SOTW:Ancient Times Highlights
This year we have been studying Ancient History! Last Fall I wrote a blog post on what we were going to use for our studies - which you can read here: Story of The World: Ancient Times. We have LOVED it and I am excited to say we are going to be moving onto Volume 2 next year and studying The Middle Ages.
If you’re looking how to get started with SOTW - I’d recommend first browsing over my last post and then come back to here because I am going to share what we actually ended up doing and what I will be changing for next year’s routine.
What I Changed
As you read through the SOTW books, for the most part, history moves chronologically and since you can only tell one area or country’s history at a time - the book kind of jumps back and forth between what was going on in different areas at different times in our ancient world.
We have the activity book (which also doubles as parent guide) - and I’d recommend having this on hand. If you like to do both science and history each week, then following the parent guide and studying it chapter by chapter may work well for you. In the past - I usually hop back and forth between history and science units. So we do only history anywhere from 3-6 weeks and then science for 3-6 weeks and we’re touching on it every day versus every couple days. When we first started SOTW - I was reading it every day - but since the activity guide is laid out with so many book suggestions and activities to go along side the chapter - it was moving a little too fast for us. So, I decided to do mini-unit studies each month on each country’s ancient history and use SOTW more as a read aloud along the way. This worked so well. We spent about about a month in Africa/Egypt (we also talked a lot about the Mesopotamia during this time), China, Greece & Rome. What we were reading about in SOTW didn’t always 100% match up exactly to our unit study, but it was pretty close because the book pops back and forth between these main regions every few chapters.
Each chapter has two bolded subsections. In the beginning, I used the guide and stopped after each subsection to ask my girls the review questions. The girls also did some oral narrations and a few notebooking pages per country which included some map work. I typed a few of the girl’s narrations and I love that we have those. But, right around Christmas, we started getting burnt out between notebooking for history and all we were doing for language arts. A few weeks ago I shared our experience on my 4th Grade Year Review. As I was doing more research on history and collecting my thoughts for next year - it hit me - no wonder we were burnt out! It’s like we were almost doing double language arts because we were reading, notebooking, narrating, handwriting, typing, and doing copywork and geography and even art for history too. It was just way too much to be doing next to TGTB LA 4 which also included a lot of that! I wish I realized this sooner, but it is what it is and now I know better going into next year.
The activity book also has lots of suggestions for hands-on projects, but since we took more of a unit study approach - I just did my own thing. People ask all the time how I have the time and capacity to plan all of the things we do and at this point, I don’t. Sometimes I have some ideas circulating in my head, but I just try to notice what my kids are interested in and create an experience around that. For example, when we were studying Egypt, it was no surprise they took a big interest in the Pyramids of Giza - so we found some Art Kids Hub tutorials and did a dig kit! It was so fun! When we were studying Rome, one of my daughters took a particular interest in mosaics. I happened to have a Rome arts and crafts book from the library and as she was flipping through it she noticed there were mosaics and asked if we could create one. I didn’t love the tutorial in the art book so I pulled up a simpler one from Pinterest we could make out of paper pieces and a stepping stone mosaic kit on Amazon. These are projects I knew I had the capacity and time to help her with. So, I showed both to my daughter and she chose to do the stepping stone kit. At this point, it’s usually a very organic experience for us.
Highlights
Below I’ll list a few of the highlights we did for each county (and in the order we studied them). In between hands-on projects, we were doing lots of reading and watching YouTube videos and documentaries. Many times we would find a video or book based on something that sparked our interest in SOTW. I tried to link some of the ones I remembered as being pretty good.
Extras:
Library Books: If you have elementary kids - my first recommendation is to fill your home with lots of picture books on these time periods so your kids have visuals. There are so many fun stories that take place during these times! You can use the parent guide for recommendations, but I just search our library data base and see what we can find.
Why Read Pagan Myths: If there is one thing you do for yourself to prepare for this unit, please take the time to listen to this podcast. Ancient history is FULL of mythology and pagan stories. I can totally see how this might uncomfortable for some, but I don’t see how you can study ancient times without touching on these tales because they’re so much apart of the historical records we do have. I personally think they’re fascinating and after listening to this podcast - I view them completely different. Now, I’m always looking for the “Christ” story.
History Timeline Book & Living Book Timeline Pictures: We used both of these through out our whole year and I’d definitely recommend doing this. I love having a record of what we’ve studied and filling up our book. We just do one family book and it’s so fun to see our ancient times so full!
History Gal’s Ancient History Maps: SOTW activity pages have maps and coloring pages we used in the beginning - but once I found History Gal’s I switched and exclusively used hers. I’m undecided if we’ll do map work again next year or not. If we do, I’ll most likely use History Gals.
If you happen to be in Utah, Roots of Knowledge is a must-do and be sure to grab The Piece That is You to go along with it. I have a story highlight saved with more details on this. So perfect for any study of world history, but also just a magnificent masterpiece. And if you ever travel through Utah - make this a priority even if you aren’t studying world history right now!
Africa/Egypt:
Boy At The Pyramids: LOVED this read aloud. Get the audio book. It’s fantastic.
Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Play: We saw a seasonal production in Utah.
Egypt Culture Case: Available only in Utah, but if you’re here - these are so fun to explore!
Favorite Children’s Books: Egyptian Cinderella, Skippyjon Jones in Mummy Trouble, We’re Sailing Down the Nile, How the Sphinx Got to the Museum
I’m making a separate bullet point here for West Africa (which came a little later in SOTW) because I also wanted to include the Anasasi story here. We read this during Christmas and I wish we were able to spend a little longer diving into West Africa, but because to the holidays I totally let it slip by. We will have to touch on this next time around!
The Old Testament: Last year we followed our church’s schedule and read through The Old Testament. We were nearing the end of our study when we started SOTW so SOTW was a great review of Abraham and Moses. Had we not just come off a deeper study of that time period already - I would’ve added in more hands-on experiences here. So, just something to keep in mind. Also, it worked out so well because we were also able to visit a traveling exhibit of James Tissot’s Biblical art. It was perfect for SOTW and our OT study.
China
History Unboxed: I purposely planned to do this right before Christmas because it is always a really busy time. I am so glad we could just keep this simple and explore the box! The kids favorite part was painting the big kite butterfly and learning about the Great Wall of China. I also love that this kit included a little science experiment!
Greece
Atlantis: The Legend of a Lost City: Atlantis is always a fun topic to explore. We spent a few days researching random things about Atlantis and made lots of guesses to where we think it might’ve been, ha! But, the kids were fascinated by this and this was a good book to go along with it.
Greek Mythology/Harry Potter: After reading in the Classic Starts version of Greek Myths, we took a totally unexpected turn into weeks of reading more and more Greek mythology because the twins picked up (before I even did) that some of the themes and names in Harry Potter were based off of Greek Myths. I shared a little bit more about that in this post: Heart Education. One day the girls decided to make bunch of the greek god’s out of perler beads which was fun.
We also really liked this DK version of Greek Mythology and the Classic Starts version of The Iliad.
I also brought in the Trojan horse here. I think I pulled from History Gal resources and some library books for this, but I can’t quite remember. I wanted to read The Odyssey Classic Starts, but we didn’t get to it.
Disney version of Hercules
Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief: The girls read up through the 4th book. This is a borderline series for me so it may not be the best for every family…and I wouldn’t recommend any of Riordan’s other series.
Echo, Echo: LOVED this reverso poetry book!
Space: Right in between our Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome studies we did a very hands-on science study on the universe. I wrote about everything we did here. If you can plan to study space around the time you’re reading mythology - it’s perfect. My older girls especially took a high interest in the planets, as well as the constellations and their relation to the mythical gods.
Rome/Roman Empire
Roman Numerals: This was a fun book to along with this.
Greek/Rome Culture Case Available only in Utah - but loved this. We spent the most time exploring and reading the materials from this.
Pompeii: Last January we just did a classic volcano experiment for a mini Geology unit we did. So, I didn’t want to do another one when we learned about Pompeii, but that would be so fun to do at this time. We watched a few mediocre YouTube videos on this, but none I’d necessarily recommend.
Jesus Christ: On a final note, I wanted to make a separate bullet point here and explain that when we got to Christ’s life we didn’t do anything extra necessarily because of SOTW. The chapters on Christ organically fell on Holy Week so we were already doing our Holy Week Study and so it tied in really well. We’re also reading The New Testament all the way through right now. So, if you aren’t doing that - you may want to spend a little extra time here.
And, that’s it! Because history is so abstract, I liked studying this approach because it introduced the kids to some of the names, places, and events in history that are more recognizable and good to have a general knowledge of. I am sure we will be circling back to these time periods again and again and we’ll be able to build upon the foundation we laid this year.
Volume 2: The Middle Ages
The more and more I start to think about the next school year - I can’t wait! There are SO many fun things to study in this time period!
Next year, I will have my twins (10) and boys (6 & 4) and we are for sure embracing the one room school house! We’re not quite out of the toddler years, but my 4 year old wants to do everything my older kids are doing now which is so nice. So, I’m making lots of time for us to be learning together. The last few months I’ve been experimenting with more and more family style schooling and feel really good about the direction we’re headed. Our Solar System Study was a good example of our first big family style unit with all 4 kids. Right now we’re working on finishing up our Cinderella unit which has also gone really well and I’ll be posting more about that soon.
Next fall when we return to more formal studies, we will be using SOTW as part of my twin’s language arts studies. Instead of having even more books we’re reading for our literature/LA units - SOTW and the additional readings we add will be their main literature studies. This is something the activity guide in SOTW actually recommends doing so that’s one way we will better use our time next year. I’ll be adding some other very simple things for LA, but I’ll talk more about that in a few weeks.
My plan is to read 1-2 chapters a week in SOTW with my older girls as part as our morning time reading. I don’t know if my boys will stick around, but I don’t think it’ll take us longer than about 10-15 minutes so if they run off to play, no biggie. I’m also going to have lots of other picture books around the home for my younger boys like we did this year.
Next year we are not going to be switching back and forth between history/science like I have these last few years. Since we’re using SOTW as part of our LA - I want this to be something we’re more consistent with. Again, I’ll share more about all this in a few weeks. Once I decided we’d be reading form SOTW more often, I went back and forth on whether or not we’d stick to the activity guide in SOTW and do activities that related to every chapter or do unit studies - similar to what we did this year. I think either way is a great option, but I just love unit studies so I am pretty sure we’ll do that walking into next year.
But, instead of spending about a month in each country, I decided to break it up into shorter studies of people and events - mostly just for something a little different. Ultimately, I think this will serve my younger boys better and since the twins will be narrating the more advanced book and doing some additional notebooking, I think it’s going to be a good balance for us.
What I’ve done is just made a list of unit theme topics and I think we will spend 1-2 weeks in each place. A big thanks to those who helped me compile this list via IG! In case anyone else is looking for a collective list, here ya go: Celts, Beowulf, Monks and Monestaries, Justinian and Constantinople, Islam & Muhammad, Chinese Dynasties, Vikings & Norse Mythology, Kings & Queens, Castles, Knights & Samurai, The Crusades, Robin Hood & Magna Carta, The Scattering, Explorers & Newfoundland, Joan of Arc, The Mayans, Martin Luther & The Reformation, Inventions, and Shakespeare.
Even though these studies may not fall in line with an exact chronological study, it won’t be a big deal for my boys and my girls will have SOTW to help tie everything together. I am just going to let things flow naturally. As it gets closer, I may take some of these people or stories (like Norse Mythology & Shakespeare) and find books that we will spread out through out the year and use as part of our morning time. I’ll keep you guys posted as things evolve!