Jump to content

Menu

Middle school reading-heavy classical curricula?


Recommended Posts

All, we're starting to plan for my older son's "second time through" history. We want it to be more in-depth this time and less based on a "spine." He is ready to start reading some original sources, but not the whole hog of Herodotus and Tacitus etc. Probably Homer, but with a parent reading it to him and discussing it. But he can read Black Ships Before Troy by himself.

 

What I'd really like to find are (a) books that go into the ancient world in some depth, but a step below upper high school/college level reading. We know about (and have) Yesterday's Classics, and we'll avail ourselves of that (already have) as well as the ClassicalCurriculum.com model curriculum. I'm just wondering if anyone has collected any more of that material together either in the form of links to Google Books, a bibliography, or whatever. Of course we do have WTM...

 

The other thing we'd love to find are (b) guided readings of source material like this. There is a little original source material that he can read on his own, like Aesop and a few other things, but what I'd really love to find is guided selections of readings from ancient (and later) sources, from both history and literature.

 

Not sure I'm making myself very clear so please feel free to ask for clarification!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have you considered Omnibus by Veritas Press. You can purchase the curriculum and teach it yourself. They also have self paced classes and instructor led classes. Wilson Hill Academy also has online classes that utilizes the Omnibus. This is the list  . I've pieced together a lot of our history and science curriculums up until this point for my 4th and 5th grader but I do plan on using a formal program for The Great Books. I've also considered this as an option for an older child along with the digital version of Harvard Classics. I've also considered materials from this site.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I replied to this a week ago but apparently it was never saved! Anyway, thanks, Momto4inSoCal. I checked out all your recommendations and I appreciate them. Omnibus looks pretty advanced—original sources, right? I think we can handle some original sources, like The Odyssey (we've read several easier versions of it before so it's not asking so much), but I'm not sure I want to inflict all of the original sources on him yet (e.g., reading all of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Plutarch etc. in translation). Britannica's Great Books and the Harvard Classics are both awesome, obviously...but they're also strictly original sources. academybookstore.org looks awesome and I hadn't seen that before, so I'm all over that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know that you didn't want to rely on spines, but I'd just thought that I'd share that the books by Dorothy Mills are enjoyable to read and incorporate a lot of excerpts from primary sources. It makes it easy to then add more of that same source (a fuller account over the excerpt). She pulls from Herodotus, Livy, Tacitus and others. The books are solidly written for middle school up through lower high school, with the first one,The Book of the Ancient World, being the easiest. I've written guides for the first three books, which covers the ancient time period and incorporated additional primary source readings to coordinate with each one.

 

Here are a couple of free online books that I use for a lot of these primary sources:

https://archive.org/details/sourcebookofgree00flinuoft

 

https://archive.org/details/readingsinancien011393mbp

 

I was reminded of them when I clicked on your link which led to the US history sources book.

 

I also add a lot of readings from Plutarch. If your student is not ready for the original writings, there are many options that are more accessible.

 

Our Young Folks' Plutarch

http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=kaufman&book=plutarch&story=_contents&PHPSESSID=acfcd230db9268371499c4071b903366

 

Plutarch's Lives for Boys and Girls

http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=kaufman&book=plutarch&story=_contents&PHPSESSID=acfcd230db9268371499c4071b903366

 

I add other books and readings to round everything out.

 

Edited by Kfamily
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...