We are seriously considering the Biblioplan Year 2 "new edition" for my highschool level son. He is younger, 14. Pro's, Con's, Mehh's?

In my planning I stumbled across this history portal site, which looks to be quite a find; I thought I'd toss it out and tag it so y'all can find it when you are planning, too! Best of History Websites. "Best of History Web Sites has been recommended by The Chronicle of Higher Education, The National Council for the Social Studies, The New York Public Library, the BBC, Princeton University, -- and many others."

We're wrapping up doing ancient Rome and moving on to the Middle Ages. What were your very favorite resources for this era. We have a lot of books from our last cycle through history, but I'm sure that I've forgotten many of the books we used or what was a great book, but not useful for my kids at the time. And of course there are all the new books that would have come out in the last several years that I've missed because I wasn't thinking about the middle ages. So help me brainstorm what was a great hit at your house. WTM board tried and tested. I'm particularly noticing that there doesn't seem to be a history pockets for this era. Any suggestion for some hands on action?

It is time for my annual angst-ridden contemplation of organizing our history studies. This year the challenge is the medieval/Renaissance/Reformation time period. If one is following a strict chronological order and chooses a source like SOTW or the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia to organize your topics, then your schedule looks something like this: Week 1: Rome's Fall, Celts, Barbarians, and Beowulf Week 2: Christianity in Britain, The Byzantine Empire Week 3: The Medieval Indian Empire Week 4: The Rise of Islam, Islam Becomes an Empire Week 5: Great Dynasties of China, East of China Week 6: First People of Australia/New Zealand What I don't like about this arrangement is you sometimes need to cover dissimilar topics in one week in order to fit it all in. Changing topics weekly makes it difficult to cover people and places in depth, read a hefty literary work, or tackle a bigger hands-on project. History Odyssey tends to follow a chronological/geographical arrangement. For example, with SOTW you cover the Byzantine Empire early on while with HO, it comes almost halfway through the year because you are covering all of Europe in the Middle Ages before moving on to Asia. This arrangement allows for more depth but occasionally we'll be talking about an invading force that has not yet been covered since we haven't done that area geographically. Does that make sense? So what do you do or have done and why? Does your spine dictate the order or do you tweak? Pitfalls I should avoid?

I will be homeschooling again this fall after a 5 yr absence. I have a 7th grade DS, 4th grade DS and 2nd grade DS. I've already started the Ancients with them but just found out that there's a co-op starting in my support group this fall that will be studying the medieval period. I'm considering moving VERY quickly through the Ancients (just presenting an overview, really) so we can join the co-op in the fall. Would the benefits of group study, interaction, crafts, etc. outweigh not studying the Ancients in greater detail?:glare:

Anyone ever combine these, or is anyone else planning to? They have different focuses and seem like they could make a good combo...? Well, I've got them both now, gosh darn it, so I've got to combine them somehow! :tongue_smilie: Any words of wisdom? PS. If you did the Duke study, did you have your kid annotate as they read? They talk a lot about that in the intro, and I'm thinking maybe I should buy each kid a copy of the book rather than taking it out of the library or even having them share?

Does anyone else "add back in" the Inquisition to SOTW 2? I've read the brief note as to why it isn't included in the book, but I disagree and felt that it was better to include at least a basic mention. I'm not making it a focus or anything, lol, but I took a small essay I found online on the history and printed that out for ds 10 to read over. I mean, I feel like we've covered similarly disturbing material throughout our history studies, as long as we don't harp on the violence, and it is mentioned in some of our supplementary readings... Am I the only one? Kate

I have been struggling to come up with a plan for my 10th gr dd for history to cover the middle ages. She doesn't really like textbooks and prefers real books. We've used Omnibus I and really enjoyed it, but this yr I wanted to pick and choose our own books. My brother, a history buff, has helped me pick some books. Here's my plan. Literature (overlaps history): Beowulf The Once and Future King Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Utopia~Thomas More Macbeth A Midsummer's Night Dream History: Guns, Germs and Steel DVD The Ecclesiastical History of the English People~selections or entirity? Research Charlemagne 1066 the year of the Conquest Power of a Woman, Memoirs of a Turbulent Life: Eleanor of Aquitaine The Lion in the Winter DVD 1215 The Year of the Magna Carta A Distant Mirror The Calamitous 14th Century The Travels of Marco Polo (excerpts) The Children of Henry the VIII Excerpts from The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England The Lives of the Artists (Oxford World's Classics) Selections Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love Out of the Flames: The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World I need to add more for the Renaissance era. I think I'm missing something on world religions. Any suggestions or maybe select chapters from Spielvogel. Am I missing big chunks of history here or details? I find none of us really remember any details from texts anyway. Would I be doing her a disservice by doing this instead of texts?