Medieval History Resources

We have been having a great time with our study of Medieval History. Our two main resources are Story of the World Volume 2 by Susan Wise Bauer and also Our Island Story from H.E. Marshall. We have the CD set for SOTW and we listen to OIS on Librivox.org. I really like using these resources together because SOTW tells us what is going on all over the world in a very factual narrative while OIS tells the story of only England. OIS is a wonderful book with shorter chapters which are perfect for narration and while it tells many pertinent historical facts, it is a literary work, a story, and so contains many references to things which are fanciful.

Anyway, Caleb is also supplementing with Famous Men of the Middle Ages and also select chapters from Bullfinch's Mythology. We have read several picture book versions of Arthurian legends by Hudson Tallbot and will also be using King Arthur, Tales of the Round Table by Andrew Lang to fill in the gaps.

They are dressing up as Knights of the Round Table for Halloween and so have been designing their shields and coat of arms in their sketchbooks while they listen to When Knights Were Bold by Eva March Tappan which we also listen to on Librivox.org.

Caleb has always loved reading anything about King Arthur and I would love to entice him to write down what he knows about all of this because I know there is a lot to work with in his brain. Hmmmmm.... if I can think of a way for him to think it's his idea it might work!

Also a few websites that we have looked at or are in the process of looking at (so I can't personally vouch for them yet!) are here, here and here.

Other titles for Independent Reading:

Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray

The Door in the Wall by Marguerite De Angeli

Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle

Son of Charlemagne by Barbara Willard

Big John's Secret by Eleanor Myers Jewett

The Crispin Series by Avi

The Story of Rolf and the Viking Bow by Allen French

Wulf the Saxon and The Boy Knight by G.A. Henty

The Eagle and the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliffe (she has many titles from the time of the Roman occupation of Britain)

The Sword in the Tree by Clyde Robert Bulla