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And Wonder Book or The Golden Fleece?
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My library has A Wonder Book, but not The Golden Fleece. Which do your children prefer? Did you read it as a read aloud or as assigned reading? I am thinking we’ll start mod 2 in about four weeks. We used the Bible portion of Mod 1, and parts of the rest. My boys bored of Egypt really fast — granted the older covered Egypt well in public school, so I feel fine moving on. Also, I’ve seen many are not enjoying Famous Men of Rome or A Child’s Geography Volunteer 2. Any alternate suggestions? I will need to place an order this week.
Well, The Golden Fleece is a story of Jason and the Argonauts on their adventure to get the Golden Fleece from the King who owns it. During the voyage, many stories are told within the adventures of Greek Mythology. It has really long chapters. It is very good, but I thought hard to read aloud and stay on schedule due to the length. I got the Audible version, but it is set up to listen to per disc, not chapter. Rather annoying. 😉 However, the book lingers quite a bit in adventurous stories that we generally don’t hear a lot of details about – your boys may like it for that.
I have made it about halfway through A Wonder Book. It is told by Nathaniel Hawthorne and it about a group of cousins who gather together during their family excursions and tease their older cousin (who is in college or higher education) to tell them stories. Apparently he is a master story teller – and as he tells the stories of the Greek myths, you understand why. These are complete stories, and yet are not as long as the ones in The Golden Fleece.
They are both excellent. But (for my girls) I wish that I had chosen to read A Wonder Book and the companion book Tanglewood Tales instead of The Golden Fleece. A Wonder Book appeals to me in several ways – the stories are easily read-aloud; they stop at the end of a chapter, and there is less wallowing around (so far) in all the false gods. Turns out that one of my dd is extremely offended by the false gods and has a hard time getting around that idea to what we are trying to show or explain. My girls prefer A Wonder Book, btw.
About the alternative to the Famous Men of Greece (or Rome), I recently read several spines as I attempted to find a comprehensive history of Greece. I have enjoyed and written our Greek study about The Story of Greece by Mary MacGregor and read The Story of the Greeks. They are very similar and cover the same events. My dds liked the opening chapters of The Story of Greece so we are using it. Here is a link to how I set up our studies utilizing what I have (mainly the Yesterdays Classics collection, the Famous Men of Greece (it makes sense when put in the history of the spine) and the Homeschool in the Woods timeline figures). Here is a link:
http://mysouldothdelight.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/the-story-of-greece-study-guide/
and a link to the book is here:
http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=macgregor&book=greece&story=_contents
The Story of the Greeks has been revised by Christine Miller and is available here: http://www.nothingnewpress.com/greeks.html
Either of those give a great, easily understood with short chapters, comprehensive history of Greece. You will find the same thing for your Ancient Rome studies. Either The Story of Rome by Mary MacGregor or The Story of the Romans will be a great way to study that time period.
I am still using the countries listed in the Child’s Geography, but I look up YouTube videos, DVD’s and books from the library to help make it more fun and visual. A great resource for that is some of the videos (we’ve watched online) from Drive Thru History.
HTH
Should’ve mentioned that with either The Story of Greece or The Story of the Greeks, you totally can go from one chapter to the next and just do the next thing. The dates are included in the stories (generally) if you want to use those for your timeline/BOC. It would take a great deal of stress and planning off your shoulders to just do the next chapter until you are done! I found myself interested enough to read two chapters at a time, and they are still short enough to not bog down your day.
Thanks. I can get it at the library and as a free download on my playbook. Sheraz, thanks for the other suggestions re Men of Greece, etc.
My daughter read the wonder book and my son and I are reading the Golden Fleece together
If you can find a copy of a child’s geography I highly recommend it! It is one of our favorite books. Her writing style and descriptions make you feel as if you are transported directly to the land you are studying. The pictures are amazing and really show you what the nations are like. She also has wonderful activities to go along with each nation. And even food ideas. We like to have a cultural day and eat a meal using foods from the nation we are finishing. Then during the meal discuss what we have learned
Please give this delightful book a try you might find it to be a favorite! 😀
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