When You Cover a Historical Period Again, How Do You Keep It Fresh?

[Sebastian (a lady)]

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)?

[ThatCyndiGirl]

Two words for you: TIME MACHINE

 

:tongue_smilie:

[Jean in Newcastle]

Using Beautiful Feet Guides this time around has helped me. A couple of the books are repeats but most are not. They have suggestions of websites, videos/DVDs as well as print materials. Our second time around has been more in depth so in some ways it has narrowed it's focus so that we can delve deeper.

[Veritaserum]

We'll be covering Ancients our second time this fall and I plan to freshen it up with new books and activities/projects. I'll also have a logic stage 5th-grader, so she'll be doing some new things with that (outlining, more writing projects, etc.).

[Sebastian (a lady)]

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)?

 

One of the things that I'm struggling with is that I have two logic stage kids, who are working a lot on writing. They were already reading at a pretty high level when they did Ancients for grammar. But I also have a 2nd grader who is just at the point where he is fluently reading 2nd grade readers (Frog & Toad, Henry & Mudge etc). So what I do with him has to rely much more on read alouds, even of the harder picture books (Good Times Travel, Eyewitness). So part of the fatigue may be that I'm not really just moving along in stages, but rather straddling two levels.

 

I did discover that I had the Ancient Greece History Pockets. I'd sort of forgotten about that. I think that Grammar Guy will enjoy this.

[Jamee]

Can you have the older ones "teach" the younger? That's worked for us, especially with reading. The history pockets are great!

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Can you have the older ones "teach" the younger? That's worked for us, especially with reading. The history pockets are great!

 

You know, they love being bossy, so maybe I should have them give some briefings on the specialty topics they are researching and writing about.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I do dd8's read-alouds for history at our breakfast and lunch table. Ds of course listens. But then he reads his own history and does his own work later during the school day.

[Beth in TN]

When we took are 2nd swing through the Ancients I allowed my dd to explore deeper into topics that she was interested in (fashion, family life, food, architecture to name a few) and skimmed over some others. But I made sure to emphasis topics that I thought would be important foundation builders for the next era in history.

[Jamee]

You know, they love being bossy, so maybe I should have them give some briefings on the specialty topics they are researching and writing about.

 

You could even have them act out scenes.:D

[Peela]

SO...is it you who are a little jaded with going over it a 2nd time, or the kids...or both? Is it relaly a problem for the kids? I did find there was an issue with the kids needing to do more writing, and it not being so much fun. I quickly dropped outlining KHE for that reason- that was going to kill love of history around here.

 

I scoured Ambleside and TWTM for books that I felt were the right level for where my kids were at now.

 

The other thing that helped was our terrible memories!

 

 

I always tweak and make up my own programs from various places, so I pulled together a different program. First time it was mostly SOTW. 2nd time it was K12's History Odyssey and a whole lot of great novels, and Ambleside.

[Rosie_0801]

Can you revisit the old activity guide but do the projects for real this time? A real mosaic made of tiles instead of playing with paper. Go and look at linen and wool samples instead of making a toga out of a sheet.

 

I dunno, sleep deprivation is catching up with me so I'm probably waffling...

 

Rosie

[Sebastian (a lady)]

SO...is it you who are a little jaded with going over it a 2nd time, or the kids...or both? Is it relaly a problem for the kids? I did find there was an issue with the kids needing to do more writing, and it not being so much fun. I quickly dropped outlining KHE for that reason- that was going to kill love of history around here.

 

I scoured Ambleside and TWTM for books that I felt were the right level for where my kids were at now.

 

The other thing that helped was our terrible memories!

 

 

I always tweak and make up my own programs from various places, so I pulled together a different program. First time it was mostly SOTW. 2nd time it was K12's History Odyssey and a whole lot of great novels, and Ambleside.

 

Absolutely the issue is with me. For several of the books, this will be my third or 4th time reading them.

 

And there is a ton of tangental issues. I'm doing far more solo parenting because of dh's schedule. The kids are busier, so I'm struggling to fit everything in, the house is smaller. And the years that we did ancients before, we lived in Europe. We were able to visit Athens and Rome and Pompeii and even tons of small sites around France and Germany that had Roman histories (like the Varusschlacht). There were tons of museums with Greek and Roman and Egyptian stuff.

 

Now we're in Japan and while that was great for studying the Eastern Hemisphere last year, it makes it a darn sight more work to do Greece and Rome.

 

Maybe what I need to do is get a bunch of our old photos printed and do some scrapbook pages to remember all the great stuff.