Story of the World Ancient Times - What to replace with or supplement with 2nd time around.

[goldenecho]

So, long story short I am homeschooling again, but through my schools homeschool program (something they had before covid, not distance learning), and in 6th grade they cover Ancient Times (which we spend two years on and only finished two years ago...we never got through the rest but he's been getting that in school...it lined up pretty well actually with what we would have studied had we stayed in homeschool).

So, I MIGHT have a chance to use something other than their textbook (which I'm not thrilled with), and I absolutely can supplement.

I want to cover stuff not covered in SOTW since we used that not long ago.   Suggestions of topics/people/events to cover?

And if they do let me use an alternative to their textbook, suggestions for a spine are also appreciated.

 

 

Edited August 25, 2020 by goldenecho

[Lori D.]

A few alternative "spine" ideas -- copy-pasting from a previous post of mine:

Builders of the Old World (Gertrude Hartman)
Grades 5-7 level. Out of print (Amazon has some used hardback versions starting at about $20). Covers ancients through medieval in 450 pages. With line drawing illustrations. At the end of each chapter there are some built in extensions -- "talking together" (discussion questions, which could lead to a writing assignment); "interesting things to try" (activity ideas); "let's read" (list of related books that might be of interest); "quiz yourself" (matching & fill-in-blank questions); plus usually another option such as watching a history film, or mapping activity, or writing a summary, or making a bibliography... This is a really nice little volume.
 

The World in Ancient Times; Oxford University Press series
Grade 5-9 level. Ancients up into Medieval and Early Modern Times, so no Modern era. Each book is around 170-190 pages and focuses on a specific area of the world. There is also a teacher guide to go with each, so you can add "output" of discussion, writing, or activities. Expensive if you go for all of them + all of the teacher guides... BUT by just picking a few of the books + guides, this might be a way of focusing on other areas from what you did with SOTW -- maybe do one volume every 9 weeks (4 books total), or every 12 weeks (3 books total).

Ancients:
The Early Human World (pre-history)
The Ancient Near Eastern World (Mesopotamia, Sumer, Assyria)
The Ancient South Asian World (India)
The Ancient Chinese World
The Ancient American World
The Ancient Egyptian World
The Ancient Greek World
The Ancient Roman World


As far as major events/key people to cover...

- Kiddle: "Ancient History Facts for Kids" -- nice timeline further down on this webpage which would be a "quick start" to assembling your list of "what to cover"

- Fact Monster: Ancient History timeline and major cultures chart -- and the individual page with "key dates/events" for Ancient China

- Ducksters website could be really useful as a starting point -- I linked the "History For Kids" page, and when you click on each of the major history topics/time eras, a whole new page with links to articles comes up that cover art, society, gods, writing/science/technology, etc.; just by looking at the article topic areas, you could pretty quickly put together a list of things you want to touch on with individual resources by going through the 7 ancients areas on that page (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, Africa, and Maya/Aztec/Inca)

- World Digital Library timeline has just a few events (mostly related to key documents) per century, 8000BC-1949AD, but they are some very nice ones from all around the world, so not just the usual Egypt/Greece/Rome coverage of ancients

Edited August 26, 2020 by Lori D.