'Story of the World' review

The 'Story of the World,' by Susan Wise Bauer is a popular history program written to be used with grades one to four, or for older children to read independently. The text is available in hard cover or as an audio book read by Jim Weiss. It is currently also available in Korean, both Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and Turkish, with further translations in progress. The accompanying activity guide is available as a paperback or download from Peace Hill Press. The activity guide includes suggested reading, colouring pages, map work, narration prompts, craft ideas and other such activities. Don't miss the chicken mummy! All the cool mums and dads let their kids make chicken mummies!



Volume 1: The Ancient World

Rosie's review

I'm using the text and parts of the activity book with my grade one daughter. A typical chapter will see us attempt narration, do the map work, colouring page, watch vaguely relevant Horrible Histories clips (insert link for earlier blog post) and often some supplemental reading. I have bought a few decks of Oracle cards to use as props when learning about the gods. They are convenient and it helps keep them all straight if I can point to a picture when I'm reading a wonderful tale with an inconveniently long cast list! As this is a world history program, I also inserted a chapter of our Australian history book on the pre-colonial period into the SOTW chapter on early nomads. 

I don't like the chapters on the early Jews as they present Bible stories as history instead of literature, so I skip them. I also find it strange that there are three chapters on the Jews and none at all on the Hittites whose empire lasted a thousand years, so I searched Amazon for some supplemental material to include them, but didn't find much. I must also confess that Daughter remembers very little of the actual history content, but hey, we have to talk about something and she enjoys it. The chicken mummy was a hit, and one day she absolutely insisted we stop school so she could ring Nanna and tell her about Persephone. For a language delayed seven year old, I consider this a perfectly good use of our time and we plan to continue with the series. 

http://investigatingthelandscape.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/horrible-histories-by-sotw-chapter-v1.html

Jack's review: 

Story of the World 1 started our journey of exploring history. We used the activity guide alongside the main text. This mainly helped me get used to the process of doing narrations. The kids enjoyed the coloring pages and map work. I have bought the activity guide again for subsequent levels, though the reading suggestions aren't helpful at all here because our local library doesn't carry any of these things and I can't even begin to attempt to buy all those books. We follow chapters up by watching stuff on YouTube and picking anything related up from the library.

While I noticed a definite Christian bias, I can't say that's surprising. The author is pretty open about her religious views in the Well-Trained Mind, after all. She did an excellent job including bits and pieces from all over the world, something that is lacking in some history programs. 

My oldest "remembers" most of  what she learned about ancient history through Story of the World. That's in inverted commas because the book is still on her bookshelf and I regularly catch her reading it. Stories from that book still pop up in daily conversation regularly.



Volume 2: The Middle Ages

To be continued next year…


Volume 3: Early Modern

To be continued the year after...


Volume 4: Modern Period 

To be continued the year after that if the sky does not fall and the world does not end...


Series Review

Hannah's review:

We do "History Club" with four other families who meet once a week. Each mom takes a turn to host the group and to prepare the activities for the chapter of the week. The afternoon starts off with a recap of the story and an explanation of how the activity fits into this. The kids benefit from each mom having a different approach and talents and knowing that the other families are depending on a well prepared activity keeps everyone accountable! We are doing history club for the 2nd cycle with my younger daughter and over the years with older and younger we have covered the spectrum of crafts, sewing, drama and games initiated by our sporty mom.

Before the history club afternoon we start by reading (or listening to the audio of) the relevant chapter from SOTW. This is mostly for my benefit as my 10 year old daughter enjoys the audio cd's and she has listened to each of the chapters more than once. The audio for each chapter is typically between 5 and 15 minutes long. She might do a colouring page while listening if the picture appeals to her.

The next day we do the review questions and narrations. Again this takes only a few minutes. We also take out any additional books we have and we google away. Our history club keeps us moving along through the chapters, but one could stop and do an in-depth study of just about any of the topics. There is an incredible amount of materials available online developed by other homeschoolers and loads to google on each topic. SOTW has lead to some great rabbit trails and more in-depth study for us. Both daughter's have developed a keen interest in Greek mythology and my ten year old has a neat party trick of naming and describing the Greek gods which impresses most adults!
We spend a fair amount of time in the car and mostly have a history audiobook going. I gave up on matching the audiobooks to SOTW topics, but it does tie up to the general time period. 

For your listening pleasure:
Ancient History Audio: http://www.pinterest.com/hannahwsa/ancient-history-audio/
Middle Ages Audio: http://www.pinterest.com/hannahwsa/middle-ages-audio/

While I had fun making and putting up a timeline and playing with memory cards (available together with a random bunch of other stuff in the file section in this yahoo group here:  https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Hannah_hs_helps I’m not sure how much my daughters or their friends in history club really benefitted. They do remember a surprising amount of the names and details of the stories, but this is due more to repetion than the visual aids. They still don’t have a very good idea of the chronology and even though they did memorise some of the timeline, this has been forgotten. But I figure that they at least have the mental hooks for future studies.

My older dd completed and enjoyed the first three books of Story of the World and a few selected chapters of book 4 before she decided that she did not want to learn about 'all those wars', so we moved on.

Give Away Winners!

It turns out I have two copies of the book so the two winners are:

Anonymous- who wanted to win for Master 6

and

April- who wanted to win for her 9 year old


Do please email us your postal addresses at investigatethelandscape@gmail.com

Give Away!

The weather has been lovely in my part of the world and I am *desperate* to get out into the garden and plant something! I know, however, that if I plant anything before November, the frost will kill it so I am keeping strong and limiting myself to weeding. Weeding is not as spirit lifting as planting, is it?

So this week I offer this little book I acquired in a Book Depository mix up:

(I will post anywhere in the world, and it will arrive providing the Post Office fairies are attentive to their duties. The winner will be announced next Sunday.)

To enter, tell us who would you like to win this for! (And do make sure we will have some way of contacting you.)

P.S. If you try and post a comment, the page might reload with a captcha, do scroll down and make sure you fill it in if it has or the comment won't post. If you don't like to parley with captchas, you may comment on the Facebook post instead:https://www.facebook.com/pages/Investigate-the-Landscape/1476070145956803?ref_type=bookmark

Religious Calendar Curriculum - May

1st

-Beltane in northern hemisphere (Neo-Pagan)
*The story the Wiccans tell for this shabbat is as follows: The God and Goddess have matured, becoming young adults. They have fallen in love and unite, and the Lady becomes pregnant. The Earth is full of growing things and abundance. 
*Read the relevant section of "Rupert's Tales."

It is Samhain in the southern hemisphere and I will be cooking my usual Samhain dinner and burning the memorial candles I've made this week.

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3rd

- Jewish Shabbat (begins at sunset the night before)

*Observed by all observant Jews, this is a day of rest to commemorate all the work God put into making the universe. How much resting and avoidance of work depends on the family culture. Yesterday, of course, lots of work went into preparation because no one can take a full day off running a house unless they have already done the needed work. Otherwise, what would everyone eat?

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4th 

Sunday Church services- Holy Days of Obligation for Catholics, encouraged for nearly all other Christians

*Read a picture book, colour a colouring page from The Mass Colouring Book http://www.amazon.com/Coloring-Book-about-Catholic-Publishing/dp/0899426832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386972341&sr=8-1&keywords=about+the+mass+colouring+book or something printed out from one of the Catholic sites online.

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10th

- Jewish Shabbat (begins at sunset the night before)

*Observed by all observant Jews, this is a day of rest to commemorate all the work God put into making the universe. How much resting and avoidance of work depends on the family culture. Yesterday, of course, lots of work went into preparation because no one can take a full day off running a house unless they have already done the needed work. Otherwise, what would everyone eat?

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11th 
Sunday Church services- Holy Days of Obligation for Catholics, encouraged for nearly all other Christians

*Read a picture book, colour a colouring page from The Mass Colouring Book http://www.amazon.com/Coloring-Book-about-Catholic-Publishing/dp/0899426832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386972341&sr=8-1&keywords=about+the+mass+colouring+book or something printed out from one of the Catholic sites online.

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14th

-Full Moon (Neo-Pagan)

*Some Pagans, particularly Wiccans, observe the full moon as a special time.

*Read 'Aiden's First Full Moon Circle' by W. Lyon Martin

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17th

- Jewish Shabbat (begins at sunset the night before)

*Observed by all observant Jews, this is a day of rest to commemorate all the work God put into making the universe. How much resting and avoidance of work depends on the family culture. Yesterday, of course, lots of work went into preparation because no one can take a full day off running a house unless they have already done the needed work. Otherwise, what would everyone eat?

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18th

Lag Ba Omer (Jewish)

*Colour the relevant page in the Jewish Holiday colouring book. I'd like to know if there are any resources I should know about since Amazon let me down here.

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- Sunday Church services- Holy Days of Obligation for Catholics, encouraged for nearly all other Christians

*Read a picture book, colour a colouring page from The Mass Colouring Book http://www.amazon.com/Coloring-Book-about-Catholic-Publishing/dp/0899426832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386972341&sr=8-1&keywords=about+the+mass+colouring+book or something printed out from one of the Catholic sites online.

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24th

- Jewish Shabbat (begins at sunset the night before)

*Observed by all observant Jews, this is a day of rest to commemorate all the work God put into making the universe. How much resting and avoidance of work depends on the family culture. Yesterday, of course, lots of work went into preparation because no one can take a full day off running a house unless they have already done the needed work. Otherwise, what would everyone eat?

~~~~~~~~~~

25th

- Sunday Church services- Holy Days of Obligation for Catholics, encouraged for nearly all other Christians

*Read a picture book, colour a colouring page from The Mass Colouring Book http://www.amazon.com/Coloring-Book-about-Catholic-Publishing/dp/0899426832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386972341&sr=8-1&keywords=about+the+mass+colouring+book or something printed out from one of the Catholic sites online.

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29th

*The Ascension of the Lord- this is a Holy Day of Obligation for Roman Catholics and is observed by the Eastern Orthodox as well. It should be the Thursday 40 Days after Easter Sunday, but is moved to the next Sunday in some areas.
*Read 'The Ascension of Our Lord' by Sister Elayne

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31st

- Jewish Shabbat (begins at sunset the night before)

*Observed by all observant Jews, this is a day of rest to commemorate all the work God put into making the universe. How much resting and avoidance of work depends on the family culture. Yesterday, of course, lots of work went into preparation because no one can take a full day off running a house unless they have already done the needed work. Otherwise, what would everyone eat?

____________________

Rose-Marie was one of those enthusiastic planners who began researching when she was pregnant with her first. She wanted to homeschool because it sounded like an affordable adventure, then she met her kids personally...

Her young daughter has Echolalia and some processing issues so isn't speaking fluently yet; but she is making good progress as they work and play in Central Victoria, Australia.

My Feet, They Stand on Gadigal Land - Learning About Country

(That picture there, by the way, is the logo for the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.)

It’s the custom, since I’ve had children, that at any event we attend, we’re reminded that the land we stand on is indigenous land. In the slightly patronising way of the coloniser, I’ve approved. Explained it to the kids. There’s even been a slight bowing of the head, as if I’m a respectful non-believer in a church.

The last time it happened was at my daughter’s school. And this time I got it.

My education was better than in generations past. I knew this land was inhabited before our arrival. And yet, ‘Aborigines,’ as we were taught to call them, were presented to us as creatures from the past, even as we read or studied their lives in our present. It’s taken an education more than three decades later, the one I provide to my ten year old son, to teach me and make me see.

Fifth grade means Australian history – it’s a subject that has to be done. Most of us sigh over it, knowing that it starts with Captain Cook, ends somewhere around the invention of the stump plough and bores us stupid in between.

In the bookshop, just before term began, I saw a glossy hardback. Australians All, it said along the spine. I had that book on the counter with my debit card out before you could say ‘I think this book just made my curriculum planning easier.’

Written by the well known Australian children’s author, Nadia Wheatley, this history begins with the Law of the Land.

In the beginning was the Law. And the Law held the balance in the land. Through the forming of rocks and the soil, through the making of mountains and the river, the Law held. Millennia came and went. The continent changed its shape. But the Law ruled.

(The Law encompasses a complex set of interactions between indigenous people and the environment, aimed at keeping social and natural environments in balance. )

Wheatley then takes the child-reader back 40 000 years, telling us the story of a family living at Lake Mungo. She weaves a lively narrative, through the end of the last Ice Age, across centuries and across the land, and everywhere she takes us, children are living, dreaming, playing.

By the time she turns her attention to the Industrial Revolution, in far away England, Wheatley has left our imagination peopled with others we can see in our mind’s eye. As a child grows up as if in Dickens, breathing fibre dust from the great cloth factories, we know that across the oceans lies a child like her, in an unlike world, one where the Law still holds life in balance. When the white devils arrive on their ghostly ships, we hold our breath. No longer are we remote from this story. This beach, on which the white men land, is the same beach that holds the footprints of the indigenous child, alive to us, beckoning. And because she is alive to us then, she is alive to us now. Her hopes, her thoughts, the family with which she lives, her community, the technology she uses, her way of life…part of us now.

Wheatley’s empathetic, accurate, informative but above all imaginative narration builds the bridge my ignorance could not.

The next time I hear the acknowledgment of country, I’m in a school hall. It’s matter of fact. There is no poetry. And yet, this time, I feel it in my body. What country means is gratitude. This stolen land is being gifted to me over and over again by those from whom it was stolen. Underneath the soles of my shoes, the floor, the foundations, the gravel and the sand is the land. If I could touch it now I would.

　

This land and its Law, it holds all of us. My feet, they stand on Gadigal land.

~

Australians All can be found at your local bookstore, or, failing that, on Amazon.

Another imaginative and narrative national history I highly recommend for those looking to study British history is by the incomparable Noel Streatfield, yes, she of Ballet Shoes fame. It’s called The Fearless Treasure, and although sadly OOP, can be found on AbeBooks.

What books have helped you or your children feel truly connected to the time or place  being studied ?

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Melissa is a part-time uni student and mother of three, living in Sydney, Australia. She has home educated various combinations of her children since 2003.

June 2013- Deep Winter

(First published at Sandbox to Socrates http://sandboxtosocrates.wordpress.com)

Our old mate the swamp wallaby features again…

Daughter kept mixing up moss and lichen, so we went a-wandering to try and fix that, and to see if it all looked healthier than last time we looked. It certainly did. Yay for rain!

This picture really doesn't do the experience justice. Imagine standing on a hill just before dawn and seeing shooting stars, that fade as the sun rises and brightens the sky…

Look, it was worth going outside in the freezing cold to see feathery patterns on the windshield. I don't know if Daughter was really impressed, but I convinced her to draw it in her journal, and she is pleased with the journal entry, lol.

Remember that brightly coloured waterfall? This time it is blue. :)

Out of everything we saw on our trip up to Terrick Terrick National park and the Hattah Lakes, all she wanted to draw was the pelican we saw for all of two seconds as we drove past at 80km per hour. Personally, I was hoping she'd be impressed about the moss growing at Hattah Lakes. Who knew moss would even grow on sand? Maybe everybody, but I didn't!

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Rose-Marie was one of those enthusiastic planners who began researching when she was pregnant with her first. She wanted to homeschool because it sounded like an affordable adventure, then she met her kids personally...

Her young daughter has Echolalia and some processing issues so isn't speaking fluently yet; but she is making good progress as they work and play in Central Victoria, Australia.