Tom and I are having so much fun doing history.
We are using a classical education text called "The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Ancient Times (From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor)".
So far we have covered:
- The Earliest People (nomads and then villages in the Fertile Crescent)
- Egyptians Lived on the Nile River
- The First Writing (hieroglyphs and cuneiform)
- The Old Kingdom of Egypt
- The First Sumerian Dictator
- The Jewish People
- Hammurabi and the Babylonians
It is so much fun - it is written in a lovely story style which I read aloud and Tom sits with me, mouth agape and eyes on the ceiling (thinking?dreaming?) - engrossed.
There is a workbook that goes with it that includes colouring in, word searches, narrative comprehension questions, copywork and map work. The map work is fantastic, for example, "Colour in the Nile Delta green" and "Trace the path that the Jewish people took from Ur to Hanan to Canaan to Egypt".
I had not learnt this stuff or certainly I had forgotten it - I am not sure who is enjoying it more! We use the internet a lot to dig deeper (pardon the archaeological pun) on areas of Tom's interest. We looked up the different 'crowns' of Egypt (which look nothing like English crowns) and Tom drew them on his map. We looked up what the different Egyptian gods looked like as some wore different headdresses etc. We looked at what current countries are now what was Mesopotamia - how funny that is the area of so much conflict and dysfunction now - in a not funny way.
Can't wait to get to the Greek Gods, First Cities of India, Ancient China, Alexander the Great, the Persians, Sparta, Roman Empire, Americas, Confucius, Julius Caesar .....
To keep it balanced we are also reading from a new book (published this year) called Australians All (A History of Growing Up from the Ice Age to the Apology) by Nadia Wheatley - wonderful story based history again with gorgeous pictures.
