Has anyone used the Oxford World in Ancient Times series as their spine?

[MamaReads]

And if you did do have a schedule you would like to share?  Or maybe a rough outline of how your history studies looked on a weekly basis. 

 

I am thinking we will start off with Human origins and pick & choose our way through it and then do most of Near East, Egypt, Greece, and Rome with the study guides and get the highlights from the readings only for the rest of the series.  I also will have the primary source book for us to utilize as we work through the series.  

 

I want to add in historical fiction, nonfiction, classics, and videos along the way.  Not everything every week, just a good mix.  I am also planning on having my dd keep a timeline and do some map work but I am unsure of how that will look.  

 

So, if your history looked like this I would love to hear more about how your year went.  Or if you are planning a similar year I would love to pick your brain or take a peek at your schedule.  

 

FWIW, here is a link to the spreadsheet I've put together of many resources that I may or may not use:

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Au2PuKnD3lBHdFBPNkpLMlk5cm1HY0VIZXJHUU52RVE&usp=sharing

 

 

[foxbridgeacademy]

I tried that years ago, it didn't work very well. The books are much to long and full of info that while interesting isn't necessary to the understanding of history. We use K12 Human Odyssey as a nice (and too short overview) then I fill in with either CTT or WIAT/Modern Times.

 

Hopefully you can do better then me.

[Dina in Oklahoma]

I tried that years ago, it didn't work very well. The books are much to long and full of info that while interesting isn't necessary to the understanding of history. We use K12 Human Odyssey as a nice (and too short overview) then I fill in with either CTT or WIAT/Modern Times.

 

Hopefully you can do better then me.

:iagree: Much better as a supplement.

[Penelope]

I think they would be okay to use as spines if the dc is seventh or eighth grade, maybe even sixth. I am using the Oxford series for middleages for sixth this year and it's going well. In fifth I think that using all the ancients books may have been too much for ds, though we did use most of a couple of them and others as a supplement. The K12 book is definitely easier reading and less dense, and provides more of a narrative flow IMO.

[Alte Veste Academy]

What age are you planning for? Because I agree with Penelope that the books are a better fit for older kids. Full disclosure though, I used them with my oldest starting in 3rd grade because this kid has always craved detail, which the OUP volumes have in spades. I was surprised at how well my younger two liked them as well, and basically I use them for all three now. But I wouldn't force the issue of using them on anyone younger than about 5th-6th grade.

 

This is probably not the answer you want, but here's how I use(d) them without going insane:

 

Honestly, years ago, it used to make me CRAZY irate when people on here would say don't try to integrate/correlate this, that, and the other so much and spoke so matter-of-factly about how it would make you crazy. Not ME, I thought. Whatever. :glare:

 

Well, yeah, it made me crazy, and wasn't worth it. And, FURTHERMORE (LOL!) I realize that my attempts to line everything up so precisely actually wildly underestimated the intelligence and capabilities of these highly intelligent and capable kids I was taking such pains to plan for in the first place. You don't need to lay everything out on a silver platter. Things don't have to directly match up. Their little neurons will fire, just like nature intended, and they will make connections for themselves. And because they made the connections themselves, they will actually remember the material better than when you serve it to them 1, 2, 3 and A-Z.

 

So, here's what I did. We started with a unit on prehistory, so I read The Early Human World to my kids first. Youngest DS hung for a good bit of it but wandered away whenever he wanted to, my DD (middle child) listened to most of it with interest, and oldest DS was rapt. Then I started reading SOTW1 aloud to all my kids as their spine. This was not enough for my detail craving oldest DS, but it was good and interesting for him and all of us. Then, as each civilization from the OUP books popped up in our SOTW reading, I started reading those books aloud. I was reading aloud daily but, generally speaking, Monday was for a chapter of SOTW followed by some OUP, and Tues-Fri was for more OUP. That is how pacing worked better for us to cover ancients in a year. Many times we would be reading about several different cultures in SOTW at the same time we were still reading a single volume of OUP. On paper, this idea pained me. (For years. Seriously, I have issues. :lol:) But everything those know-it-alls (<--tee-hee) had said here over the years was true. :closedeyes: :blushing: :p My kids started connecting the dots like crazy. They connected, compared, and contrasted people, cultures, myths, beliefs... And they are so proud when they make these connections. You can see it in their eyes, when the light bulb comes on and they say, "Hey, that's just like ______!"

 

The kids keep history notebooks that serve as timelines. So basically they are creating--through their own knowledge building--the same sort of alignment I used to take such pains to work out in spreadsheet form. Humbling.

 

Also, especially if you are working with different ages/grades, book baskets are a wonderful thing. I always have anything from picture books to multilevel historical fiction to single-subject, upper-level non-fiction on hand. I pick the absolute cream of the crop and/or what is the best match to my kids' interests to read or assign and leave the rest up to fate and whims. :tongue_smilie: All supplements are not created equal.

 

ETA: And I answered this way, about SOTW with OUP because your spreadsheet had SOTW/OUP/HO(and HO!). I only used SOTW with OUP because I was working with different ages. Otherwise I would have used only SOTW (in the early grades) and only OUP (in the middle grades). I also have the Human Odyssey books, and I think they are good. My oldest just likes more detail, as I said. I truly believe trying to use everything you have in that spreadsheet would be crazy-making. We are now in our 3rd year of using the OUP books (using The Medieval and Early Modern World books with SOTW3), still loving them.

[arborite]

Agree with the previous poster. My 7th-grader loved the OUP Roman World, which I picked up after we had already read Famous Men of Rome and SOTW. He, at least, enjoyed first hearing the individual stories contained in FMoR and SOTW and THEN having a larger context to put them into (Oxford). He kept a timeline. We used a ton of living books. Because we are oppositional types, we started with Rome, then moved to Greece and finally did Egypt. We spent most of the time on Rome - he was completely hooked.

 

Our book list is below. Read before you assign - I am pretty liberal in what I am let him read (e.g., lots of swearing in the Eagle series).

 

Main Texts :

1.     The Ancient Roman World, Oxford University Press

2.     The Ancient Greek World, Oxford University Press

3.     The Ancient Egyptian World, Oxford University Press

4.     Famous Men of Rome, John Haaren

5.     Famous Men of Greece, John Haaren

6.     The Story of the World: Ancient Times, Susan Wise Bauer

 

Additional Readings in Ancient History:

1.     A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome, Alberto Angela 

2.     Ancient Roman War and Weapons, Brian Williams

3.     City, David Macaulay

4.     Historical Tales, Charles Morris (excerpts)

5.     Horrible Histories, Terry Deary (11 books)

Savage Stone Age, Awesome Egyptians, Groovy Greeks, Rotten Romans, Cut-Throat Celts, Smashing Saxons, Vicious Vikings, Stormin' Normans, Angry Aztecs, Incredible Incas, Measly Middle Ages.

6.     Julius Caesar: Dictator for Life, Denise Rinaldo

7.     Legionary: The Roman Soldier's Unofficial Manual, Philip Matyszak

8.     Life of a Roman Soldier, Don Nardo

9.     Plutarch's Lives, Retold by W. H. Weston  (excerpts)

10.  Pompeii , Peter Connolly

11.  Roman Britain, Guy de la Bedoyere (excerpts)

12.  Roman Life in the Days of Cicero, Alfred Church (excerpts)

13.  Roman London, Jenny Hall & Ralph Merrifield (excerpts)

14.  Roman Map Workbook, Elizabeth Heimbach  (excerpts)

15.  Roman Provence, Edward Mullins  (excerpts)

16.  Story of Rome, Mary Macgregor  (excerpts)

17.  Story of the Roman People, Eva March Tappan  (excerpts)

18.  The Roman Soldier's Handbook, Lesley Sims

19.  Usborne Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece, Lesley Miles

20.  You Wouldn't Want to Be a Roman Soldier, David Stewart

21.  You Wouldn't Want to Live in Pompeii, John Malay

 

Historical Fiction & Mythology: Greece

1.     Black Sails before Troy, Rosemary Sutcliff

2.     D’Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths, Ingrid and Edgar d'Aulaire

3.     The Golden Fleece, Pardraic Colum

4.     The Wanderings of Odysseus, Rosemary Sutcliff

 

Historical Fiction: Rome

1.     The Eagle Series, Simon Scarrow (11 books)

Under the Eagle, The Eagle's Conquest, When the Eagle Hunts, The Eagle and the Wolves, The Eagle’s Prey, The Eagle's Prophecy, Eagle in the Sand, Centurion, Gladiator, The Legion, Praetorian.

2.     The Lock, by Bernita Kane Jaro

3.     Roman Mysteries, Caroline Lawrence (17 books)

The Thieves of Ostia, The Secrets of Vesuvius, The Pirates of Pompeii, The Assassins of Rome, The Dolphins of Laurentum, The Twelve Tasks of Flavia Gemina, The Enemies of Jupiter, The Gladiators from Capua, The Colossus of Rhodes, The Fugitive from Corinth, The Sirens of Surrentum, The Charioteer of Delphi, The Slave-girl from Jerusalem, The Beggar of Volubilis, The Scribes from Alexandria, The Prophet from Ephesus, The Man from Pomegranate Street

[My3girls]

We are doing basically what Alte Veste has outlined. My d11 is reading OUP Ancients while I read SoTW to my youngers. Then I am throwing in as many living books on the side as they can handle. Dd11 has a book of centuries and the youngers have outlines.