The beginning of our journey

We have begun our adventure into the past using Susan Wise Bauer's book Story of the World and have started at the introduction. Learning all about what History and Archeology are. Chipman thought this would be boring 'I already know what it is' he cried as I begun reading from the chapter. However the way the book is written had him enthralled at once! We didn't spend a huge amount of time on the introduction, in fact we only spent one morning but for us that was enough. Here's what we did.....

The activity guide that goes along with this book encourages narration of what has been read to help children define what they know and I must admit helps parents to know if they were listening and what they have grasped. To start with I thought writing reluctant Chipman would find this a daunting task so he filled in a worksheet I made up (I would love to share this but haven't quite worked out how to do it yet). It was good to see that he had picked up on the themes from the chapter and having set questions to answer helped him to not be put off with too much writing!

After we had rounded up what we had learnt from the chapter we moved onto our very own archeological dig! Again the activity book suggests an activity for this. However being a slightly lazier mum I went for this ice dig that I found on Pinterest. I froze some cutlery, Lego, a key, some money and a pen. Chipman enthusiastically dug up all the objects using a screwdriver and has since asked if we can do it again. After everything had been dug up and my dining room was covered in water and flying ice chunks (this activity can get messy) I asked Chipman to tell me what we could learn about life from these objects. By looking at these few objects he was able to work out a lot about currency, food eaten, toys and the way people write, he understood that from a few clues a lot can be learnt.

Chipman's ice dig

We also filled in the family history activity that comes from the activity guide. This is going to be a work in progress as Chipman wants to ask lots of extended family members we will see over the rest of the year. He has started with Grandma and is looking forward to the family wedding we have coming up this month so he can fill in more of the sheets. I also think it will be a great chance for him to share what he's learning at home with them.

We had a great introduction into history and Archeology and are excited to move onto the first chapter. Have you used Story of the World? What activities did you do, what did you read? I would love to hear from you in the comments below!

What are we doing here?

I have been home educating my 12 year old son for 6 months now and have been looking for a good curriculum we could use as a spine for our learning. I looked for a long time, weighing up price, workload and flexibilty and then I came across the Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer. Starting at the beginning with the earliest nomads it moves chronologically through history in 4 books up until the present day. I thought that with Chipman's logical way of thinking this approach would work well. I also loved that although the activity guide is full of ideas we can pick all, some, none and mix with my own activities.  It is aimed at a younger audience than Chipman but my intention is to bring it to his age level with supplemented reading and activities to challenge him. I will be stealing this very well thought out and tested reading list from a book loving home educating mum as well as using audio versions!

 

I was lucky to be able to pick up a copy of the book secondhand and then purchased the PDF activity book from the publisher direct. The PDF version is great as there is no bother of photocopying/scanning you can just print what you want!

I plan to  blog my lesson plans for both the history aspect and other subjects we link in, so be sure to visit us regularly to see what we're up to. Also I would love to hear from you if you are using Story of the World to hear what you're doing and share your ideas!