We're following a "classical approach" to literature and history, much like the WTM: ancient, then continuing chronologically from there. I was wondering if people had some good suggestions. I sometimes struggle to come up with good writing prompts and want to be sure I'm having reasonable expectations. We're in the middle of ancient literature and ancient history now, and I'm also thinking ahead to next year, though we have a ways to go. I'm mostly thinking of a weekly writing assignment to accompany a time period or piece of literature rather than a research paper. At least for us it seems better to stick to limited topics, such as a single or two works of literature, and avoid topics requiring internet research since that can be a huge time sink (although fine for a research paper). My goal is to practice writing while analyzing history or literature, and move beyond primarily writing assignments primarily for the sake of teaching writing. A lot of our literature is in the Norton Anthology of World Literature, and I do have the useful accompanying book Teaching With the Norton Anthology: World Literature; there are a few writing suggestions there, but I could use a lot more. I'd prefer not to buy a "course guide" for history or literature with worksheets or short exercises -- really just looking for writing prompts that won't end up being a research paper . Does this make sense? Suggestions for writing prompts? (One or many.) Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Tryig to decide what to use for Dd for ancients next year. Ds will use SOTW and we have the red Kingfisher, but I want something meatier for Dd. She is ready for outlining and more discussion, as WTM suggests. I am working on a good lit list to go with the spine. No lack there! If you have used these or decided between them, what did you like or not like? Why did they work or not for your student? Our library doesn't have either one, :( so I may end up buying HO and a couple of the OUP set to actually see them myself and let Dd help in the choosing.

I'm trying to round out my resources for history next year, and would really appreciate suggestions, comments, ideas. This will be for a sensitive 10 yo boy who reads well and doesn't particularly like history but does like science. He's more-or-less done a WTMish grammar history cycle, with spottiest coverage for ancients and medieval history, and reads well. My goals are to: * provide rich food for thought and ideas (sort of CM-ish that way), * give a coherent sense of the ancient world and how it followed from prehistory and set the stage for the history that follows * provide a strong grounding in Western Classical civilization, culture, and history * give practice reading I've got a lot of books from History Odyssey Level 2 Ancients and some others, divided into history, literature and other. It may be too much as is! He'll also be reading the books from Beautiful Feet's History of Science. ETA: I'm updating this list as I plan and adding links. Also adding a few China resources; we are settling on Chinese as our modern language choice and that's a great hook for the culture. PRIMARILY HISTORY: K12's Human Odyssey Van Loon's Story of Mankind Augustus Caesar's world (Foster) Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way (Hakim) Caesar's Gallic War (Coolidge) Eyewitness Books Ancient Rome Learning Through History booklet, Ancient Rome Macaulay's Pyramid Anubis Speaks! (Shecter) Builders of the Old World (Hartman) Memoria Press' Famous Men of Ancient Greece Fantastic Inventions and Inventors (True Stories from Ancient China series, Zhu) Ancient China (See Through History) PRIMARILY LITERATURE: Tales of Ancient Egypt (Lancelyn Green) Black Ships Before Troy (Sutcliff) The Wanderings of Odysseus (Sutcliff) The Children's HOmer (Colum) -- OR Iliad & Odyssey for Boys and Girls (Church) The Golden Goblet (McGraw) Greek Myths (Coolidge) -- we'll have done D'Aulaire's this year Tales of Theseus Theras and His Town (Shedeker) Aeneid for Boys and Girls (Church) Gilgamesh Trilogy (Zeman) (esp. read-aloud) Why Snails Have Shells: Minority and Han Folktales from China (Han & Han) (esp. read-aloud) The Chi-Lin Purse: A Collection of Ancient Chinese Stories (Fang) (esp. read-aloud) OTHER: Ralph Masiello's Ancient Egypt Drawing book Music of the Ancient Greeks (audio resource) Music of the Ancient Romans (audio resource) Ancient Egypt (audio resource) Classical Chinese Folk Music or Classical Folk Music from China (audio resource) Chinese Lullabies (audio resource) Moonbeams, Dumplings & Dragon Boats: A Treasury of Chinese Holiday Tales, Activities & Recipes (Simonds & Swartz)

The boy wants to do ancients again next year. This year we did the classic epics (Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, Beowulf) and the Classical myths. Next year he wants to focus more on history, so Herodotus it is. Ds wants to retread The Histories in the original Greek while in high school, so it isn't like he will never see these works again. He is just a bit hardcore about his Classics. Currently our ancients course looks like such: The Great Courses - The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World The Great Courses - History of the Ancient a World: A Global Perspective The Great Courses - Herodotus: The Father of History We will of course read The Histories over the course of the year. I was hoping to pull in news and scholarly reporting of the archeology which has happened crediting Herodotus' writings or disproving it. Ds loved researching and puzzling over the Homeric Question this year, so I thought this might be fun. Anyone else done fun or awesome things with Herodotus? Anything great I should know about? Anything rather questionable in The Histories which I might want to steer clear of, censor for the time being, or be prepared to explain?

I'm looking into OUP's World in Ancient Times series instead of K12's Human Odyssey. I found the old post where someone matched up HO and OUP, which was incredibly helpful! I also read where a couple of people didn't like the ancient Egypt book, which is good to know too b/c I have a book we can use instead. But what do people think about the Ancient South Asian book? Is it necessary? Is there a substitute that would work in its place? Thanks!

Ok, I keep trying to read this book and I'm finding it so boring! I wanted to love it, I really did. I've skipped around to different time periods, thinking maybe I just find Mesopotamian history boring. I thought Confucius was boring, Rome was boring. I'm a bit history nut...it's my favorite subject! So I don't know what gives. I think the book reads like a textbook and not much at all like Joy Hakim's U.S. history books. :sad: I guess I'm back on the hunt for a spine for 7th grade ancient history. Maybe the World in Ancient Times series?? SOTW is too easy for my 7th grader.

I'm sure this has been asked before, but has anyone made a study guide to go along with the History of the Ancient World by Susan Bauer? Or a list/database that lists corresponding chapters in Story of the World? I'm combining my high schooler in with Sonlight Core 6, and I am adding History of the Ancient World in for her. I'm hoping to save myself some work ;)

While searching around for discussion prompts, I came across this site: http://www.learner.org/courses/worldlit/gilgamesh/ Not sure if it's been shared before, but it's a great resource for viewing lectures, excerpts, discussion prompts, questions, and connections.

I know of SOTW, Mystery of History, Story of the Ancient World, BJU Heritage Studies 6. Any others?

I have searched this forum and have not found if anyone has gone through and created a bible reading plan to coincide with SWB's History of the Ancient World. If you have or know of a list, please let me know. I am going to be reading the ancient history text and would love to follow along with my bible reading. Thank you. Crystal M.

What do you consider essential Ancient Literature?

I'm doing some planning ahead for my preschoolers and although I like the idea of hitting the history cycle three times, I am wondering how the study of ancients goes with a first grader. Is it too remote? Over their heads? What are your actual goals the first time around? I really like the VP materials and SOTW. Talk to me.

I'm on the verge of purchasing this for my dd, but am hesitating because of the price, especially since we won't be reading everything it covers. I want it primarily for the Herodotus, Illiad, Oddessey, and Plutarch. Is it worth it? Can I get by with just the Teacher's Guide? Are there better alternatives? I did find an older thread discussing this, but wondered if anyone else had experience with it. Thanks!

To mostly wrap up our Roman studies, we're having a feast today. Sadly, no triclinium, but we do have a wonderful dinner laid out. Appetizers Bread with feta cheese Hard boiled eggs Olives Main Course Game hens with honeyed fruit sauce Salad with vinegar, oil and spice dressing Dessert Honey orange cake Prunes Dates About ten more minutes and our hens will be done roasting. I'm off to appetize.

I'm debating between SWB's History of the Ancient World, Spielvogel's Western Civilization, and the original WTM recommendation, A Short History of Western Civilization for Ancient History. I thought I had this figured out, but after getting the SWB from the library, I don't love it, and I'm looking for other options. Maybe I should just stick with it a while longer before deciding. We're 6 weeks in, the schedule is still not going smoothly, and yes, I have a tendancy to second-guess myself. I haven't seen the Spielvogel, but have seen it recommended in other places. Can anyone tell me how these compare in terms of readability, interest, length? Thanks!

We are on our 2nd swing through history now. This year we're covering the ancients. I find that it doesn't feel as fresh and exciting as it did the first time around. Maybe that in part is because we were visiting more museums and historic sites on our previous studies and this time we are focusing on books. Maybe it's just a sense that we've read this story already (my older kids were precocious readers so they have already read many of the books that I might hand them to liven up our studies). So a two part question: Part one: Are there some not to be missed books about Ancient Greece and Rome that I might be overlooking or might have forgotten about. I'd love to hear about some great new series that will be the next Eagle of the Ninth or Thieves of Ostia. I'd also love to be reminded to search my shelves for that treasure that I picked up last time but found too advanced and then forgot about. Part two: How do you keep the interest level high when there is a bit of a sense of having covered this topic before? Does it come from the ever deepening mental and emotional ability as you move from grammar to logic to rhetoric? Or do you find that you have to shift focus a little to keep it fresh (like spending more time on ancient warfare or daily life rather than mythology)?

History books that you loved and felt were appropriate for early elementary ages? Is there a list of resources online that recommends appropriate age level books for each of the ancient civilizations? Thanks for your time.

I understand that it's VERY well-done, but from the Table of Contents, it just looks like all Bible stories, except for about 7 or 9 chapters woven in of other history. What would be the advantage of using this over just reading the actual Biblical accounts? Or reading another "condensed" Bible account book like the DK Illustrated Family Bible, which is what I planned to use next yr with Ancients: http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Family-Bible-Claude-Bernard-Costecalde/dp/0789415038/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256957060&sr=8-1

For our first year of homeschooling (my rising 4th grader) we've decided to split ancient history into two parts, covering ancient Western history this year and ancient Eastern history last year, in order to go into both with greater depth. We've got Western well covered, but would love to hear suggestions for great Eastern-geared texts (histories, biographies, philosophy, myths, activity books, etc. ) for a strong reader.

I just received my Ancient History-Based Writing Lessons from IEW. I do not own the Teaching Writing - Structure and Style DVD set (I do have access through a friend so I hope to watch it at some point). It is purely because of finances. A couple questions. There are only 22 lessons. If you have used this before do you use other things with it or just spread it out over the year? Is it enough for one year? My other thought was....Could I just pick up the Student Writing Intensive set (probably B, based on my kids ages) and do that first then move right into this for the year? I really bought this for my ds (6th) and had planned to use WWE for my younger two (4th & 2nd) but starting to rethink some things. Thinking maybe I could use this for my two older ones and keep using WWE with my younger one. I am very "writing confused" can you tell?? I don't know what to use but WWE was not enough for my ds. He is really freaked out when it comes to writing and I need something "very practical" and effective with him. Doing copy work and/or dictation just doesn't seem to be doing anything. He still can't even write a paragraph on his own. I should note he is a very strong reader and his comprehension level is better than mine. His spelling is wonderful (if he has seen the word he can spell it). He is just very weak in writing skills. I have not pushed him (until last year). My other thought was... Using this and continuing to use WWE to help him learn to summarize the information. To do both I would skip some of the WWE week. I would have him listen, narrate back and write his narration down (as copy work). Then use the AHWL the rest of the week.

I'm going to have my high school boys go through Susan's new book this up coming year. I was wondering if anyone had put together a lesson plan for it, no sense in reinventing the wheel. :001_smile: *) ¸.· ´¸.·*´¨) ¸.·*¨) (¸.·´ (¸.·Bobbi Mom! To 3 boys --Sir Walter Scott “All Men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.â€

I am planning on using Oak Meadow 3 next year for my third grader, and I noticed from the samples on their web site that it includes some ancient history. My ds is in love with ancient history, so I was wondering if it would be too much to add in History Odyssey's Ancient Times, level 1? I was also thinking that HO's Middle Ages and Early Modern Times would fit in nicely with my plans for 4th and 5th grades, plus since the kids would be using them together, it would put my dd right on track with history studies (she'll be first grade in the fall). Also, anyone that has used Oak Meadow 3, how substantial was the science in it? I have science-loving kids, so I want to make sure it'll be enough. I tried asking this on the OM yahoo group but got nowhere. :( Thanks!

Does anyone have a line-up for VP Cards and SOTW 1? I'd really like any curriculum line-ups with VP cards. So, SOTW, MOH, TOG, etc. And while right now I need them for Ancient History, I'm happy to get any of them you have. Thanks! Carrie:001_smile:

Hi There :) I'm looking for everyone's favorite Ancient History Maps and also curriculum. (and if you know you can copy for your co-op's classroom, that's a bonus!) I'm also looking for suggestions on how you memorize areas so that your child doesn't get confused with the Modern Name for the spots you're studying. I also welcome suggestions for audio cds or dvds about the subjects. I have students from ages 4-12 so if you know what levels it covers, that's great, too. Thanks! Carrie

What are your must haves for 5th grade history - ancients. I"ve got a list of about 40 in my Amazon shopping cart, but I have to cut them way down. So tell me the ones you like/liked the best. TIA