Story of the World
by Susan Wise Bauer
Reviewed by Pam Powers
Purchase details: The Story of the World, Volume 1: Ancient Times, by Susan Wise Bauer. $24.95 list price. Please support HomeschoolChristian.com by buying this program from our Amazon affiliate link or our Christian Book Distributors link.
The Story of the World, Volume 1, by Susan Wise Bauer, is a read-aloud program for history accompanied by activities and outside reading. Because of the outside resources that you use, it isn't strictly necessary to even use the read-aloud stories, but we loved them! We used the ancient history and medieval books -- the activities that were available were appealing and we had a great time interacting together as a family as we used them.
The stories are short and easy to understand. They don't dive into great depth, but they're designed for early elementary grades. The oldest I'd recommend to use them would be fifth grade and that's only if you're combining history for all your lower grade kids as well. You can have your older kids read some more challenging books on the side. Some critics have said that the books are too secular, but I'm capable of teaching my children the Biblical view and don't find it necessary to have specific "Christian" resources for every book we use. When we used the ancient history book we created a timeline of biblical events and world events, which was very helpful to the boys (We used a big spiral-bound notebook turned on its side. We drew a big line bisecting the pages and had bible history on the top and world history on the bottom. I HIGHLY recommend Homeschool in the Woods' timeline figures.)
The activity books are separate and you can opt not to purchase them. I advise you to do so. We used the flash cards as timeline helps and found many things to do that would have required some searching on my part -- in essence, all the research was performed for me in this book, which was great. My kids are not big coloring fans, so we didn't use the coloring pages as much, but they'd be great for anyone putting together a portfolio of work for the year. We liked mummifying a chicken (ancient history) and anything that we could cook.
The activity book also comes with a suggested reading list of books you can get from the library to complement your reading.
Being active and tactile is a great way to learn, especially for boys. We hosted a Renaissance Faire with ten other families and had all kinds of things going on. We were inspired by our history at the time. Everyone loved it and wants to do it again!
Recommendation: The Story of the World is an excellent way to interact with your children while teaching them. The stories are written in such a way that the children want to hear them, which is always wonderful. The tactile activities reinforce the learning. Ask my kids about the Code of Hammurabai some time. Creating their own code for life in our house was pretty fun for them and they still remember it seven years later.
HomeschoolChristian.com resources related to this review:
HomeschoolChristian.com's History Section where you will find many "living" history resources!
Review of The Story of the World audio by Susan Wise Bauer
Review of Ancient Greece CD-ROM by Calvert School
Review of Story of the Middle Ages
Review of The Story of the Renaissance and Reformation
Review of Child's History of the World CD-ROM
Review of Child's History of the World by Hillyer
Review of Famous Men of the Rome
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