SOTW1 Resources I Ended Up Purchasing

For the most part, our local library system had a lot of books available to us. A few of the chapters where the subjects were a bit more obscure were tricky (such as the Phoenicians), but overall we lucked out.  Still, there were some books and videos that I wanted to own because I liked them or Bean liked them (You Wouldn’t Want To…series – I didn’t list them as we only bought the few our library doesn’t have) or because I was worried that they won’t be there when I do Ancients again. So without further adieu, here are the resources I felt were worth buying:

(the books/videos typed in BLUE are on my “to buy” list)

Early Peoples
Archaeologists Dig For Clues
Stone Age Boy
Maroo of the Winter Caves

Mesopotamia
Gilgamesh the King
The Revenge of Ishtar
The Last Quest of Gilgamesh
Rich and Poor in Ancient Mesopotamia
True Books: Mesopotamia

Egypt
Rich and Poor in Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egyptians and their Neighbors (good for Mesopotamia, too)
Adventures in Ancient Egypt

Greece
D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths
The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus
Orchard Book of Greek Myths
Greek Gods and Goddesses
Rich and Poor in Ancient Greece
True Books: Ancient Greece
The Hero and the Minotaur (technically Crete)
Adventures in Ancient Greece

Rome
Rich and Poor in Ancient Rome
*I realized that other than two You Wouldn’t Want to Be... books, I didn’t buy anything for Rome. There was nothing that really jumped out at me as a must have. I bought Rich and Poor… because I like the other books in the series.

India
I Once Was a Monkey
Ramayana for Children
Rama and the Demon King

China
The Master Swordsman & The Magic Doorway

DVDs (I may have, um…ripped/burned some of these…)
Kid’s Animated History with Pipo
Ancient Civilizations for Children – by Schlessinger
–>This is a series of DVDs/VHS that can be tricky to find. They are worth it if you can track them down.
Greek Mythology for Students – by Schlessinger
–>Same thing as above. They’re hard to find, but worth it. Bean devoured every DVD we had in one sitting.

SOTW Ch: 40, 41, & 42

It took us a week and half to do the final three chapters in SOTW1 – 40: Rome Begins to Weaken, 41: The Attacking Barbarians, and 42: The End of Rome. I skipped the book selections from the AG and searched my library system for events/characters mentioned in the text. Bean specifically wanted to learn about Boudicca once I gave her a brief summary of who she was.

I have to say that I enjoyed SOTW1. There were some discrepancies and over-simplifications, but it was easy enough to fix (or to gloss over until next time). We did it secularly, so we skipped over the chapters that were directly religious, which was also easy enough to do. I would use it again as a spine. If you need help organizing what you want to do for Ancients, it works. I like that it’s chronological instead of civilization-centered. There were times when Bean was ready for a break from one civilization, and because the book skipped around them, it helped keep her attention.

Books
*In Ten Queens: Portraits of Women in Power, we read the chapter on Boudicca. I did have to edit a few things since they talk about what the Romans did to her daughters, and an almost 7-year old isn’t quite ready for that bit of info.
*In Barbarians!, we read what amounts to the first half of the book – the sections on the Goths and the Huns. I’ll use this book again when we get to the Vikings and Mongols.

SOTW: Pompeii

After completing chapter 36, we took a week’s break from SOTW. Pompeii doesn’t get any mention in the text, other than some literature suggestions tacked on to the chapter about Nero/Constantine. We’re skipping chapters 37-39, picking up again at the beginning of the Fall of Rome.

Books
*I really liked Pompeii (Through Time). It focused on one house over a several thousand year time span.

SOTW1 Ch 34, 35, & 36

I decided to roll Chapter 34: The Rise of Julius Caesar, Chapter 35: Caesar the Hero, & Chapter 36: The First Roman Prince into one post. We didn’t do a lot with these other than read books and make some mosaics (much fun).  For whatever reason, Bean found Julius Caesar fascinating, even with the beheading of Pompey and brutal stabbing death of Caesar. She also liked the stories about Cleopatra. Oh my high drama girl.

Books – 34
*The first several chapters corresponded with this lesson.

Books – 35
*The last chapters corresponded with this lesson.

Books – 36

Activities
We made mosaics using black beans, kidney beans, and black-eyed peas. Both girls loved it and would have made more. Unfortunately for them, I couldn’t handle more than one.

Bug made something (upper left), and Bean made what was supposed to be a mermaid (bottom). She went a bit overboard on the beans and all recognisability was lost.

SOTW1 Ch 32 & 33

Last week we completed Chapter 32: China: Writing and the Qin.

Books
*This book takes place during the Tang Dynasty. I didn’t realize it until the end of the book where the author put a blurb about the historical Han Gan.
*You Are In Ancient China is set during the Han dynasty, so only a short time after the first emperor.

Videos
*We attempted to watch several videos about the first emperor of China that are streamed on Amazon, but they were either theatrical reenactments or subtitled. And none of them were terribly suitable/interesting for a 1st grader.

Animated History With Pipo, Disc 6

*We didn’t get a chance to watch any of these, but they were on my list
Secret’s of the Dead: China’s Terracotta Warriors
Modern Marvels:  The Great Wall of China
Lost Treasures of the World: China

Activities
The first section of this chapter talked about calligraphy and Chinese characters, so we copied the basic strokes and several of the characters. I watered down black tempera paint, found some round brushes, and gave the girls watercolor paper.

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This week, we did Chapter 32: Confucius. It is incredibly short and can be done in one lesson. I wasn’t able to find any picture books about him in our library system (or videos online). I wouldn’t have minded making paper, but I don’t think it would have gone very well  given the nature of the baby boy (who desperately needs a moniker).

Books
*Adventures in Ancient China takes place during the Han Dynasty, so it works with the general time frame from the previous chapter, but not with this one. But both Bean and I highly enjoy this series.

 

SOTW1: Ch 30 & 31

Last week we read Chapter 30: The Aryans of India. The first part of the chapter focused briefly on the the population change as well as an introduction to the caste system. The second part was about Siddhartha/Buddha.

Books
*Both Bean and I really enjoyed I Once Was a Monkey. It was well worth purchasing, and it opened up some interesting conversations.
Between the two books about Siddhartha becoming Buddha, the one by Demi was better.

Videos
Kid’s Animated History with Pipo, Disc 2 (The information is good, but the random interjections by Pipo run from annoying to somewhat insolent.)

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This week we read Chapter 31: The Mauryan Empire of India. There wasn’t a lot of content for this chapter. We didn’t do any activities or watch any videos, just read stories.

Books

SOTW1 Ch 29

This week we read Chapter 20: Rome’s War with Carthage. The chapter itself was short, focusing pretty much solely on Hannibal.

Books
*We read You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Roman Soldier, but it is out of place time-wise. The majority of it takes place in Brittania during Hadrian’s reign. There isn’t a corresponding SOTW chapter for Hadrian.
*We read 5 myths from The Orchard Book of Roman Myths.

Videos
There were two videos about Carthage I had planned on watching with Bean. But it didn’t happen. I might try to see if we can sneak them in this week.

Lost Treasures of the World: Carthage
Engineering an Empire: Carthage

Activities
I had hoped to build an aqueduct with Bean this week, but again it didn’t happen. Hopefully we’ll be able to build it when we come back to studying Rome in a few weeks.

SOTW1: Ch 27 & 28

Chapter 27: The Rise of Rome begins our foray into Ancient Rome! As with the chapter on Alexander the Great, I read a different book on the first day instead of SOTW. In this case, The Best Book of Ancient Rome (the first half). On Thursday, we read both sections of the chapter in SOTW and the second half of TBBAR.

Bean picked up on the significant differences of the Romulus and Remus myths between the same-titled book and what was offered in SOTW. It was yet another opportunity to pound into her that there is no right version of a myth or fairy tale. There will always be some sort of difference ranging from minor to major.

Books
*Bean read Romulus and Remus out loud.
*We read the first half of The Best Book of Ancient Rome on Monday, and the second half on Thursday.

Videos
Ancient Civilizations for Children: Ancient Rome

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This week, we did Chapter 28: The Roman Empire.  We ended up doing something Rome-related on almost every day of the week.

Books
*We read the introduction plus the first five myths from The Orchard Book of Roman Myths.

*We only flipped through The Gladiators by Tomas Tuma. It’s neat in that it is shaped like the Colosseum.

Videos
Engineering an Empire: Rome (We only watched the introduction and the sections on the Appian Way, aqueducts, and Colosseum)
The True Story of Gladiators (Bean was a bit bored with this one)

Activities
Bean decided that she wanted to built the Colosseum, so we added an extra day to accommodate that. It was completely her idea, I just had to facilitate it.

I cut out a large rectangle of cardboard, drew three horizontal lines across it and then drew multiple vertical lines (to help her with arch dimensions). I painted a sample arch and she was off.

After several more steps of painting details, we had a finished product. Most definitely not the most fancy Colosseum in the world, but neat nonetheless for the sheer fact that it was Bean who initiated its construction.

SOTW1: Ch 26

We spread Chapter 26: The People of the Americas over the two weeks that Anne was here. Anne read the chapter to Ivy and helped her find North/Central/South America on a globe.

We didn’t do any extra reading for this chapter because the literature suggestions were all for later cultures. I was not able to find any age appropriate books on the Nasca, Olmecs, or Anasazi at our library. (I had hoped to add the Anasazi into this lesson, but it didn’t happen).

Videos
Digging For the Truth, “Secrets of the Nazca Lines”
(This series also has episodes that focus on the Olmecs and Anasazi, but we didn’t watch them.)

Activities
Even though we didn’t do any extra reading, we did manage to do two of the activities in the SOTW AG – “Make a Nasca Line Drawing”  and “Make Tapioca Pudding.”

The tapioca was a mediocre hit. I love it, but Bean was so-so on it. It also took a long time to make. I ended up putting our iPad on the stove so we could watch Digging For the Truth while we stirred the pudding.

After we finished the pudding and show, we make Nasca Line Drawings. I gave both girls white paper and a white crayon. When they were done, they brushed watercolors on the paper in order to see their drawings.

SOTW1: Ch 24 & 25

Chapter 24: Wars of the Greeks. I waited too long to write about this chapter. I cannot remember what we did. I’m sure we read books additional to SOTW, but I’m darned if I know what they were.  I wish we had had the time to do the craft, “Make Athenian Coins” from the SOTW AG.

Books
*Bean read The Flying Horse over the course of the week.

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Chapter 25: Alexander the Great. We didn’t watch any videos with this chapter, but we did actually manage to sneak in a craft.

I did this chapter a bit differently than the others. On the first day, I read Alexander the Great out-loud to Bean. The second day, we read the entire chapter out of SOTW. The third day, we read You Wouldn’t Want to Be… and did the craft.

Books

Craft
We did the craft out of the SOTW AG, the Pharos Lighthouse. It was almost a bust (b/c we don’t eat potato chips out of a can), but one of our glasses was approximately the same shape. Bean colored and cut; I folded and taped. Bean also had the idea to add a fire.