History Review Days

We've been accomplishing a great deal these past few school weeks.  We've ironed out the last of the new work assignments, got into the groove of doing diligent school work every day (except Tuesdays, when I've been bottling).  We've read and laughed and  . . . not laughed.  

Since it had been awhile since we focused our attention on history, I decided to do a bit of review.  We started with a large review timeline.  I wanted something the kids could manipulate.  It took a bit of jogging their memories, but eventually the timeline took shape.  Obviously, since this timeline covered the history of the world since the creation to the end of the Middle Ages, I really limited the events to the highlights. 

We also read some books to review.  One of our favorites was Joan of Arc by Diane Stanley.

We also really liked The Silk Route: 7,000 Miles of History by John S. Major.

We read those books, and a few others, to review what was going on in the world and to set the stage for the major world exploration we studied next.  I wanted the kids to understand how Europe received goods from China and India and how the balance of power and prices changed when Islamic empires shut down the overland trade route.  We read a little bit about Marco Polo and then we did one of my favorite things.  We mapped.

The purpose of the map was to remind the children of basic divisions of power in Europe going into the Age of Exploration when things started changing fast.  We also looked at a map of Asia and Africa, but I couldn't find a good outline map for those areas.  

Here's a linky for the maps we did use: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch2en/conc2en/img/silkroad.png; 

http://whi.weebly.com/uploads/6/6/6/1/6661760/2103871_orig.jpg

Lastly, we made individual, and slightly more detailed, timelines on calculating machine paper.  I love that stuff for timelines.

There are lots of places online that offer a highly simplified overview of world history.  I used one of those sites as a reference when choosing the events for the timeline.  Mostly I wanted to remind my kids of things we spent time on in the hopes it would all come back to them.  It did--for Miriam at least.

Here's what is included on Miriam's timeline:

Timeline Events:

8000 BC: beginning of farming

3100 BC: Egypt is ruled by pharaohs

3000 BC: Sumerian civilization began; cuneiform writing

2000 BC: First Chinese dynasty

1200 BC: Oldest known civilization in the Americas, Olmecs

800 BC: Greek city-states formed, democracy explored

776 BC: First Olympic games

550 BC: Cyrus forms the Persian dynasty

334 BC: Alexander the Great conquers his empire

27 BC: Roman way of life spreads throughout the Roman Empire—mightiest empire in the ancient world

AD 33: Jesus is crucified

AD 410: Barbarians plunder Rome marks the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire

AD 527: Justinian 1 becomes Byzantine Emperor

AD 622: Muhammad starts religion of Islam

AD 814: Charlemagne unites much of Europe, starts the Holy Roman Empire

AD 900: Viking Age

AD 1066: Battle of Hastings; William the Conqueror defeats the Saxons

AD 1099: First Crusade

AD 1279: Kublai Khan conquers China

AD 1298: Marco Polo publishes his adventures

AD 1347: Black Death arrives in Europe

Here's a video that might also be valuable if you are reviewing.  http://www.historycentral.com/dates/Overviewhistory.html  It is a link to a 15 minute video that discusses all major world events through AD 1500.

And that was the first two days of history of the new school year!