I love homeschooling! One of the big advantages of homeschooling, at least in Alabama, is the freedom to choose your own curriculum. My first grader has been reading about Winston Churchhill with Daddy through a wonderful book called The Happy Warrior. He is fascinated by WWII. And Daddy is happy that he has been able to get out his WWII games from his childhood and play with all the figurines again.
We have also been studying Ancient History this year with our base of the Story of the World, by Susan Wise Bauer. This led us over the past few weeks to do a unit study on China. Theirs is a fascinating history, and we have only scratched the surface. For those interested in resources on this subject, here is what we have used:
1. The Great Wall of China by Leonard Fisher
2. Modern Marvels of China
3. The Silk Route by John Major
4. Gladys Alyward
by Janet Benge
5. Hero Tales by Dave & Neta Jackson. This is a great compilation of stories of missionaries and historical figures that are inspiring, written in a devotional format. Several of the figures are persons who lived their lives as missionaries to China.
Alongside China, although not connected, has been our study of Julius Ceasar with the Story of the World again as our springboard. We borrowed a great book that we are reading aloud from the library entitled Julius Caesar, by Zachary Kent. Next on the list is Josephus for kids. I found a resource for this which looks great, entitled Our Young Folks Josephus by William Shepard. I will let you know after we have used it for a while.
Now tell me what 1st grader in public school has been exposed to such figures already as Alexander the Great, King Tutankhamen, Julius Caesar, Josephus, and already knows why the Trojan War was fought and who the first emperor of China was? I know I didn't learn that stuff, nor did I ever find history of much value as my teachers were all non-history types brought in to read the ever-boring "Social Studies" text from a textbook that smelled - (remember that awful smell of the school textbooks??)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Impressive! It sounds like you are and Scott Jr. are having a lot of fun. Paul was in China for 2 weeks with work back in November. He might could pass on some info, too. Maybe about fun things like all of the "weird" food he saw. :)
And yes, the textbook smell still exists! I was reminded of it when I started teaching agian. Needless to say I used a lot of picture books when I taught Social Studies.
Post a Comment