Story of the World: Ancient Times

Books & Curriculum
Written By Cassie Shepherd

The Story of the World curriculum has been around for a long time now. There are four storybook volumes to this series and it looks like the very first publication was in 2001. So, even though there are updated and revised editions, to be honest, I had kind of written this curriculum off as too old. But, after I posted on Instagram that we needed to make a history curriculum switch for this year - a lot of people recommended this. Shortly after, I asked my neighbor for her thoughts on a simple history curriculum and she said they’d done Volume I of SOTW last year and really enjoyed it. She let me borrow the curriculum and flip through it and I quickly realized why it is still so popular. It’s simple, easy to read, and also appeals to adults.

To back up a little, we started a study of The Old Testament in January and will move into the New Testament January 2023. After flipping through Volume I for SOTW I felt like it coordinated so well with our studies at a bit broader view. There is a Biblical undertone to the SOTW books, but so far, it’s been really general. And it gives us a general sense of some of the things that were going on in the world before Christ up through His birth and death and the years following. So, if you’re following the same scripture study schedule as we are, you’ll probably enjoy Volume I as well.

Volume I: Ancient Times: Nomads to Last Roman Emperor

Volume II: The Middle Ages: Fall of Rome to Rise of Renaissance

Volume III: Early Modern History: From Elizabeth the I to the Forty-Niners

Volume IV: The Modern Age: From Victoria’s Empire to the End of the USSR

My main concern was committing to a 4 year curriculum, but I decided we’re just going to do volume I this year and see how it goes. We’ll re-evaluate where we’re all at next Spring if we’ll continue on into Volume II or go another route.

A lot of people asked about what age this is good to start. I know some people have started this curriculum with early elementary children and of course this is dependent on your family, your interests, and every child. But if your oldest is still in their early elementary years, I personally would wait until upper elementary to begin these books - probably 4th grade or older. Early elementary years are good to introduce communities, states, and historical figures because these things aren’t quiet so abstract for little minds. If you are using this with younger kids I would add for sure try to add in some picture books and stories and hands-on activities.

Along these lines, another question I’ve been asked a lot is how this compares to Beautiful Feet Books. Last year, and I never blogged about this, but it’s on my IG - we studied Early American History using Beautiful Feet Books and the American Girl History Units from Little School of Smiths (I wrote a guest blog post on the AG units if you’d like to read more about those here.) In short, we loved both of these units! We were reading a lot of books though so this year I wanted something much more simpler and then we could add more if we wanted. One con of the BFB is that some of the books are very long and drawn out. My girls definitely got bored with some of the stories and in comparison to the AG books - they much preferred the AG stories. BUT with picture books, it was very easy to summarize by just showing the pictures when they’d start to loose interest. It’s harder to do that with SOTW so that’s one of the reasons why I think SOTW is better for older children. The BFB books are so aesthetically pleasing and I LOVE that whereas SOTW is just super simple text - but again the chapters are really short and easy to understand and comprehend so it’s been a good transition for them. I feel like, at age 9, the girls are really grasping what is going on and we’ve opened up a lot of good discussions. One last pro of SOTW is that it’s much cheaper and mentally simpler because you’re just using one book and parent guide. But, overall, I would say the curriculums are all good, just slightly different so it just depends what you’re looking for.

Materials Needed

  • The Story of The World Book: This comes in a book, PDF and audio versions. It reads like a story. We’re using the book and at some point maybe I’ll buy the audio, but I haven’t yet. If you’re looking to get started ASAP and want quick shipping, the book is also available on Amazon.

  • The Story of the World Activity Guide: In my opinion, this is a must-have. I’d recommend getting the PDF version so you can print the coordinating maps and coloring pages (which we use for note booking). The activity book I am using is bound without any of the activity pages and then I just print off the student pages that we use as needed.

    To give you an example of how we use the book and the activity guide - we first read a chapter out of the book. The chapters are super short and divided into sections which makes it easy and not very overwhelming. Then you turn to the coordinating chapter in the activity guide and there are encyclopedia cross-references, review questions, narration exercises, additional reading suggestions, map work, activity coloring pages and a few hands-on activity suggestions. You definitely do not need to do all of these things, but there is a plethora to choose from and customize to fit your teaching style and home.

    Every chapter we always use the encyclopedia and review questions. Asking questions after a text is read or listened to is very effective at helping retain the information and crucial for comprehension development. You certainly don’t need the activity guide to do this - you could come up with your own questions - but it just makes it really easy for you. I have the activity guide right next to us as we read the book and ask the review questions at the section breaks.

    I don’t see us doing very many of the hands-on activities because too many hands-on projects tend to burn me out so I’m trying to keep it simple and not take on too much this year. But, I am imagine we will do a few along the way. We are taking more of a note booking route which I’ll explain more about below.

  • Encyclopedia for Cross References: There are four encyclopedias you can choose from that coordinate with the SOTW book. I think off of these are mostly secular books - there are a few pages that will reference Biblical events but they seem to be non-denominational at least in the book we’re using. I’ll share a few of my thoughts on each and why we chose the one we did.

    • Usbourne Book of World History (2009): After a flip through of this on YouTube it felt a little older and full of mostly illustrations. I am sure it’s good, but it just didn’t catch my eye.

    • Usbourne Internet Linked Encyclopedia (2013): This is the one we went with and seems to be the most popular in YouTube reviews. The pro here is that the pages still coordinate exactly with the activity guide so there is no flipping around. One con to this is that, most of the book is illustrated. I wish there were more actual pictures. For example, when showing King Tutankhamun’s funeral mask or the pyramids of Giza - why not just use real pictures instead of illustrations? Because of this we will probably add a Kingfisher version eventually or maybe just continue to use on-line pictures.

    • Kingfisher Illustrated History of the World (1993): This was running $80+ on Amazon so it must be out of print. If you go this route, make sure to get a used one for under $10. I’m sure there is a flip-through out there somewhere, but after a quick search, I couldn’t find one so I wrote this one off especially since it was from 1993.

    • Kingfisher History Encyclopedia: To date, there are six editions of this encyclopedia available. Actually, the sixth is set to release in about a week from when I’m writing this. After a few YouTube videos it seems like most people have used the 3rd edition (2012) so I suspect the activity guide and page numbers coordinates with that edition, but I didn’t do enough research to know for sure. I liked this and will probably grab the sixth edition - I’m hoping it’ll go on the buy 3 for 2 sale. I found it interesting, the TOC for the Millennium years seems to highlight some current controversial topics though so I suspect there is will be some obvious bias to this book.

Optional Extras

  • History Timeline Notebook: If you haven’t already started a history timeline notebook or book of centuries, we’ve really liked this one. We’ve used it for over a year and get a lot of use out of it.

  • Living Book Press SOTW Timelines: Someone went ahead and did all the hard work for us and made coordinating timeline dates/pictures. This is a PDF download. I bought the whole 4 year package, but you can buy them individually.

  • Library Books: Keep in mind there are lists of recommended picture and chapter books in every chapter section to dive deeper. In my experience with most curriculums, this one included, is that my library rarely has the books on the lists. When we want to supplement with more books - I’ll get on our library database and just reserve a bunch of themed books. I try to get a good mixture of picture and story books and some non-fictions. Once I have them, I pick out a few I know I want to read with the kids and the others I’ll set out in our unit themed basket or display on our learning shelf and let the kid’s explore them at their leisure. While it’s optional to add extra books, this can also be a good way to bring in additional opinions or thoughts or perspectives.

  • Videos: Already, we’ve watched some National Geographic shows on Ancient Egypt and I hope to add in more of these shows as we naturally work through the curriculum. It isn’t uncommon for us to also browse through YouTube and see what other educational videos may be available.

  • Hands-on projects. Like I mentioned the book has a ton of suggestions. Occasionally we’ll probably add in something, like for our study in Ancient Egypt I bought this fun dig kit. The kids LOVED it and it was so much easier than prepping or planning something else.

  • History Notebooking: This is an integrated approach to comprehension that includes a little bit of art, handwriting, copywork, and narration. And, in SOTW curriculum, geography and map work are included. Simultaneously, it’s a nice keepsake for our kids to look back and remember what they’ve learned. Now that we have a bit of a record, my kids love to look back and reflect on their work. But I would say you really need to use your best judgment here because I think the approach you take depends very much on your child - you can either encourage them to just record what stands out to them and not worry about presenting it nicely. Or, turn it into a project that reflects their best work and what they’ve learned. We took the later route because my twins are very detailed oriented and enjoy doing work like this. This route takes longer but it isn’t unusual for them to want to spend the time doing this. When we first started notebooking, sometimes, especially when they drew something, it would take them two days to finish their work and that’s fine. When we’re working in our notebooks, we often do a little work, set it aside, and then I’ll leave it out with the materials and let them come finish it at their leisure. If you need more help and guidance with notebooking I would recommend purchasing Jodi Mockabee’s notebooking guide.

    We won’t be notebooking every chapter from SOTW, but we’ll do so when they enjoy learning more about a certain time period and whatever stands out as something we want to spend extra time doing. The activity guide has pictures and maps we’ll use (definitely not ALL of them because there are a ton!) and we’ll also print pictures off-line and use art tutorials to help the kids learn to draw what we’re learning about.

Final Thoughts

I started to write a few thoughts on history bias’ because this is becoming a more frequent conversation in my DM’s…but this is going to have to be a post for another day as I quickly realized I have a lot to say on this topic. But, in short, I think it is really important to remember that no matter which history curriculum you choose, there will always be some kind of bias and some inaccuracies. But, we can strive to keep an open mind and make the history books and curriculums work for us. It’s okay to not have it all figured out. It’s okay to be reading something and stop and question it’s validity. This is how we learn and we need our children to see us think through these processes. Nit picking little details doesn’t really benefit anyone though. And most importantly, it’s okay that we change our mind as we gain new information. It’s okay if you simplify something for your children. Of course seek to use primary sources, but at young ages they don’t need to know every. single. detail right now. Maybe in ten years from now they’ll learn something new, explore primary and secondary resources and then decide they believe something different on the subject. History is extremely abstract and multi-layered. Sandwiched in between those layers are a lot of uncomfortable facts and controversy. I’m uncomfortable with a lot of things in history - it doesn’t matter the subject - I can find something somewhere that doesn’t sit right with me…US history, world history, Christian and church history. Just think of the controversies we’ve seen around the events of the last two years. What in the world with the history books say 100 years from now about today? There is just no way we have the whole story…even living through it!

So, what do we do? We do our best with what we have. We keep an open mind and ask questions. We understand we’re building foundations and we don’t need to have it all figured out. We help our children see that we will revisit so many events in history and each time we can add more depth and width to what we know, and what our children are learning. Maybe we’ll all get to the other side and realize we were completely wrong! Would we be humble enough to admit it? Meanwhile, we do our best to question and think critically and help our children learn to do the same. We try to view things from multiple perspectives and sources. A source I trust, may not be one you trust. And, that’s okay. But, most importantly, we can be having open and respectful conversations. Doing these things ultimately teaches our children kindness and compassion and tolerance towards others and differing opinions and beliefs and, for us, I’d rather my kids learn those things than be so hyper-focused on trying to know it all or always being right…

When discussing these things with my husband I posed the question if it even mattered we discussed some of these ancient stories of history? Would our kids remember? We concluded, probably not. But, getting a general sense of the ups and downs, back and forths, patterns of history, names and dates and peoples and places is important and these kind of curriculums begin to introduce those topics and that in itself we find value. Already, we’re finding parallels in history that we can liken to current world politics and make it more relatable.

Anyway, as usual, for those who follow me on IG, I’ll try to share some of the extras we use as we work through this curriculum. We’ve already enjoyed it so much and I think we’re going to continue to have a good year using it! Right now we’re using the curriculum every day because we swap back and forth between full science and history units for weeks at a time. We’ve been pretty heavy on science so we’ll, for sure, be spending a few more weeks on history and I am just kind of playing it by ear as we continue to figure out how we like to best use the curriculum. I don’t want to feel too rushed working through it so we’ll see how these next few weeks go…any questions? Let me know!

Cassie Shepherd
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