This coming school year will mark our third year in a five year plan for studying world history chronologically. The first year of this plan primarily covered Biblical Old Testament history with an emphasis on early civilizations such as Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon. The second year we studied Persia, Greece, Rome, New Testament history, and very early church history until the fall of the Western Roman Empire. So now we are ready for the Dark Ages, the Vikings, and the Holy Roman Empire. I hope that we can make it all the way through the Reformation this year. We shall see!

    We use a variety of sources for history. Our “spine” has been Linda Lacour Hobar's Mystery of History  series (see review in this post). We are one-fourth of the way through Volume II. It took us over a year and a half to complete Volume I because we were only studying history three days a week. But halfway into last year, we decided that history was worth five days a week and since then, we have been covering time more rapidly.

    We also add in some historical information books like Usborne’s Time Traveler and Diane Stanley’s Cleopatra or Joan of Arc.  And we read as much corresponding historical fiction such as Detectives in Togas or Adam of the Road as we can manage!

    With all of the timeline, mapwork, and activities in Mystery of History, I really don’t feel the need to add in any other hands-on activities. But I was not able to resist doing Evan-Moor’s History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations. When we begin studying the corresponding civilization in Mystery of History, we take a week off to make the pocket for that civilization. We have completed six of the seven pockets with just Ancient Aztecs remaining. For more information, see review in this post.

    This year I am also including the 4th grade Veritas Press history cards along with Mystery of HIstory. I am considering using VP’s card series as our spine for American History, so I wanted the boys to get used to the different format. The Veritas cards cover some subjects that aren’t in Mystery of History because they tend to focus on Western Civilization. Mrs. Hobar’s book covers other civilizations like China and Japan and India, as well. The two programs work well together.

    And because my boys love knights and castles so much, I have planned a few special activities for our study of the medieval period. For example, I purchased this Coat of Arms book to help us design individual shields. I’ll let you know how it works out!