Right before we started the school year I sat down with my planner to map out our block schedule. The past two years we have done a block schedule where we focus on only history or science for six weeks at a time, rather than both at the same time. This has greatly helped us have time to focus and dive deeper into our topics, and less overwhelming for me to not have to cover everything at once.
We started our school year with learning science for the first six weeks, and after our break week, we will jump into history for the next six weeks.
We originally planned to use Curiosity Chronicles to study the medieval era this school year. However, as I started diving into the curriculum to map out our year, I realized it wasn’t covering a lot of what I was hoping to cover. It also is a pretty heavy 36 week curriculum, so breaking it into six week blocks would have been a LOT of work weekly. I ultimately decided we wanted more of a focus on European history during the medieval ages, not full world history during the medieval ages.
So after much thought, I tossed Curiosity Chronicles aside and decided it wasn’t going to work for us. (I still think it is a great curriculum! Just wasn’t covering what I wanted it to for now.) I was back to the drawing board researching tons of different history curriculums and had a very hard time trying to find one I liked. Of course in the end, I came up with a collection of different things that we will use this school year and I’m REALLY excited! I have some fun ideas in mind!
Today I’ll be sharing the materials we will be using together and a rough idea of how we will use them in our weekly schedule. If it turns out great, I might be putting my specific lesson plans into a guide that will be available next school year for you to use also, as well as projects, etc.! *Stay tuned!
My goal was to incorporate a history spine, fun read alouds, map work, notebooking, and hands-on projects. I’ll be doing that with a combination of these things:
Story of the World
Story of the World Volume 2: The Middle Ages will be our history spine. These giant read alouds haven’t been our favorite in the past but I think Story of the World has a great explanation of events throughout history, and shorter chapters haha! We have a physical copy if my kids would like to follow along, but we will mostly be using the audiobook all together. Here is the FREE playlist on YouTube. We also won’t be covering every chapter in this book. Some topics we already covered heavily in unit studies, like Vikings and exploration, and we aren’t focusing on other countries, like in the Middle East or Asia, so will be skipping those chapters as well. I’ve gone through and pieced together the chapters we need and hope to cover two chapters per week.
I do have the activity/teachers guide that goes with Story of the World but we aren’t using most of it. The only thing I’m using from it is the map work that corresponds with each chapter and maybe the discussion questions after we read.
I also bought these giant post-it notes that we will use to take notes while we read; jotting down major events or people for each chapter. We will be able to use these later in the week for reference as we notebook.
The Usborne Medieval World will be our reference book for more information and photos. 
Nat Geo Kids How to Survive in the Age of Knights by Jamie Joyce is another fun book we will read through also!
Teatime Together Sheets
This is such a great resource to piece with our Story of the World book! The Middle Ages Tea Time Set includes one page front and back (for 24 weeks) with an artist study, poetry/literature, short biography, fun facts, a simple activity, and discussion questions along the way. I have paired each weekly spread to go along with our chapters in Story of the World. This is a great addition to add an artist study, quick biography, and I know my kids will love the weird but true facts!
This PDF resource also comes with a great book list for all ages and movie/videos to watch on certain topics. *I printed these at home on cardstock paper.
Geography
As we are learning all about the Middle Ages we will be also be studying all the countries in Europe and where they are located. We love these geography cards from The Good and the Beautiful and have them in our Book Basket. We go over and review a few cards each week to memorize where each European country is located.
*Grab this geography card set while it’s on sale and while supplies last!! They are being discontinued!
We also have this book Draw Europe (Draw the World) by Kristin Draeger. It teaches you to draw Europe’s countries and continents through step-by-step instructions. As you learn to draw, it helps commit the map to memory. My kids will probably use this book to draw while we are listening to our Story of the World chapters.
Read Alouds
There are so many great books covering this time period that I really wanted to read as many as we could together. My kids really do learn best through these rich stories and remember them the most. I narrowed it down to these six books. We hope to read three for our fall semester and three in the spring. These are the books we will be reading:
The Door in the Wall by Marguerite De Angel
Castle Diary: The Journal of Tonia Burgess by Richard Platt
Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray
The Adventures of Robin Hood (Classic Starts) retold by Howard Pyle
Mice of the Round Table: A Tail of Camelot by Julie Leung
I Survived: The Black Death by Lauren Tarshish
Since my daughter is an avid reader, I also got her some additional books I know she would enjoy reading on her own:
Catherine Called Birdy by Karen Cushman
The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman
Girlhood Journey’s: Juliet by Anna Kirwan
The Inquisitor’s Tale: or The Three Magicial Children and Their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz
and not pictured- Royal Diaries Eleanor: Queen Jewel of Acquitaine by Kristiana Gregory
Reading Activities: Lego
Ok, so sharing all of that so far, it is a lot of reading! To keep my kids hands busy while we read or listen to our chapters each week, I got them this giant Medieval Lego Castle! I surprised them with it on the first day to kick off our studies and they were so excited! The only catch is they are only allowed to build it while we are doing our readings. Hopefully this will make them more eager to get to our readings each day, haha! Once the castle is completed, they can play and re-enact any of our stories. I also got THIS set of accessories (armor, weapons, horses, etc.) for their lego people.
Medieval Costumes Coloring Book: I also got this coloring book for my daughter to color as we are reading. There are also coloring pages available in the Story of the World activity guide.
This Draw and Write Through History book covers the Vikings, Middle Ages, and Renaissance. We love to use these for our notebooking (which I’m sharing next.) It helps you draw different things with step-by-step instructions and has great copywork if needed (in cursive!)
Notebooking
Notebooking is my favorite thing to do for history studies! It helps my kids retain information so well and is our favorite keepsake to look back on! It is also something that everyone can do and be tailored to their own abilities. More information on how to complete note booking HERE!
At the end of each week, I’ll have my kids choose one thing they found most interesting from our readings to complete a notebook page on. This is where our giant post-it notes will come in handy so we can refer back to all the things we covered and chat about what they would like to do. They each draw and paint/color a picture in their notebooks and then write about what they learned. Younger grades only write 2-3 sentences and older grades write a full paragraph. When they are completed, my kids love to share their work with each other.
Link to the notebooks we are using this year. Our favorite watercolor sets.
Projects
Of course if you know me, I have a few fun projects and crafts we will be doing along the way as well! I’ll share them along the way on my Instagram!
History Gal Resources
If you don’t wish to purchase the Story of the World teachers guide but still want to work on map work, the History Gal has great resources with lots of great maps. There are also a few fun resources/simulations we might use throughout the year: Will Your Kingdom Survive? Medieval Life, Review Bingo, This or That Review Game.
Additional Fun Resources
Here are some more fun additions to make your learning come to life! I might be using some of these for Christmas gift ideas for my kids!
Weekly schedule:
With all these amazing resources together it can seem a bit overwhelming on how to put them into our days and create a routine for our lessons. Below is my idea for how we will complete everything each week during our history block. I’ll definitely update as we go how this is working out.
Monday: Story of the World chapter, taking notes, corresponding map work
Tuesday: Story of the World chapter, taking notes, corresponding map work
Wednesday: Teatime Together pages- 2 per week to match up with our SOTW chapters. Begin notebooking page.
Thursday-Friday: Complete notebooking page, work on any projects or crafts.
*Every week we will work on our geography cards and read our read aloud chapter book. We usually read our read aloud during lunch, after dinner, or before bed.
Those are our new history plans for the school year! It took a ton of planning and research to figure it out, but I think this is what will work best for us and we are so excited to get started! It may seem like a lot all together, but I think will actually be way more laid back than I originally planned before the school year started.
Be sure to follow my Instagram stories as I love to share bits and pieces of our days, as well as book reviews and tips along the way!
Wishing you a great school year,
– Lindsay
This sounds like a great study! Another fun thing is you just purchase a pdf of the student pages or just coloring pages from the well trained mind website for SOTW, if you don’t want the whole teachers guide.
Yes! Great to know!
This is what we do too, except every time we revisit a history cycle, we use a different spine. We rotate between SOTW and Story of Civilization. A super fun medieval history thing to do is to watch the David Macaulay videos on Castles and Cathedrals. You can find them on YouTube. They go so well with his books. We are also doing a field trip to our local cathedral and to a local monastery. Medieval year is so fun!
We are going to be visiting a castle and cathedral when we study them too! So exciting!
How fun! I want to go to school at your house! 🙂 I was one of the contributors to the STOW Activity Book years ago (like over two decades)…so it thrills my heart when I see people still enjoying it today!
That’s so great!!
I would totally be interested in a guide that puts all these things together. Sounds like exactly what I’m looking for!