it ourselves and collaborate with friends approach. Here is a bit about what has worked for us.
Monthly time period
I assigned a time period to each month (around eight per year) focusing on ancient history for the first year, then this last year we have moved on to medieval history.
1. Ancient History (Up to approx 400AD/CE)
- Prehistory
- Ancient Mesopotamia
- Ancient Egypt
- Ancient China
- Other ancient peoples
- Ancient Greece
- Ancient Rome
2. Medieval History (approx 400 to 1400AD/CE)
- Early Medieval Europe
- Vikings
- Islamic Empires
- Mongols
- Asia
- Africa
- Americas
- Medieval Europe
3. Early Modern
A bit about how our approach is developing this year…
- Renaissance Europe
- Islamic Empires
- Russia
- Africa
- Asia
- Australia
- pre-Contact Australia
- Americas
- England
- British Isles
4. Modern
The schedule can also be easily changed to include times and places of particular interest or significance to your family
Resources
Rather than use a bought curriculum we have researched ourselves.
We have used lots of different resources along the way. reference books, websites, historical fiction, children’s factual books, websites, TV documentaries, children’s TV, board games, music videos and more. Sometimes I read adult books and shared my findings with my daughter through conversation.
- World History reference books
- Factual books
- Historical fiction
- World History websites for adults and children
- TV documentaries
- Children’s TV shows
- TV drama
- Music videos
- History craft books
- Board and card games
Over time I will blog about resources we found and used along the way.
Special Interests
Although this approach does require more research it has also enabled us to tailor history and has the advantage of allowing us to incorporate special interests. For us this meant focusing on mythology for some of the ancient time periods and then later on famous women in history. All sorts of interests can be incorporated in this way, from animals, transport to warfare depending on what excites the child. .
History Groups
We have really enjoyed tackling much our history as part of history groups. It helps us focus on the history and gives a deadline by which to produce something to share.
We are part of a Facebook group where home educators can share resources and ask for help and ideas. https://www.facebook.com/groups/historyhomeeducation/
This is a fabulous post and incredibly helpful -thank you. We are studying history in a very similar way and are just coming to the end of our Mesopotamian adventures ready to move into Ancient Egypt.
The link to the FB page is brilliant – thank you again.
I will be following your blog with interest as I suspect that we have a similar approach to learning.
Thank you for linking up to the #homeedlinkup this week. I’m off to check if you left a quick intro comment (just so I have peoples names in one location!).
HAve a great week and I hope to see you next week:)
We’ve tended to use a similar approach to history although we are also using an on-line history programme at present. Re-enactments and historical trips have also been popular here. The children still talk about going to the 1066 re-enactment although it was 18 months ago.
Very interesting to see how you handle the teaching of History and thank you for listing your resources. I’m still finding my feet with this, but at the moment I’m trying to relate the teaching of history to our local area. We have just been celebrating the Battle of Lewes, so I have done lots of medieval history with my son, alongside visiting local events, such as battle re-enactments.
Brilliant post!
It’s just as helpful to hear about books that didn’t work as those that did.
Very glad to have found your blog!