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Designing an Ancients Course using Great Courses...


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History had been a bust until about 6 weeks ago, when Bob Brier entered our life.   :)

 

We are ready to move on from Egypt and I am looking at all of the Great Courses offerings.

 

Can you share your favorite ancient courses that I should include for a 7th grader?

 

Things I am considering...

 

History of Ancient World:  Global Perspectives (she likes this)

Food:  A Cultural Culinary History 

The Other Side of History; Daily Life in the Ancient World ( a lot of money, but she may really like the subject)

Understanding Greek and Roman Technology (She wants to be an engineer)

Understanding the World's Greatest Structures

 

We have the High School World History dvd of the guy who dresses up - I am not sure if she will like that.  I didn't when my other sons went through it.  

 

I can pick or choose from some of these, as they are available on Amazon.

 

 

 

Edited by lisabees
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We HATED the high school history courses. I got them used, watched a few lectures and just could not get past the stupid fake accents he tries to do that all end up sounding alike by the time the lecture is over. The dressing up was campy, but wouldn't have been as bad without the horrible accents.  I passed them on to someone else. Ugh.

 

We really enjoyed History of Ancient World: Global Perspectives. We also liked Foundations of Western Civilization and Foundations of Eastern Civilization.

 

 

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We used a ton of Great Courses audio books last year. I didn't use the video for any of these; I got them all inexpensively through Audible.

 

Of those that you listed, we used a lot of lectures from these last year:

 

History of Ancient World:  Global Perspectives (she likes this)

Food:  A Cultural Culinary History 

The Other Side of History; Daily Life in the Ancient World ( a lot of money, but she may really like the subject)

 

We also used several lectures from:

Cultural Literacy for Religion

History of Science

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We HATED the high school history courses. I got them used, watched a few lectures and just could not get past the stupid fake accents he tries to do that all end up sounding alike by the time the lecture is over. The dressing up was campy, but wouldn't have been as bad without the horrible accents.  I passed them on to someone else. Ugh.

 

We really enjoyed History of Ancient World: Global Perspectives. We also liked Foundations of Western Civilization and Foundations of Eastern Civilization.

 

Ugh.  Those horrible accents.  What did they have to do with anything?  DD dislikes being patronized; I think she would definitely feel patronized by his shtick!

 

We enjoyed a course by Bob Brier, too.  The other one that we used was History of the Ancient World.  It was available at our library.  I heard a recommendation for The Other Side of History but the wait for that one was too long.

 

Thank you.  We just started History of the Ancient World.

 

We used a ton of Great Courses audio books last year. I didn't use the video for any of these; I got them all inexpensively through Audible.

 

Of those that you listed, we used a lot of lectures from these last year:

 

History of Ancient World:  Global Perspectives (she likes this)

Food:  A Cultural Culinary History 

The Other Side of History; Daily Life in the Ancient World ( a lot of money, but she may really like the subject)

 

We also used several lectures from:

Cultural Literacy for Religion

History of Science

 

Off to check out your bottom two suggestions.  Good idea about audible - I'll check the price. 

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Netflix currently has World's Greatest Structures. Way cheaper to sign up for thst for a month or two! It is pretty fantastic, but not really about Ancients. UnderstandIng Greek and Roman Technology is equally fabulous as the World's Greatest Structures. Both need to be visual though. Lots of visuals which essentially are a lot of the explanation. We tried Other Side of History, but it was a bust here. Robert Garland went onto the "do not listen to" list. Vikings was a bust here. As well.

 

 

Holy Land Revealed we used for Ancients and it was wonderful. Totally did not expect it, but a nifty look by a historical archeologist. Lots of maps and visuals. Really talks about what the historical record supports and where dramatization and artistic liscence might be entering the picture. Pulls from scripture, then discusses. It was a really neat style of traditional Great Books study.

 

We paired Great Courses with Crash Course World History. That was quite fun. Hope all goes well for you guys. Our library carries quite a few Great Courses. You might want to check yours.

 

 

Great Courses saved our History too!

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I have never checked out Netflix for having Great Courses!  Off to do that now.  Thank you!

 

Our library has very few Great Courses.  I am going to ask if I can get them through inter-library loan.

 

We have been pairing our studies with Crash Course also.  It's amazing how well kids (and I) respond to their videos.

 

And thank you for the Holy Land Revealed suggestion.  I will look into that as well.

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