For months now I’ve had The Story of the World: Ancients on our shelves, just waiting for this school year to start. I’ve been so excited about the program that I wondered if I had unrealistic expectations of it.
Nope. Not unrealistic. Story of the World is great.
We’re using the Activity Guide that accompanies the Story of the World text. The text by itself is a beautifully readable book and makes a terrific read-aloud. On its own it’s a good, enjoyable introduction to history.
Add in the Activity Guide, and that “good, enjoyable introduction” becomes something magical. The guide includes lists of suggested books for reading more about each topic; review questions for each section in the text to guide discussion or summaries; maps; colouring pages; and projects. Inspiring, interactive projects that make history come alive.
I thought I’d share some of the project highlights here …
Week 1: Archaeological Dig
Our first history project was an archaeological dig in the sandbox. Hubby buried items a couple of days ahead, wet the sand, and then marked the site off into a grid. The girls had to carefully dig for items, brush them off, label them, and create a master map of the dig.
Week 2: Cave Painting
Next up was cave painting. First the girls did this on crumpled-up paper using charcoal for outlining the figures. The idea was to use rustic colours inside of the figures, but they were having none of that: we ended up with bold, beautiful cave paintings.
Then Hubby took them under the porch and had them use chalk to create cave paintings on our house’s stone foundation. This was not in the Activity Guide, but it seemed appropriate.
Week 3: Model of the Nile
Then we constructed a model of the Nile River that was flooded …
… and grew crops!
Week 4: Early Writing
And our latest project revolved around early writing. The girls created cuneiform tablets …
… and hieroglyphic scrolls.
History is definitely a favourite subject in this household — we’re all having fun and learning lots!
And our next project? Mummifying a chicken. I’ll let you know how it goes …
