Saturday, June 16, 2012

The Mystery of History Volume 2 Lesson Plan

You may remember my Lost in History post last fall when I decided to scrap our entire history plan and start something new.  Well, I'm glad we made the switch.  This week we finished the MOH Vol. 2 and it worked out well for our family.

I must admit I was leery at first given MOH is known for following the classical method of education.  However, it was very easy to morph into Charlotte Mason.  We mostly used MOH as a spine, adding great literature/living books to our study.  RileyAnn kept a history notebook, but we didn't do many of the suggested projects.   Keep in mind we spent the first 15 weeks of the school year studying Ancient Rome and the life of Jesus Christ with our original plan.  You can find those plans/resources here.

MOH Vol. 2 is a study of the early church and the middle ages.  There were a few lessons that overlapped, but I took it as review.  The following is a loose plan of how and what books I added to our MOH study....


 Mystery of History
 Added Resources
Lesson 1 - Pentecost and the First Followers of Jesus  
Vos Story Bible Ch 57-63
Lesson 2 - Saul, Who is Also Called Paul 
Vos Ch 64-68
Lesson 3 - Paul's Missionary Journeys 
Vos Ch 69-72
Lesson 4 - Nero 
Vos Ch 73-74 
Lesson 5 - Martyrs of the Early Church
Vos Ch 75-76 

Lesson 6 - Josephus

Lesson 7 - Masada
Vos Ch 77-80 - Exploring Ancient Cities of the Bible
8 - Dead Sea Scrolls
Vos Ch 81 - Grew Salt Crystals  
9 - The Buried City of Pompeii
Vos Ch 82 - Pompeii....Buried Alive 
10 - Bar-Kokhba
Vos Ch 83 
11 - The Apostle's Creed
Vos Ch 84 - memorize the Creed
12 - St. Valentine
Vos Ch 85-86 - St. Valentine's Day 
13 - Diocletian Divides the Roman Empire
Vos Ch 87
14 - Constantine I and the Edict of Milan
Vos Ch 88 
15 - The Golden Age of India 
India: The Culture, The People, The Land
16 - The Maya 
Vos Ch 89 - The Mystery of the Maya: Uncovering the Lost City... 
17 - St. Augustine of Hippo
Vos Ch 90 
18 - The Holy Bible and the Vulgate of Jerome
Vos Ch 91 - St. Jerome and the Lion 
19 - St. Patrick of Ireland
Vos Ch 92 - St. Patrick's Day 
20 - Attila the Hun

21 - Fall of Western Roman Empire
Vos Ch 93 
22 - Daily Life in the Dark Ages 
The Sword in the Tree 
A Medieval Feast
23 - King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
Favorite Medieval Tales
24 - Justinian I and Theodora, Byzantine Empire

25 - Columba, Missionary to Scotland
Across a Dark and Wild Sea
Marguerite Makes a Book 
26 - Early Japan and Prince Shotoku

27 - Gregory the Great 
Augustine Came to Kent 
28 - The Sui and Tang Dynasties of China

29 - Mohammed and the Birth of Muslims 

30 - The Spread of Islam
Saladin - started reading, but didn't finish 
31 - Wu Zetian, Empress of China 

32 - The Epic of Beowulf 
Favorite Medieval Tales
Saint George and the Dragon 
33 - Al-Andalus....Medieval Spain 

34 - St. Boniface, Apostle to Germany

35 - The Iconoclast Controversy 

36 - Charles "Martel" and the Battle of Tours

37 - Charlemagne
Favorite Medieval Tales
Charlemagne  
38 - The Thousand and One Nights: Tales from Arabia

39 - Invasion of the Vikings 
Viking Adventure
DK Vikings 
40 - The Vikings....

42 - Alfred the Great, King of England 

43 - Lydveldid Island (Iceland) 

47 - Otto I and the Holy Roman Empire 
(you might consider Grimm's Fairy Tales, which we'd read in the past) 
48 - Vladimer I of Russia 

51 - Eric the Red and the Settlement of Greenland 
Eric the Red & Leif the Lucky 
52 - Leif Ericcson Discovers America
Beorn the Proud 
53 -  Macbeth King of Scotland

55 - William the Conqueror & the Battle of Hastings

56 - Pope Gregory VII, Henry IV & The Investiture Controversy  
The Minstrel in the Tower 
57 - The Early Crusades


59 - Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of Two Nations 

60 - The Jews of the Middle Ages 

61 - Richard the Lionhearted, Saladin and the 3rd Crusade
Coat of Arms
The Making of a Knight: How Sir James Earned His Armor 
Created a Coat of Arms
62 - The Classic Tale of Robin Hood 
Favorite Medieval Tales
(you might consider Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest, which we'd read in the past)  
64 - St. Francis of Assisi, St. Clara and St. Dominic 
Brother Francis and the Friendly Beast 
65- The Children's Crusade
The Pied Piper of Hamelin  
66 - King John and the Magna Carta
Castle Diary: The Journal of Tobias Burgess, Page
Magna Carta 
69 - Roger Bacon

70 - The Great Khans and the Mongol Invasion of China 
(you might consider The King and His Hawk as retold by James Baldwin, which we'd read in the past) 
71 - Marco Polo Travels East 
Marco Polo 
72 - Sir William Wallace, Sir Robert the Bruce, "Bravehearts" of Scotland 
 The Door in the Wall 
74 - The Aztecs 
 Kingfisher Aztecs & Incas (1st half)
75 - The Hundred Years' War 

76 - The Black Death of Europe 

77 - The Ming Dynasty of China & the Forbidden City 
Little Pear 
78 - John Wycliffe, "Morning Star of the Reformation"  

79 - Geoffrey Chaucer & The Canterbury Tales
Chanticleer and the Fox
Favorite Medieval Tales
80 - John Huss 

81 - Life and Death of Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc - didn't finish - we've read other books about Joan of Arc in the past
82 - The Inkas of South America
Kingfisher Aztecs & Incas (2nd half) 
83 - The Ottoman Turks Take Constantinople 

84 - Johannes Gutenberg Invents the Printing Press
Fine Print - didn't finish - we've read other books about Gutenberg in the past 

You might notice that we skipped a few lessons throughout.  Since I was using this primarily for 1st and 2nd grade, there were some lessons I felt unnecessary or over their head at this point.  However, if you are using this with older students, say 4th and up, I wouldn't recommend skipping lessons.  The suggested activities and mapwork would be more pertinent with older students as well.  

We do keep a timeline and have since the beginning of our history study starting with creation and ancient Mesopotamia.  I like the Sonlight Book of Time for this.  It's an easy to store spiral bound book.  We use timeline figures from Homeschool in the Woods.   

RileyAnn also completed History Pockets Ancient Civilizations by Evan Moor.  

History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations, Grades 1-3

It's intended for grades 1-3 and covers: 

What is History?
Ancient Mesopotamia
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Greece
Ancient Rome
Ancient China
Ancient Aztec World

We spread it out over the two years we covered these early civilizations.  She ended up with a really neat ancient civilization portfolio.  I may blog about it at anther time.  

I recommend The Mystery of History by Linda Lacour Hobar.  We plan to continue with Vol. 3 in the fall.   

6 comments:

  1. Looks fantastic! Thanks for the link, going to follow would love a follow back. Have you looked at Illuminations to use with MOH? My older kiddo is using that for his literature, and I really love the study guides that go with it! Some of our choices are because my older son had guides for reading alone and it overlapped with the younger kid schedule as well. Looks like a fun year! Looking forward to seeing what you put together for year 3. :)

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  2. Thanks for your suggestion Dalynn :) God Bless, Melissa

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  3. Thank you for this post. I appreciate having the list of added resources.

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  4. Replies
    1. The Child's Story Bible by Catherine Vos - This is an excellent way to present the Bible for early elementary children :)

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