I need help prioritizing when teaching Ancients

[Danestress]

It seems like every year, teaching what I consider my core subjects (Latin, Math, Grammar, Violin, writing) takes more time and it's harder to really dig deep into history. My children will be in 5th grade next year and will start back with the Ancients, and I am trying to be realistic about what we can and should accomplish. I also want to be realistic about what I spend, because the boys need new violins, the lessons are expensive, and just buying math, Latin and writing curricula is expensive.

 

I want my children to have a basic literacy about the Greek and Roman worlds. I want to read good historical fiction about the periods. I'm not sure I want to spend much time on Egypt, to be honest. What is the point of memorizing the names of all these Pharoahs? Or maybe there is a point. I guess I am perplexed.

 

I was thinking about using Famous Men of Greece and Famous Men of Rome next year, but gosh - they seem so oriented towards memorizing names and dates and who said what. Has anyone loved using those resources? Can you recommend anything you really have loved using, that have excited your children?

[Wendy in ME]

We are doing Ancients this year for 4th and 5th. If I could do it over again I would read Greek Mythology, FMOG, and FMOR. We are reading all of these this year but not doing all the memorization. We are keeping a timeline and doing some map work. I have lots of other things such as HO and SOTW AG but I have realized that I don't want history to run our lives. We have really scaled down. To finish out the year with Roman history we will be simply reading FMOR and Augustus Caesar's World along with some historical fiction mostly from the TOG curriculum. (We are TOG dropouts but I do like many of the books so we kept them to read and the boys have enjoyed them.) The boys are actually enjoying the Famous Men books and the love the mythology. We are reading the Children's Homer aloud and they also love that. This year has taught me that less is more. Our primary focus is Latin, math, writing, and literature. For us history and science is fun and interesting and I do believe that a basic understanding is important but they certainly don't have to come out of 5th grade with a complete understanding of ancient history. I also will probably skip most of Egypt when I go through ancients again with the younge boys. I spend a lot of extra money this year for nothing.

[Alphabetika]

I'm in ancient history right now, with a 9yo dd who is studying history "formally" for the first time. We're in Greece right now and we're loving all the resources for studying Homer at a younger level - the Children's Homer and the Rosemary Sutcliff/Alan Lee versions of The Iliad and the Odyssey are fabulous. D'Aulaire's Greek Myths is also excellent. For Roman history, definitely read Detectives in Togas. We are using some of the studies in the Veritas Press NT/Greece/Rome teacher's guide, but I'm not really using a spine for my younger dd. My older dd (13) is reading the Guerber Story of the Greeks as a spine, but I don't know that a 5th grader would enjoy this.

 

I'm sure you'll get lots of great suggestions!

[cajun.classical]

We are doing Ancients this year for 4th and 5th. If I could do it over again I would read Greek Mythology, FMOG, and FMOR. We are reading all of these this year but not doing all the memorization. We are keeping a timeline and doing some map work. I have lots of other things such as HO and SOTW AG but I have realized that I don't want history to run our lives. We have really scaled down.

 

I agree with Wendy. When I do Ancients again with my younger, I'll use the Famous Men series, D'aulaire's Myths and the CHildren's Homer. Don't worry about all the memorizing. Introduce them to the key people of the time period. That's much more likely to stick and to foster a love of history. I also make use of a great deal of free reading for history. I really like the Truthquest booklists for this. Since I've made history less teacher intensive (which was difficult because I love history!) my children are learning more and enjoying it more. Spend your teacher time on the more foundational subjects. Let them read for history.

[Kathy in MD]

Egyptian, Greek and Roman (when we get there) cultures as they come up in Kingfisher. This way my ds gets the background for the other cultures that influenced and fought with the cultures we're focusing on, but we still spend over a month on each the "biggies".

 

With the Kingfisher, I use Susan Strauss Art's (edited)books to focus on each major culture and supplement her books with a lot form the library. Strauss's books are designed for unit studies, and each chapter has questions, ideas to ponder and short projects. She does cover some of the famous individuals, but she also delves into the society, religion and other cultural parts of the societies.

 

I wouldn't leave the Egyptians out of your studies. There's a lot more to them than just memorizing the pharoahs. Or even learning how mummies are made. The Greeks admired them and adopted some things. It's fascinating to compare Egyptian religion and myths to that of the Greeks and try to come up with why they are so different. And the Egyptians did affect the ancient Hebrews, who laid the ground work for Christianity which in turn heavily influenced Weatern civilization.

[Mama Lynx]

All we did was READ FMOG and FMOR. I did not require memorization, or dates, or anything.

 

We used those, plus retelling of the Iliad and Odyssey mentioned, "In Search of Homeland" (retelling of the Aeneid), D'Aulaire's Greek Myths ... we did read some Egyptian mythology, but no, there's really no reason to spend much time on the Egyptians (unless you are doing it along with an OT study).

 

Just read, and let them read, and have fun :)

[Donna T.]

We just started The Mystery of History Vol. 1. I love it. My kids are really enjoying it. I read the lesson to them, we go ahead and make a memory card for that lesson, and we do the mapping and timeline activities as they are assigned. This was supposed to be for next year (fourth and first graders), but we decided to do a couple of sample lessons and we are all hooked. I needed something simple to implement that would keep me moving forward. I didn't want to get stuck on any one topic for very long. I add in resources from Sonlight Core 1 (this will mainly be for my youngest) and some from Sonlight Core 6 (for my oldest). One thing I like about pulling from SL is that most of the books are mass-produced, so it isn't hard to find them at my local library or a local book-store.

 

There are lots of ways to go about it. I needed something to structure a chronological study of history that included Biblical history and World history. And, it had to be simple and fun for the children.

[Danestress]

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[Laura Corin]

We are more-or-less skipping Egypt next time through. We will be using an easy-to-read spine (Gombrich or Van Loon) to cover Egypt and some other civilisations that we care less about, then diving more deeply into Greece and Rome using the Suzanne Strauss Art books.

 

Best wishes

 

Laura