The Odyssey

As we head into our studies of Ancient Greece I have been pulling out some of our favorite books and looking for more, and I thought I'd share a few links.  Schola Rosa recommends D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, which is excellent.  Mary Pope Osborne also has a nice collection called Favorite Greek Myths, and wrote a fun two-book version of the Odyssey, called Tales from the Odyssey, which is a good for younger readers.  Rosemary Sutcliff's versions of the Iliad and Odyssey are a little more challenging and also very well done.

Schola Rosa bases many of the 4-6th grade writing assignments over the next couple of months on Andrew Lang's Tales of Greece and Troy.   I took advantage of the free kindle version. Miss A says she is having a hard time keeping track of the story, which I think is mostly because of all the long Greek names.  (For context, she read the first of the Pope Osborne series in an afternoon.)  I thought the recorded version might be helpful with the names, but Grandma Rolling seems to be having as much trouble as we are!  If you are looking for a more polished version, it is available on Audible.


We have also enjoyed the very engaging and dramatic Barefoot Books recorded version of the Adventures of Odysseus.

If you really want to experience the Odyssey, you can catch a live performance this Saturday at Westchester Community College.

What resources do you love for studying Ancient Greece?

Books and Resources

As autumn comes to a close, I thought I'd return to this space and share a few things that have been working around here.  Last week several moms gathered and shared ideas and suggestions for working with the curriculum and homeschooling in general.  It was such a fruitful evening, and I was reminded of my hope that this space might be a place to share those ideas, albeit without the wine and chocolate!

With labels by year (this is Year One of our 3-year cycle) and subject, the resources we share now can continue to bless moms who join us down the road.  The blog is not password-protected, but it is unsearchable. 

We have enjoyed some fun supplementary reading this fall in addition to The Heroes of Israel in the Schola Rosa suite. 

My kids really loved the Gilgamesh Trilogy by Ludmila Zeman as we studied the Ancient Sumerians.  The story is well written and the artwork is beautiful.  The borders of the pages show cuneiform design and characters.

As we studied Ancient Egypt the kids really enjoyed Ancient Egypt: Tales of Gods and Pharaohs.  It is a fun book, and although its busy, cartoon-strip style isn't my favorite to read aloud, the kids loved it.  It covers all of the Pharaohs mentioned in the timeline, as well as some basic Egyptian mythology.

We also read Casting the Gods Adrift by Geraldine McCaughrean, a short novel about a young boy working for Pharaoh Akhenaten.  It provides a very good picture of Egyptian life and beliefs, and uses the tension between the traditional Egyptian polytheism and Akhenaten's monotheism as the dramatic focus of the story. 

We are also reading A Child's History of the World by V. M. Hillyer.  We are a little behind the history memory-work, and I find that his concise, simply-worded summaries are a great way to remind us of what we have been studying.

We use the timeline figures from www.homeschoolinthewoods.com to create a wall timeline, and I have been using some of them with my 4th-5th grade class at co-op as well.  They can be printed in a variety of sizes, including a full-page coloring sheet.



My girls love completing the Latin Root word searches that Sandy shared with us last week.
 
I have always used Start Write software to create handwriting worksheets for my kids.  Since I didn't love the sheets provided by Schola Rosa, I have continued making my own, and I think this has really helped our poetry memorization.  Basically, on Sunday night I print out four copies for the week, and they copy the week's poetry memorization every day.

I also like the geography quizzes at www.lizardpoint.com.  They don't include everything on the CCMemory lists (deserts, for example!) but are a great quick and independent way for the kids to review countries and hydrography.

I supplement our math with the fact drills at www.xtramath.org, and on Ursula's recommendation just ordered the first book from the Life of Fred series.


So, what's been working for you?  I have already enlisted Sandy to do a post sharing all of her great music history and listening resources.  Share in the comments or send me an email and I can add you as an author to the blog.

Labels

Here are some ideas for labels, so that future generations of CCC moms (or, us... when we have memorized so much information we can no longer remember anything else) can look for helpful tips.  If your post doesn't fit into any of these, no label is fine, too.  Comment below with further suggestions if there is something we might post about regularly I missed.

Homemaking
Pre-school
History
Geography
Poetry
Grammar
Music
Science
Math
Timeline (for the videos of the signs)
Scripture
Catechesis
Teaching Memory Work
Other Homeschooling (in case someone wants to post about their phonics or math ideas, etc.)
Year One
Year Two
Year Three

So, as an example, if I found a great history resource for Ancient History, I might write a post up about it and label it History, Year One.  Down the road another mom could click on the label "Year One" and get all our notes and ideas.