Story of the World Resources

[Clarita]

My current plan is to do Story of the World Ancient times with my kids. 

There are several encyclopedias suggested to go a long with it. I prefer one with lots of real pictures any thoughts? I think there are 4 suggested in the curriculum (Usborne Book of World History, Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History, Kingfisher Illustrated History of the World, and Kingfisher History Encyclopedia).

I would also like an Art History book/encyclopedia that has big beautiful pictures of art. One that includes art from non-western places would be great but I'm also ok with buying multiple art books to cover western and non-western stuff.  

[HomeAgain]

We used the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, the red one.  It was fine.  I think you should look at sample pages of as many as you like, though, and see what stands out to you.

Our library had a lovely art history book that I'll try to hunt up the name, but to be honest, we ended up collecting things like the Usborne Art Cards and a box of art from the Louvre.  The art cards had the added benefit of being able to be held and compared easily, and standing on a display during the week.  Plus the ones from the Louvre came in chronological order, starting with Mesopotamia and ending with the 18th century. Usborne picked up and carried us through the 20th century.

[Helpdesk]

This FAQ from the Well-Trained Mind website's help center has some info about the encyclopedias.  If you look further in this FAQ section, you will see other articles that might give you a power-assist in finding additional resources or using the curriculum in multiple ways.

[Green Bean]

Veritas Press has a cool art book. I haven’t seen it irl, though.

https://veritaspress.com/store/history-of-art-2-6-you-teach-kit.html

MP has art cards/posters and composer lists. You have to buy their corresponding grade level enrichment guides for the details of each piece.

https://www.memoriapress.com/curriculum/art-and-music/

My kids all loved the Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artist/Musicians series by Mike Venezia. Most libraries carry these. Confessions of a Homeschooler carries a series of simple lap/notebooks for quite a few of them. You’ll need to search a bit here to find them. My phone isn’t intuitive.

https://store.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/index.php?main_page=products_all

My oldest older boys loved the Usborne Internet Linked Encyclopedia so much we had to replace our copy twice! Highly recommended!

Kingfisher reads like a synopsis of a synopsis. We tried the red one after Usborne. It just wasn’t as engaging or enjoyable for mine.

HTH!

Edited March 23, 2023 by Green Bean

[Miss Tick]

The best game for art that I've found was this Spot It kind of game from the Unemployed Philosophers Guild. As far as books go, you might flip through whatever you're library has first. I had The Collins Big Art book, although we didn't use it terribly consistently we also checked out the Sister Wendy book the library had. Kahn Academy has some videos and quizzes if you're dc are old enough to do that. I ran a co-op class at one point where we assembled a set of 15 small books, covering different periods in at from Prehistoric to Post Modern. We played games, made some projects, studied some important pieces, ahh, fun times

[Miss Tick]

If lapbooks are of interest we did the ones somebody put together for SotW1 & 2 and then I made notebooking-ish pages for books 3 & 4

[Green Bean]

I don’t think those lap-books are around anymore. If someone finds a link, do share! At one time, a color timeline for SOTW was around, too.

Edited March 23, 2023 by Green Bean

[Miss Tick]

2 minutes ago, Green Bean said:

I don’t think those lap-books are around anymore. If someone finds a link, do share! At one time, a color timeline for SOTW was around, too.

If you pm me I can see if I still have the files we used.

[Clarita]

@Miss Tickwe'll just start with the activity book first. I don't want to overwhelm my kids with too many things to do. But thank you very much.

[ScoutTN]

11 hours ago, Clarita said:

@Miss Tickwe'll just start with the activity book first. I don't want to overwhelm my kids with too many things to do. But thank you very much.

My kids enjoyed many of the projects in the AG! We really did not use an encyclopedia resource until about 4th or 5th grade. SOTW, plus loads of library books (mostly nonfiction) and some read alouds. It was great. 

[HomeAgain]

45 minutes ago, ScoutTN said:

My kids enjoyed many of the projects in the AG! We really did not use an encyclopedia resource until about 4th or 5th grade. SOTW, plus loads of library books (mostly nonfiction) and some read alouds. It was great. 

Same.  My kids loved many of the projects. 

NOT SoTW, but Evan-Moor makes pocket books.  There is one for ancient civilizations.  While the entire thing can be overwhelming, we did find that some helped with SOTW retention and added in extensions.

There are some fun read alouds, and mostly the projects were enough in our house.  The games were definitely a hit.  I made a Senet board and knucklebones and whatever else we read about.

The second round was more about outlining, learning to analyze text, and pulling from multiple sources.  The first round was just an introduction and idea of what these civilizations contributed to the world.

[prairiewindmomma]

We are finishing up our third four-year cycle of SOTW....12 years of it. We own a few different encyclopedias, this one is the one we have used the most: https://www.amazon.com/Kingfisher-History-Encyclopedia-Encyclopedias/dp/0753457849/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2QN07FH2303ZV&keywords=kingfisher+history+encyclopedia&qid=1679631411&sprefix=kingfisher+his%2Caps%2C140&sr=8-4

IMO, it's a nice reference point once you hit the middle grades, but it's not necessary for grades K-4. IMO, the picture books suggested in the activity guide are much more age appropriate.