I love the Story of the World program we use for history. We have been using this since last year and we love the many different suggestions they give to help further learning for each chapter. We did these masks for Ancient Egypt, in which the project was taken from the book, and sometimes they even have recipes. This particular chapter we just finished had us making some pita bread! We did a little bit of school, started making the dough, got dressed and went to the farmer’s market (while we let the dough rise), then came home, baked the bread, had it for lunch, and then continued on with school. At the market, we picked up some hummus and eating it with the pita bread made a very good lunch. We were a happy bunch that afternoon. Well, probably until the kids started fighting and then I started yelling, and so on and so forth, but I think you get the gist.
Every time I make bread, I am in awe because it is so easy and I always wonder why I don’t do it more often. I would love to if they were just a teensy bit more time in the day, but sometimes it’s easier to just buy it than make it. Don’t you agree?
Anyhow, even if you don’t homeschool, but want to do some at-home history learning with your child, I highly recommend that book. There are stories (and a cd for listening to the stories), suggested books for further learning, along with crafts and (sometimes) recipes in all the chapters. I never really enjoyed history when I was a child, which may be due to the fact that we were just reading straight out of text books and were never really doing anything fun with it. Nowadays though, I am definitely loving it as I am learning and teaching it to my own children.
This had nothing to do with our curriculum, but I was so excited to watch The Dust Bowl documentaries on PBS and had them watch a little bit with me. I always wondered what those “Congress created the Dust Bowl” signs meant when we went on road trips and now I finally know! I finished episode 1 and now I can’t wait to watch episode 2! Yeah, I’m pretty nerdy about history stuff.
I absolutely love this!! I don’t plan on homeschooling but I would really like to do activities like this with our {future} kids.
i always wondered what those dust bowl signs were about! i’ve been addicted to pbs documentaries lately too, they have an american experience series on all the presidents since FDR, plus a few earlier ones…. totally amazing and fascinating!
Oh PBS! One of my favourite American exports, as a non-American 🙂
I loved that Dust Bowl doc as well! So well done. “The Men Who Built America” by the History Channel was also fascinating if you love history stuff.
Hey, was just wondering if you could recommend any great math/science curriculum ? My little ones in kindergarten 1/2 day but we do a bunch of extras at home;) we loved the reading book you recommended and now she’s helping other kids in class read!! Would love any recommendations ? Thanks, Seattle MOM
I love to hear what others use for curriculum. Thanks for sharing. It looks really great! Id love to know what else you use…
I finally bit the bullet and ordered SOTW today. My two littles are in public school (K & 2nd) (I work full time, so HS is just not an option for us), but I believe that I can’t just rely on the school to teach my kids. It’s my job too, especially with things that they are interested in but isn’t covered yet by the new Core Standards. For example, my kindergartner is suddenly really interested in learning cursive already, so I have a workbook and we’re starting with the basics. My son loves science, so we are doing a few experiments here and there and trying to pull science lessons into our everyday activities (we wanted to try an ice cream pie for Thanksgiving, so we made our own in Ziploc bags and learned a little thermaldynamics), and we have the book Science Play, so we pull from that here and there. I’m planning to do a life cycle lesson with butterflies in the spring, and if we are lucky will have another Robin nest in the yard that we can observe. We used the same anatomy book (My Body) you used with your girls and they loved it as well.
I wish I could say it was an organized process, but that would be a complete lie! lol But I’m working on how to make it a more regular part of our schedule so I can stay on top of it rather than scramble when an interest strikes, and it’s less disjointed for them.
We love SOTW too. Finished vol. 4 on Friday, starting all over with vol. 1 this week. Very excited!
Check out Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. The bread! Oh, the bread! So good! The recipes are very easy–your family will love it. I think that the authors have recently published a whole grain cookbook too. I have yet to check it out, but it is on my list.
I love the visuals, what a fun and great way to teach history. I also enjoyed reading about the break to the farmers market, I always wondering how to make stops in the middle.