FORGOT YOUR DETAILS?

The Old Schoolhouse® Product & Curriculum Reviews

With so many products available we often need a little help in making our curriculum choices. The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine family understands because we are in the same boat! Do you need more information on a product before you buy? With over 5,500 products listed in 52 easy-to-use categories, much of the information you need to know is only a click away! Let our reviewer-families help yours.
Do you want to get the word out about your product or service to the homeschool community? Email Jenny Higgins and share a little about what you´d like showcased, and we can help with that!

All Through the Ages Review by Amanda Hopkins and Kate Kessler

History through Literature Guide
Christine Miller
Nothing New Press
P.O. Box 18335
Sarasota, FL 34276
http://www.nothingnewpress.com/

Learning comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes you have the children who crave worksheets, other times you have the child who just wants to read a book. If you have the latter, like me, you will find that All Through the Ages: History Through Literature Guide is the perfect way to make history learning fun!

My family loves history, the adventure packed, what is around the next corner type of history. Not the boring, dry, textbook history. We love to live in the moment of the history we are learning about. The only way to do that, is to ditch the textbook and find the living history books that make the history come to life for us.

Now, we could do this by looking up books at the library. I could proof read them, see if they fit our standards, age groups and time periods. But this takes time, time that I don’t have when I have four kids at home that want to learn. Four kids who I want to keep that desire for learning burning, no matter what.

Christine Miller and Nothing New Press have taken all the dirty work out of finding books for me with All Through the Ages: History Through Literature Guide. With this guide, I am able to look up the time period, narrow down the age group and find the books my family will love to learn from when it comes to their history lessons!

We are currently using this book in two different ways. Yes, one book, two ways. The first way, with my high school student. He has a set curriculum that he is using, but I am able to look up the time period, his grade and find books for him to read to go along with what he is learning. This is a great way for him to see the boring, dry, textbook history brought to life.

The other way we are using this book is as a base for our core curriculum for our third and first graders. We can find the time period they are studying and their ages. After that, we have a great list of books to read that will bring out the best adventures that they need to know at this age.

This one book, gives me names of books to read, or have my children read, from creation and the antediluvian world all the way up through the modern era. Not only that, but we also get geographical history of the top countries in the world. There is even small sections of books that cover the History of Science and Mathematics, History of the Visual Arts and Music, and Great Books of Western Civilization and the Christian Tradition.

Most of the books listed in this book can be found in your local library or within the common homeschool catalogs. There are codes listed after every book that tell the source where that book came from. Having this information will help you find the book if you can’t find it at your local library.

From this one book, I have found what I need to help supplement my high schoolers curriculum and make a base for my elementary school children’s history lessons. This one book will be well used and on my shelf for many years to come. I won’t stop using it after one year. This has all I need to allow my kids to learn from for many years to come! This is not just one year, but numerous years’ worth of learning for not only one, but multiple students in your homeschool!

I fell in love with this book so much that this is my go to book. I could not make our history lessons fun and engaging without it! When planning my lessons, I grab this book first and go to my library to request the books we need for our lessons. Because of this book, our history lessons are personal, they are fun and they capture the attention of our children in a way that leaves them with a desire to learn more!

—Product review by Amanda Hopkins, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, October, 2017

All Through the Ages

History through Literature Guide

Christine Miller

There are resource books and then there are those that call themselves resource books. All Through the Ages is a resource book so complete in its scope it is simply without equal. Far more than "a glorified list of books," to quote the author, this is a complete guide on what to use to teach history at any level. Before the lists begin we are treated with a fascinating group of essays on the study of history. How to Use this Book, On Pre-History, Creation, and Evolution, Teaching History Chronologically, Using Literature to Teach History, Help! I Hate History, History Scope and Sequence, On the Use of Real Books in the Elementary and Secondary Levels are not only worthwhile reading, but interesting and informative. Mrs. Miller's writing style is appealing and her interest in the subject evident and contagious.

Divided into sections of history or time periods, All Through the Ages starts with an Overview of Western Civilization and then Creation and the pre-Diluvian World begins our march through time chronologically. Also included sporadically throughout the book are essays, notes on the various time periods, and thorough timelines. Each section of time or historical era is then broken down into the following categories:

  • Resources for all ages
  • Reading levels 1-3 (beginning/easy readers corresponding to 1st through 3rd grades)
  • Reading levels 4-6 (for fluent readers corresponding to 4th through 6th grades)
  • Reading levels 7-9 (for maturing readers corresponding to 7th through 9th grades)
  • Reading levels 10-12 (for college-bound readers corresponding to 10th through 12th grades)

Mrs. Miller makes special mention that these levels are "independent reading ability only" and do not necessarily correspond to level of understanding or enjoyment. Both my first grader and I understand and enjoy our history read aloud, but she is not yet able to read it herself. Within the Reading Levels listed above they are then divided into smaller sections. An example of this follows:

Ancient Near East:

Resources for All Ages
1-3 Overview of the era
Specific Events
Literature
Culture
4-6 Overview of the era
Specific Events
(Inserted here in the book is her essay on Nimrod's False Religion and the Rise of Paganism.)
Biography
Historical Fiction
Literature
Culture
7-9 Overview of the era
Specific Events
Historical Fiction
Literature
Culture
10-12 Overview of the era
(Inserted here is an essay on the Tower of Babel and the Table of Nations from the three sons of Noah from Genesis 10-11.)
Specific Events
Historical Fiction
Literature

This section closes with an essay entitled Ancient Chronologies, a Timeline of the Ancient Near East, and then ends with Ancient Chaldea (Sumeria, Babylonia). Lest you think this is only an ancient history resource, let me put your mind at rest! This valuable resource goes all the way up through the modern era to the year 2000.

All Through the Ages is not only a history resource, but includes large sections on Geographical History, and then other sections on the History of Science and Mathematics, History of the Arts, Great Books of Western Civilization and the Christian Tradition, History of the Great Discussion, History or Literature, History of Poetry, and the History of Drama. One of the handiest aspects to this book is the thorough Index in the back of the book and the helpful Bibliography. I am generally not a person who feels that owning many resource books is a necessity. All Through the Ages, however, is one that is worthwhile in every sense of the word for the comprehensive coverage it provides to families searching for excellence along their journey through time.



--Product Review by: Kate Kessler, Product Reviews Manager, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine

TOP