How do you use the Oxford Ancient/Medieval history books?

[Chrysalis Academy]

I am thinking of using these books in 7th and 8th grades. Looking at them, though, the combined chapter count for the Ancient series is almost 200 chapters. I'm thinking that if we try to cover them all, we'll be rushing/skimming through them, and won't have time to go into any depth in areas I want to cover more deeply - Ancient Greece, for example. So I'm thinking of dropping the South Asia and China books altogether, and of going light over some of the others, and spending more time on some of the others.

 

I don't mean to say that understanding asian history is unimportant, but I guess I have two thougths - one is the breadth vs. depth issue, I know I can't cover it all deeply and rigourously, so I do not want to sacrifice depth of coverage of the foundations of western civilization. Also I kind of agree with Barzun's statement that understanding of history requires a contextual understanding of a culture which is really hard for cultures so very different, and that it's almost impossible for a young child to grasp these differences in a way that makes the study meaningful.

 

So, long way to ask the question - how have others handled these books? Have you done them all, or made selections? Do you do a certain number of chapters a week? Do you read aloud, or assign them to the student, or both? What kinds of assignments have you done with the books (i.e. oral discussion vs. written assignments vs. ?)

 

Thanks in advance!

Edited June 14, 2012 by rroberts707

[Dana]

I like the teachers guides for additional reading and website suggestions. The student study guides aren't very useful. You can take a look at some pages on amazon. They also break the chapters into seven units for each book.

[Amira]

We read all the books all the way through in about 2.5 school years. For me, Asian history (and I mean all of Asia) is really important. Since the second set covers quite a bit of time in the Early Modern period, I think it's reasonable to take more than two years to get through them.

 

The first year we did the entire ancient series by reading a chapter nearly every day. That was mainly all we did. I also made my own audiobooks of the set and my children have listened to all of them again. They also went through the Primary resource guide as we went along.

 

We were usually able to do a chapter a week for the rest of the time, or sometimes two chapters. We did a lot more discussing for those books, and my children outlined all the chapters.

 

Sometimes I would read the chapter aloud (usually to save time, since both boys were doing the same thing), and sometimes they read the chapters on their own.

[Heathermomster]

My plan is to use them next year as a secondary resource with History Odyssey Lev 2 Ancients. I came across this older thread to identify which chapter and book to use in the Oxford Press texts. k12 Vol 1 Human Odyssey and History Odyssey Lev 2 Ancients are strikingly similar, so I don't expect any problems.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Thanks for your responses. Anyone else?

 

:lurk5:

[dsmith]

I am planning on doing Famous Men of Greece/Famous Men of Rome starting in September, and I had the OUP Ancient Greece book on my shelf. I just ordered the teacher guide and student workbook from Amazon, and I will eventually buy the Ancient Rome set. Over the summer I am going to plan out everything somehow, along with Intellego unit studies for some added interest. I'm not sure how the Famous Men series will merge with OUP's series, but I think it will be more than enough for a full year. I will purchase the other titles in the Ancient set, but we will probably just read right through them over a few weeks without the workbooks or teacher guides.

[Lily_Grace]

We use them in conjunction with task cards, the Creek Edge Press ones. I'll often assign a chapter that corresponds as well as a chapter before or after so that there's an understanding of cause/effect in the current week's study.

[Arch at Home]

We spent a year on this series reading 2 - 3 chapters a week. I knew that we wouldn't get through the entire series so we started with the Pre-History book. After that I let my DD pick the areas she wanted to cover. We ended with the Americas which segues well into The Medieval and Early Modern World series. I had my DD read them to herself, outline, and then we discussed them. Each week I had her write a short paper, 3 - 5 paragraphs long, about a topic of her choice taken from the readings and researched on the Internet. About twice a book I had her do similar research but this time using library books.

 

This year we did The Medieval and Early Modern World Series. As I folded my other two into the mix so that now I had a 3rd, 5th, and 7th grader doing the program, I read the chapters aloud but had my oldest two do the same activities. For this series we will complete the series in about a year as the chapters are considerably longer.

 

HTH

 

Sarah

[Chrysalis Academy]

We spent a year on this series reading 2 - 3 chapters a week. I knew that we wouldn't get through the entire series so we started with the Pre-History book. After that I let my DD pick the areas she wanted to cover. We ended with the Americas which segues well into The Medieval and Early Modern World series. I had my DD read them to herself, outline, and then we discussed them. Each week I had her write a short paper, 3 - 5 paragraphs long, about a topic of her choice taken from the readings and researched on the Internet. About twice a book I had her do similar research but this time using library books.

 

This year we did The Medieval and Early Modern World Series. As I folded my other two into the mix so that now I had a 3rd, 5th, and 7th grader doing the program, I read the chapters aloud but had my oldest two do the same activities. For this series we will complete the series in about a year as the chapters are considerably longer.

 

HTH

 

Sarah

 

This is *very* helpful, thanks. So did you end up skipping some of the books in the Ancients series? I definitely do not want to diss Asian history, or imply that understanding it is unimportant - it's just that I am trying to avoid the temptation to try and cover everything with the result that I end up doing it all superficially. It's really a dilemna.

 

I've already thought that with the Medieval/Early modern series, I'd do the book over two years, with additional resources included (I'm thinking we'll do a year on late rennaissance/enlightenment history and philosophy in 9th grade, so do a 5-year sequence next time around). It sounds like I'm on the right track with that, given the greater length of the chapters in that series.