History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations
Evan-Moor

    Evan-Moor offers several lines of reproducible, instructive books for making “pocket books” from construction paper. These lines include the Literature Pockets which cover topics from Nursery Rhymes to Tall Tales to Caldecott Winners and Theme Pockets which cover various holidays and science/social studies themes. This review will highlight the line of History Pockets particularly the one on Ancient Civilizations. We have used some of the other lines and I plan to eventually review those as well.
   
    The History Pockets books are available in a hard copy from most teacher supply stores or for download from Evan-Moor or Homeschool eStore. We purchased the hard copies before we knew about the download option. In the future, I will purchase Evan-Moor’s pocket books and other reproducible books in an e-book format. We do not live close enough to a place that makes quality copies, so I have to really plan ahead (at least a semester at a time) before I make a trip to the copy store. I look forward to just printing the necessary copies from my computer!

    The History Pocket on Ancient Civilizations is geared toward grades 1-3 (although I adapted it for my kindergartener) and is designed to make seven different pockets. These include a pocket on “What is History?” and then pockets on the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, and the Aztecs. I suggest making the actual book with all the pockets before beginning a specific pocket. It has made storing all of the projects extremely easy.

    Each pocket includes a student booklet that describes the location, culture, beliefs, lifestyles, etc. of the civilization. The student has the option of coloring the booklet, but since I have boys who don’t relish extensive coloring (unless they are allowed to use Mom’s Prismacolor pencils), we just staple the booklet together and then read it out loud and discuss it. Each pocket also includes a “Words to Know” activity that highlights four vocabulary words specific to that civilization. The student has to match the word to a picture and then write a definition for it.  And each pocket also includes stick puppets to color and glue to craft sticks. I do make my boys color these. And my younger son, Ben, enjoys getting his puppets out and playing with them. It is interesting to see the Mesopotamia puppets in a battle with the Roman ones!

    Then each pocket has several additional activities related directly to that civilization. For example, in the Mesopotamia pocket, we made pop-up ziggurats. In the Greece pocket, we made a shape book of the Parthenon. And in the Aztec pocket, we will make a feather fan.

    When we complete an activity, we just put it in the appropriate pocket in our books. It usually takes us 3 to 4 days to complete one pocket. We are studying history chronologically, so we take some time when we cover a particular civilization to complete its History Pocket activities. We have completed six of the seven, and I plan to get to the Aztec World some time this school year.

    We have thoroughly enjoyed using Evan-Moor’s History Pockets of Ancient Civilizations, and I plan to use some of the other History Pockets in our study of history. I am particularly interested in “Explorers of North America” and “Moving West”. Although there are different grade levels on these pockets, I think that they are easily adapted for a wider age range. The ones for grades 4-6 do require more writing than those for grades 1-3.