Customer Reviews

The Story of the World Activity Book Three: Early Modern Times

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Coupled with the Story of the World text, the Activity Book has been the cornerstone of our somewhat reluctant venture into homeschooling. (We had a sudden overseas move and had to jump into homeschooling with little preparation.) Studying history has proven essentially effortless because the book and activities are so interesting that my 8-year-old begs to do her work. As non-religious academic types ourselves, we were wary of religious biases in the texts we chose for our kids; we've been very happy with the author's balanced treatment.

For the teaching parent, the lists of supplementary materials are invaluable -- exceptionally well-organized and researched, and the editors have been sure to include reading materials for different levels, which we have appreciated since it means we can easily include the 4-year-old in our stories. Every chapter includes review questions to test comprehension orally, then several worksheets which may include maps, coloring pages, and other activities. Many include recipes from the place and time being studied -- always a hit with the kids. All have worked well so far. The map work is a great follow-up as well, walking the student step-by-step through visual representations of different topics covered in the text (coloring the Triangular Trade route used by slave traders, for example). Although there's no way any student could complete all the suggested activities in a school year, I love the freedom of picking and choosing the activities that best suit and interest my daughter.

As suggested by the Activity Book, we're assembling all this work into a history notebook, a 3-ring binder full of my daughter's work. This serves the dual purpose of reminding her how much she's learned and giving us tangible proof of the homeschooling process. In short, this book has transformed us into homeschoolers and history buffs. Very useful.

My children (ages 6 and 14) studied through volumes 1 and 2 last year for our homeschool social studies curriculum. Volume 3 is everything we hoped for to extend our knowledge! The activity guides have proven to be a vital resource to cut some preparation time for lessons. In Volume 3 each chapter covers a slightly broader time frame, making it even more important to follow up the lesson with additional activities. We recommend Story of the World to all our homeschool friends.

I really love the Books. I have them all and they are so brilliantly written and engaging for my son. Makes planning activities for Social Studies so easy for me.
Thanks!

I would definitely recommend the activity books that go along with The Story of the World. Who's got the time to come up with activities right and left? The ideas are all right here along with excellent oral / discussion review questions and wonderful maps.

We have used years one and two and loved those so we are going through this set this year and still highly recommend this history series! Don't buy the book without the Activity Book.

I love the Story of the World series immensely and admired the activities and quality of Volumes I and II. I am disappointed with the quality of the illustrations and coloring activities in Volume III. Most of them are mediocre and some are very poor. My 8 year old found them to be too childlike and unprofessional. He could draw them himself.
Because of the quality of the curriculum I can't NOT recommend this book. I would however recommend getting some of the excellent historical coloring books by Tom Tierney and others to use in lieu of the coloring pages supplied in this book.
I hope the publishers can print a new edition using the same excellent illustrators that they used in thier first two volumes.

I think that it is great to have a book all organized with maps and activities to support the text. It helps the learning go beyond just hearing it. I think the retention is better with the added activities.

This is a wonderful book! My 9 year old girl loves the stories in this book. The question workbook is great to solidify what she has learned. Wonderful series of history books!

Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer is very nicely written. It's easy as a "read-aloud" book, but it's also easily read by a person of fifth grade reading level or above. It covers history throughout the world at the same time so that one gets a sense of what was happening while key events (to the reader) were occurring. I highly recommend it.

Like all Susan Bauer's book this one is great. It makes history exciting for kids.