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Which approach for studying ancients?


ChildofGrace
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Hi, all.

 

I am weighing my options regarding Ancient History next year, and am getting hung up on one issue: should we approach the study strictly chronologically, or should we do a chronological by culture study (iow, first study the most ancient civilizations, then egypt, then Israel/Assyria/Babylon...you get the idea)? I have covered this topic 3 times now, and in the course of doing so, have used both approaches. IMO, both methods have their own advantages, and I'm just finding it ridiculously difficult to decide between them this time.

 

Could you please share your thoughts with me? I'm hopeful someone will say something that will tilt the scales....

 

TIA!

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Hi, all.

 

I am weighing my options regarding Ancient History next year, and am getting hung up on one issue: should we approach the study strictly chronologically, or should we do a chronological by culture study (iow, first study the most ancient civilizations, then egypt, then Israel/Assyria/Babylon...you get the idea)? I have covered this topic 3 times now, and in the course of doing so, have used both approaches. IMO, both methods have their own advantages, and I'm just finding it ridiculously difficult to decide between them this time.

 

Could you please share your thoughts with me? I'm hopeful someone will say something that will tilt the scales....

 

TIA!

 

I wonder about this too! :lurk5:

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I find following "strictly" chronological, you tend to be flying all over the place a little too much.

 

I think trying to "group" together areas as much as possible (like Story of the world does) still allows to follow a "rough" choronological guideline, but without "flitting" too much. I think this is the best possibility for the younger years (K-8th) and doing more strictly chronological (9th-12th) allows for them to have the "head" to be able to "flit" that much ;)

 

If you go to Satori Smiles website, what Angela does is good. She uses SOTW, but then also uses wall timelines, this allows the child to see "oh that happened before that" so even though it may skip back a little when hopping to another area, they are aware they read the story about "mr. such and such" and now know that "King such and such" did blah-blah blah before Mr Such. lol over that sentence.

 

All my opinion anyway. :tongue_smilie:

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I find following "strictly" chronological, you tend to be flying all over the place a little too much.

 

I think trying to "group" together areas as much as possible (like Story of the world does) still allows to follow a "rough" choronological guideline, but without "flitting" too much. I think this is the best possibility for the younger years (K-8th) and doing more strictly chronological (9th-12th) allows for them to have the "head" to be able to "flit" that much ;)

 

If you go to Satori Smiles website, what Angela does is good. She uses SOTW, but then also uses wall timelines, this allows the child to see "oh that happened before that" so even though it may skip back a little when hopping to another area, they are aware they read the story about "mr. such and such" and now know that "King such and such" did blah-blah blah before Mr Such. lol over that sentence.

 

All my opinion anyway. :tongue_smilie:

 

LOL to "mr. such and such"...

 

Thanks so much for sharing that! I really agree with your assessment regarding "flitting"--and that is part of my difficulty as we do still combine to some extent. (Although the olders will obviously have extensive independent work to do.) And even if we didn't, I'm not sure my brain could handle one set of students studying in one order while the others followed another.

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I was just struggling over this yesterday!

 

I'm using RHO, but I don't like how it has Ancient China way after all these other places even though the dates start way back. I think what I'm going to do is have an extra lesson right before Egypt where I will take a look at what is going on around the world about that time. Then I will use their regular progression. I plan to keep a timeline going as well, so hopefully that will help.

 

I like being able to focus on one location at a time, I just don't want the kids to get the wrong idea about when different civilizations were going on. It is tough to juggle!

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