gardening momma Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 I learned about Mosaic (http://bringinguplearners.com/mosaic/) from a post somewhere one these forums. It looked really good, so I printed it out, 3-hole punched it, and put it in a binder. Now I'm starting to really look at it, and I have some questions. I did search the forums, and sort of found some answers, but have some more. 1) From what I've read here on the forums, Mosaic uses SOTW out of order, that they do one civilization at a time, then move on to the next, instead of going in chronological order...Did I read that right? Is there anyone who has used Mosaic who switches it around to SOTW's order? 2) Mosaic lists several non-historical books. Mosaic says "Interwoven along the way are dozens of new and classic works of children's literature. Many of these poems and stories tie into the history periods studied, others are more modern. All will help to encourage a love of reading, and an appreciation for the impressive human tapestry to which we are all heirs." So my question is, if I want to stick to the books that tie into history periods studied, which books are those? We're going to be reading plenty of other books, outside of our Mosaic/SOTW time, so I don't really want the extra books Mosaic lists. Some of those we will read at some point anyway, I just don't need it in our history lessons. For the "other" books, Mosaic lists: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Winnie-the-Pooh The Whipping Boy Misty of Chincoteague Beezus and Ramona Understood Betsy The Stories Julian Tells The Tale of Despereaux A Family of Poems Half Magic (this is not in their list in my print-out, but it is in the daily/weekly lesson plans, and on their list online) 3) Can anyone tell me anything about the book Sacred Myths: Stories from World Religions, which is an optional book Mosaic recommends? 4) Does anyone have anything to add about your experience with Mosaic? I'm going to start nice & easy with Mosaic/SOTW, since dd is just entering K. I figure I'll either go through it twice, maybe just lightly in K and a little more in depth in 1st, or take 2 years to go through the whole thing (SOTW 1). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardening momma Posted March 22, 2009 Author Share Posted March 22, 2009 Ok, I have more to add: I'm finding more books/resources that Mosaic uses in their lesson plans that they don't list in their list of suggested books and resources. One I already mentioned is Half Magic. I just found another one that's not listed in the print-out or on their website: Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. The lesson plans also use Knowledge Quest Maps of World History, which is not in their resource list. I did find it in their overview of course content. Are there a lot more books/resources that I'm going to find along the way (and not be prepared for ahead of time because they didn't list it upfront)? I got the impression at first that their list was complete, but apparently it's not. It's starting to get irritating, and I haven't even started using it yet. Will I have to go through the entire thing in advance? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovedtodeath Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 BringingUpLearnersMosaic Here is the yahoo group. After looking over their booklist I was not impressed. I am working on my own now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardening momma Posted March 22, 2009 Author Share Posted March 22, 2009 BringingUpLearnersMosaic Here is the yahoo group. After looking over their booklist I was not impressed. I am working on my own now. Thank you. I sent my request to join. As for their booklist, is it just those non-history related books that you're not impressed with, or other ones too? Some of them (non-history) I've heard of, others I haven't. I looked up some of them on Amazon, and while I don't want to incorporate them into our history study, there's some that look like good read alouds (or independent reading later on). I don't think Beezus and Ramona will make our list, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovedtodeath Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 My book list has about 45 total history related books. They don't have hardly any. What attracted you to Mosaic? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fast1 Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 hey lovedtodeath, can anyone join the group? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovedtodeath Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 Well, they let me join! So.... yeah! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardening momma Posted March 22, 2009 Author Share Posted March 22, 2009 My book list has about 45 total history related books. They don't have hardly any. What attracted you to Mosaic? It might have been Tara's post that brought it to my attention http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87832 Once I looked at it online, it looked interesting because of the additional things in it. I like that it starts with a bit of geography first. I don't think I like that it takes so long to start SOTW. It's not that I don't want to do SOTW by itself, but it looked like it had some good stuff to go with it. I don't have the SOTW Activity book yet. Care to share your book list? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovedtodeath Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 Well, it is scribbled on about 4 pieces of paper right now. LOL TWTM and Veritas Press have some good suggestions. Tutankhamen's Gift, Adventures in Ancient Egypt (good times travel company), You wouldn't want to be a Sumerian slave, The Great Alexander the Great (Ages 3-8) are all "do not miss". Usborne has a First Encyclopedia of History and an Egyptian Kid Kit that are really good, and I ordered Story of Rome because it looks good, but I don't have that yet. I just got the AG in the mail today. All I can say is "WOW". If you want secular suggestions for the chapters that have biblical history (reading and activities)... I am working on that right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haiku Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 (edited) 1) Is there anyone who has used Mosaic who switches it around to SOTW's order? I used Mosaic in the order it's scheduled and we loved it. My kids were so excited about spending chunks of time on each civilization. I really can't imagine that my kids would have understood much about the civilizations if they just got a chapter here, a chapter there, throughout the year. I think that is SOTW's main failing (and I LOVE SOTW) ... it's way too jumpy for a 6 year old to grasp. 2) Mosaic lists several non-historical books. So my question is, if I want to stick to the books that tie into history periods studied, which books are those? The only book we read this year from Mosaic's schedule that correlated with history is Miranda the Great, which goes with Rome. I never viewed their lit selections as history. I viewed them as lit selections. I changed some of them (we have already read Beezus and Ramona ad infinitum, for example, so we chose another book) but on the whole, my kids really enjoyed Mosaic's lit selections. They do also schedule in history books that are not "lit read-alouds," and I also added some of my own. 3) Can anyone tell me anything about the book Sacred Myths: Stories from World Religions, which is an optional book Mosaic recommends?Didn't like it, quit using it. The illustrations are freaky to the max and my kids were bothered by them. There's nothing wrong with them per se, it's not that they are violent or anything, they are just really weird, freaky collage-like things that bothered us all. I also felt that the stories were too complex and didn't have any context to them. It was just, "Here's five stories about Hinduism. Here's five stories about Christianity," etc. I usually read to my kids from books that are far above their actual reading level, but this book was just ... not a good fit. 4) Does anyone have anything to add about your experience with Mosaic?We really enjoyed our Mosaic year. In fact, she has a spreadsheet up for Year 2 and I used it to help design my history schedule for second grade. That said, I think Mosaic will work really well if you want history to be the central focus of your homeschool. There is a massive amount of content, and we were spending over an hour on history a day. My kids LOVE history, and so do I, but we are going to have to back off next year or we are going to run into 5-hour days. I ended up dropping all the supplementary website stuff about 12 weeks in because we just simply couldn't devote that much time to history. We won't be doing history 5 days a week next year, so I have streamlined Mosaic 2's content suggestions. I really like that Mosaic has the option to start with the Big Bang and go all through pre-history, and I like that the last two weeks of year one are spend on Aztecs, to finish up the History Pockets Ancient Civilizations books. I found Mosaic to be way too project-heavy (often she schedules a craft or project every day of the week, so we skipped a lot of those. I was able to substitute all the books she recommends that my library didn't have with equally effective books my library did have. There is no such thing as a perfect curriculum, and I did tweak Mosaic some, but I have to say that it met our needs quite nicely this year and I highly recommend it, as long as you don't feel bound to do everything exactly as it's scheduled. I think it serves as a fantastic base to build from. Oh, and as far as your resource thing: I spent about an hour last year before we started reading through the weekly schedules and noting when I would need to have which resources on hand. It was very little work with great pay-off, because I had, in my notebook, a list of everything I needed to purchase/order from the library and when I needed to purchase/order it. Even if everything you needed were listed in the resource sections (and I really think most of it is), it would be wise to plan when you need to have certain things anyway, unless you plan to buy absolutely everything and not use your library at all. Tara Edited March 22, 2009 by TaraTheLiberator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardening momma Posted March 22, 2009 Author Share Posted March 22, 2009 Thank you both for your help. Carmen, those sound like good books to add to my list. My list is in a Word document. If I wrote it on paper I'd never find it again. Tara, what you said about going in order of civilizations vs. chronological for a young child makes sense. We'd still be going in WTM order because we're still doing Ancients for the first year, just in a different order within the year. Reminds me of the thread about sticking to the (WTM) book. When I was looking at my library's online catalog I found a lot of other books along the same lines as those suggested by Mosaic. I love getting lots of books on a topic--I do this with fairy tales so we can read different versions of the same story. I think I'll spend some time going through all of Mosaic and figure out what I do and don't want to do (even though we may not get to it all the first year). If I don't do it now before we start, it won't get done. :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovedtodeath Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 When I was looking at my library's online catalog I found a lot of other books along the same lines as those suggested by Mosaic. I love getting lots of books on a topic--I do this with fairy tales so we can read different versions of the same story. library thing and amazon have search features with recommended age ranges. (4-8 is one on amazon!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardening momma Posted March 22, 2009 Author Share Posted March 22, 2009 library thing and amazon have search features with recommended age ranges. (4-8 is one on amazon!) :001_smile: I always use Amazon when I'm searching my library's catalog. My library has a lot of good books, but I'm not fond of their search engine. I search on Amazon, then check to see if my library has the books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovedtodeath Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Here are some books that I intend to include in my curriculum that are pretty unique: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World The Usborne Book of Living Long Ago (Explainers) covers several civilizations. Replacing the "growing up in ancient..." series. Egyptians Kid Kit A book and several activities for $10 Illustrated Book of Myths instead of Greek Myths, Egyptian Myths, and several separate books with myths of India, China and Mesopotamia, get them all in one book. Pyramids & Mummies get information on both in one reader. Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors: An Activity Guide Includes information and activities for civilizations not found elsewhere. (Assyrians, Babylonians, Nubians...) We're Sailing Down the Nile For little ones. Made in China reader for ancient China The Five Chinese Brothers (Paperstar) a must have picture book Four Special Questions: A Passover Story (Festival Time) explanation for young children about the Jewish holiday. (Not a retelling of the Biblical account.) Life In The Ancient Indus River Valley (Peoples of the Ancient World) I initially had a hard time finding a book for ancient India. Cleopatra and the King's Enemies: Based on a True Story of Cleopatra in Egypt (Ready-to-Read. Level 3) There are some that are simpler than this one too. Both are a series of princess stories. Lugalbanda: The Boy Who Got Caught Up in a War: An Epic Tale From Ancient Iraq (Aesop Prize (Awards)) The story that came before Gilgamesh Rimonah of the Flashing Sword: A North African Tale For chapters 11 and 12 (ancient Africa, not Anansi!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagira Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Neat list, Lovedtodeath, thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovedtodeath Posted March 29, 2009 Share Posted March 29, 2009 I hope I didn't mess anyone up! I recommended the wrong book! The Usborne Book of Living Long Ago (Explainers) covers several civilizations. Replacing the "growing up in ancient..." series. This was supposed to be the DK book, How Children Lived. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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