Living Books by Level for Mystery of History Volume 2: The Early Churchand Middle Ages

Key:  MOH = Mystery of History, SCM = Simply Charlotte Mason, SL = Sonlight, TT = Tracy's Treasury

I'm just going to jump right in to posting this book list. If you're feeling a little lost and want to know what this list is or how to use it... OR if you want to find my similar book lists for other history timeframes, click here! Without further adieu, here we go! 

Family Books...

City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction by David Macaulay - In typical Macaulay style, the story of planning and constructing a fictional Roman city is presented and detailed with lots of illustrations. Fascinating for all ages.
 (SCM family book. Rated 4.8 stars. This one is really neat. It could be used near the end of Volume 1 around lesson 95 or in this volume at the very beginning.)

Peril and Peace (History Lives series, Volume 1: Chronicles of the Ancient Church) by Mindy and Brandon Withrow - Living stories that introduce important men in church history. Students in grades 10–12 will read all of this book, while the Family reads selected biographies from it.
 (SCM family book, Am grades 3 and up. Rated 4.5 stars.)

The Story of the Romans by H. A. Guerber, edited by Christine Miller (Nothing New Press edition) A living narrative that weaves the story of Ancient Rome. This edited version removes evolutionary comments and honors the Biblical accounts.
 (SCM family book. We really like another book in this series, The Story of the Greeks, so I anticipate that we’ll like this one also. There are several editions of it, so be sure to get this one. The publisher must be “Nothing New Press.”)

Living Books by Level for Mystery of History Volume 1: Creation to Christ

Key:  MOH = Mystery of History, SCM = Simply Charlotte Mason, SL = Sonlight, TT = Tracy's Treasury

I'm just going to jump right in to posting this book list. If you're feeling a little lost and want to know what this list is or how to use it... OR if you want to find my similar book lists for other history timeframes, click here! Without further adieu, here we go! 

Family Books...

Bible

Children’s Illustrated Bible by Selina Hastings – (TT grades preschool and up, Am grades 1 and up. 4 stars. This is our bible story book, which I scheduled along with all the corresponding MOH lessons. Don’t confuse it with this one b/c it’s TINY and the illustrations need to be full sized!)

The Great Pyramid by Elizabeth Mann - A story of the Great Pyramid and the people who built it. Similar to David Macaulay’s Pyramid, but shorter and not as much construction detail. (SCM Family Book. 4.7 stars. Great book. MOH lesson 11.)

 The Great Pyramid by Elizabeth Mann – Meet a nation of farmers living on the green edge of a harsh desert with a king who was a god in life and in death. Tens of thousands of farmers left home each year to chisel hard stone without iron tools and move 10-ton blocks up steep grades without the use of a wheel, all to the glory of the Pharaoh. (TT K-8, Am 4-8. SCM recommends other books in this series. It was great! It shows what a massive undertaking it was to build a pyramid. It's similar to David Macaulay’s Pyramid, but shorter and not as much construction detail. My first grader and I both loved it. Rated 4.7 stars. MOH lessons 11, 22-24.)

The Ultimate Book List!!!

I love Charlotte Mason style “living books”, and think they are a great way to teach history! My favorite two sources for finding these fabulous books are Sonlight and Simply Charlotte Mason.

I’ve taken the time to go through the SCM (Simply Charlotte Mason) book lists and SL (Sonlight) book lists, and organize them chronologically and by age to easily go along with our Mystery of History study. Anyone who's looked at either list knows what a massive undertaking this is. But looking for the books as we went didn't really work for me, not to mention that I found myself looking more than once at the same thing which is really not an efficient use of my time. So I bit the bullet and went through them both in their entirety... once... and made a master list.

This list is for:

• Anyone wanting to supplement Mystery of History with Sonlight
• Anyone wanting to supplement Mystery of History with Simply Charlotte Mason
• Anyone who plans to use any combination of MOH, SL, or SCM over the years and wants to avoid buying duplicate books. 
• Anyone interested in finding carefully-chosen quality literature book suggestions organized by time period and reading level. This may be to supplement ANY history curriculum. 

Let's Learn About Ancient Egypt!

Here are a few of our favorite books, activities, and online resources for learning about Ancient Egypt...

Online Resources

Explore Ancient Egypt! You've got to visit this site!! We took a virtual tour through the Great Pyramid, walked around the Sphinx, and visited other tombs and temples with 360 degree tours. It was excellent!! Thank you PBS!

Discover the world of Ancient Egypt playing our games! Explore the Egyptian landscape, join an exploration expedition through Egyptian tombs, dress like an Egyptian queen or craftsman, translate hieroglyphics, and run a temple store! My son loved these games from National Museums Scotland!!!

Our Favorite Books

Hands-On History: Ancient Egypt

I lead the hands-on History portion of our Co-Op, so I thought I'd share the projects we did this year. This was our first year in Ancient History, and most of our projects this year related to our study of Ancient Egypt. Here's what we did...

We talked about how ancient people wove fabrics, and then the kids got to weave with a  loom. To do this, I propped a dowel rod between two chairs and tied strings to it, weighted at the bottom by washers. Then the kids wove it as you see here...

(I found this project idea here.)

They made mummies by wrapping little duct tape people with strips of linen, and gluing them in place with "resin." (I labeled our Elmer's glue as "resin" and no one was allowed to call it glue. They had to say "please pass the resin" not "please pass the glue" when they needed it.) Inside of the wrappings they also added "amulets" (rhinestones). For the sarcophaguses, we used this free printable pattern.