Story of the World, Vol. 2, Chapter 30

Chapter 30 or India Under the Moghuls contains two stories. The kids are doing so much better with narration and by “kids” I mean my son, my oldest. He is eight and a rising third grader. I ask him to tell me the story in three sentences. I don’t expect my six-year-old to narrate.

Of course, my son gives me the story in more than three sentences. He is doing a lot better than I expected. If only I gave him a chance, right?

Girl dressed as an empress

Playing dress-up as an empress

Until about a month ago, I did not think that narration was something he could do. Or was I too much in a hurry to get things done that I did not have the patience to wait through his hesitating narration? I think it was more about my inadequacy than his. And that’s what you learn as a homeschooling parent. Sometimes – many times – it is not the child. It’s us, the parents. We mess up and then we think it’s the child. 

All this to say, narration is going well. I ask my daughter to answer some of the questions and to build full sentences. She is six and does not remember everything. So I have her read the answers from the Activity Book. Guess what? She loves doing it. She gets to “answer” the question like big brother AND she gets reading practice.

Indian Moghul

Indian Moghul

In all honesty, I have come to regard The Story of the World as a total curriculum for social studies, history, language arts, arts and crafts, culinary arts, even science (like the explanation of the magnetized needle craft, which always point north). The only thing you would need to add is math and spelling and then you are in business.

Indian garden created by a Muslim king

Indian garden created by a Muslim king

Sure, I will not do that. I will still add a real science curriculum and a writing curriculum etc but for the summer break, this really helps the kids stay interested in learning and they ARE learning. Lots of things.

They loved the story of the servant and we acted out being empress for a day. At first they asked me to be empress and it was fun to give them orders which they obeyed right away with a swift, “Yes, Your Majesty!” Then my daughter wanted to be empress and she dressed up in her fanciest dress and sat on her throne and they went on like this for hours. I liked it because I got to be maid and got back to my kitchen so I can prepare lunch for us. It worked out.

Please follow and like us:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.