Ancient Egypt and Her Neighbors – Comments!

I thought I would share how we used this book today because it’s not the traditional read from beginning to end (though we plan to get there sooner or later). We are using Mystery of History as our spine right now and so we simply have a story to read about 2-3 pages long a few days per week. Today we were introduced to Ancient China and the Shang Dynasty. My kids were interested and wanted to know more so I flipped open Ancient Egypt and Her Neighbors to see if there was a chapter on China. There was of course, and we learned so many neat things we didn’t know, including things about how they used turtle shells with a picture my kids loved seeing. It also pulled together some things we did know/have experience with related to China. So neat!

Remember, I have seven little ones from 1 year old up to 11 years old and we had already read our history before I opened this book. The story kept them ALL engaged the whole time (well, the 1 year old may have been busy with the crayon he was tasting, but you get the idea…). Even the 2yo listened to the story.

I was struck by how much richer Ancient Egypt and Her Neighbors is for a topic than Mystery of History. Don’t get me wrong, MOH is working pretty well and the short readings fit my whole family’s age range, but the short chapters only make a few points before it’s done. Compare that with AE&HN chapter today. My children were oriented to the geography of China, the Yellow River, they met real people who lived, heard of discoveries they made, how the wrote, compared it to our own day, and heard about a power hungry man who became the first Emperor but who ultimately shaped China into a single nation. I know my older three were able to soak in so many details from this one short chapter that were missing from MOH’s overview style.

Thank you for wonderful living books SCM!

Now I have to go line up the rest of AE&HN chapters to MOH so I know when to read from it!