Story of the World Volume 1 Ancient Times (Hardcover)

I have a very sensitive 1st grader who read this with me. It was by far his favorite subject, and the writing style certainly is engaging, however, there were some parts that made him cry. Yes, it's history and reality and I don't want to shield him from that, but, be aware that there is a lot of death in this book. Your child may not be ready for all the gruesome tales of cyclops, or Julius Ceasar's murder, etc. If your child is sensitive, then you may want to wait a year or two to do this series or plan to preview what parts you might want to skip/soften.

Story of the World is authored by homeschooling graduate/homeschooling mother Susan Wise Bauer The series consists of a four volume set of "storybooks" which tell the history of the world from the earliest nomads to the events of the late 20th century The series is written in a narrative tone reminiscent of the late VM Hillyer's style of writing Volume 1 covers the time period of the earliest nomads to the last Roman emperor Volume 2 covers the time period fall of Rome to the rise of the Renaissance Volume 3 covers the time period from Elizabeth I to the Forty Niners Volume 4 covers the time period from Victoria's empire to the end of the USSR To round out your history curriculum I would highly recommend purchasing the activity books which accompany each volume The activity books correspond with the chapters in each of the four volumes For each chapter there are review questions narration exercise additional history reading writing/craft/art projects and an activity In the back of each activity book there is a section titled student pages which consists of maps coloring pages and review cards to create a world history notebook Science is not included in this study but you can use Jim Wiese's book "Ancient Science" as a starting point Based on our experience with this series and the content of the curriculum I would recommend it for Grades 5-8Overall I am pleased with Ms Bauer's approach to world history and look forward to using this as a unit study in our homeschool

I guess I am a dissenting voice with regard to this curriculum but I hope a reader will understand my intent SOTW has plenty of information but it is important for a person to know that the author goes out of her way to be VERY NONSECTARIAN For example in the section on the ten plagues of Egypt the first nine are covered but the 10th (and most important) is given no time When two major world religions hinge on this one plague (Judaism with Passover and Christianity with the blood that saves us) you would imagine that this would be covered It is her right to be non-sectarian but I think a potential user should know this ahead of time We believe that history is HIS STORY so I don't believe that this fits our family as well I know there are thousands of people that love SOTW but I respectfully submit that it tries too hard to be all things to all homeschoolers with the end product being watery with regard to Biblical authority

"Story of the World" is a four volume set of "storybooks" in which tells the story of world history from the time of the nomads through events in the 20th century Susan Wise Bauer writes in a narrative tone reminiscent of the late headmaster of Calvert School VM Hillyer To accompany the four volume set there is an audio recording by actor Jim Wiess and activity books to enhance your studies which can be purchased separately The grade range listed for this series is grades 1-8 However based on our own experience and the content of the books I would recommend the following scope/sequence: Volume 1 Grade 5 Volume 2 Grade 6 Volume 3 Grade 7 and Volume 4 Grade 8 If you would like to introduce your younger child to world history I highly recommend VM Hillyer's "A Child's History of the World" for Grades 1-4