The Story of the World

The way The Well-Trained Mind sets up the study of history makes so much sense. The study is broken up by into four periods of time:

1. Ancient Times--from the earliest nomads to the Last Roman Emperor
2. The Middle Ages: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance
3. Early Modern Times
4. The Modern Age: From Victoria's Empire to the End of the USSR

These books are written by Susan Wise Bauer, co-author of The Well-Trained Mind, and are what they say they are: stories of history.

The Well-Trained Mind suggests studying Ancient Times in first grade, again in fifth grade but more in depth and then again in ninth grade, but by then mostly by writing papers and essays. So under that same idea, the middle ages would be grades 2,6 and 10. Early Modern Times would be 3rd, 7th, 11th. Then the modern age would be 4th, 8th, 12th.

This just makes sense in my brain. Especially because we did units all over the place in time frames when I was in school. We'd go from ancient Greece to the Holocaust to Texas history to the middle ages. I think that's about all we learned in history.