Tag Archives: Story of the World

Aug 3 2014

Story of the World, Volume 1, Chapter 3

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We have both the book and the CDs. I don’t plan which one we do first, the reading or the CD. It just so happened that we listened to Chapter 3 in the car a couple of weeks ago, coming back from Knoxville. When I finally got around to reading Chapter 3 to them, they were listening to me while playing on the carpet.

I asked my son, the first grader, the comprehension questions. He answered me while rearranging his LEGO bricks. I’m happy with that. I don’t always ask him to do narration at this point.  Continue reading »

Jul 27 2014

Story of the World, Vol. 1, Chapter 4

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We made the crafts or, rather, our own version of the crafts suggested in Chapter 4. But before that, we checked on our Nile river model. It had dried up under the overhang of our roof, so we overflowed the Nile river to water the grass seed. We can already see some tiny blades of grass.

Instead of the sand-cube step pyramid suggested in the Activity Book, I opted for a DUPLO pyramid. I asked my son, a LEGO fan, to build me a DUPLO pyramid. He built me one out of 10 DUPLO bricks. I told him I wanted a bigger one. He brought me another small one, then another. I decided that was the sign that he needed some help.  Continue reading »

Jul 20 2014

Story of the World, Volume 1, Chapter 2

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Chapter 2 of Story of the World Volume 1 is called “Egyptians Lived on the Nile River.” It would be really easy to spend three months on this chapter. We spent almost three weeks.

I read the first section to them, “Two Kingdoms Become One,” and we looked at our wall world map to locate Egypt and the Nile river. We did the map work recommended, Student Page 6. With that fresh in mind, we built a model of the Nile according to the directions given in the Activity Book. My Egyptians got very sow-happy with the grass seed, as you can see from the picture.

Nile River Model

Our Nile River Model, Day 1. I should probably take pictures in three weeks, too.

We read “The Longest River” as a substitute book for “The Nile River,” but it seemed extremely dry and boring. I’m all for nonfiction books. Yet, my children just could not get excited about this one. Not all nonfiction books are created equal, obviously.  Continue reading »

Jul 6 2014

Story of the World, Volume 1, Chapter 1

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Last week we started Chapter 1 in our history curriculum, Story of the World. I read to the kids the first section about the first nomads. Then, we read “It’s Disgusting and We Ate It” – one of the recommended books. The kids (and I) can only take so many pages of that book. They groan and moan at almost every sentence. It truly is disgusting. 🙂

“Ancient Agriculture” is rather dry for a living book. It feels like a textbook. I tried reading it to the kids and they interrupted me, asking for another book. I must say, this is where I don’t follow SOTW to the letter. I know Susan Wise Bauer, the author, recommends doing different activities if they work for our families. This is where I have to learn to watch for their reaction and not feel bad if we cannot complete a certain reading assignment.  Continue reading »

Jun 29 2014

Story of The World, Volume 1, Introduction

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Story Sunday is a new series on Homeschool Ways – a series about how we learn from Story of the World, Volume 1 in our homeschool.

I will link up regularly to SOTW Blog Roll 2014, which, by the way, offers a number of inspirational blog posts from many other families using this history curriculum.  Continue reading »