The Activity Book for each volume of The Story of the World has two parts.
- The first part is the Instructor Guide; each teacher needs a copy of this book.
- The second part contains the Student Pages, which can be copied/printed for each student in your home, or you can purchase additional sets from our store. For classroom or group instruction, purchase a copy of the Student Pages for each student, or purchase a license to reproduce the pages.
The following suggestions will help you use the Activity Books to enrich your student's understanding of The Story of the World. Use the suggestions to suit your family. You need not use every assignment with every child – indeed, you should not. Instead, choose the assignments and activities appropriate to each child's age, development, interest, and ability.
If you are working with intermediate students, grades 5-8, check out these additional suggestions.
Read one section from The Story of the World to your child. Longer chapters are divided into smaller sections, each appropriate for one session of history. Good readers can read the section to you instead. Intermediate students can read independently, as assigned.
Review Questions: These test the student’s comprehension. Elementary students should answer these questions orally; intermediate students can write their answers. The student should answer without looking at the book and in complete sentences (if possible). This is training in reading comprehension (and it will help you evaluate whether the child is listening with attention and whether he’s really understanding what he’s reading). The Activity Book gives you some suggested responses, but you should accept any reasonable answer. You can also make up your own questions.
Older students can write their responses independently on paper or on the computer. To save some time and effort, we created Review Question Worksheets PDF, one for each volume, which are available from our store. The questions are already typed for you, and we left plenty of lined space for your student’s response. The suggested responses are in the Activity Book.
Narration Exercise: Ask the student to tell you in two to five sentences what the history lesson was about. Use the Questions for Review as prompts. Encourage the child to include the major facts from the history reading, but not every fact. We have supplied sample narrations simply to give some idea of acceptable answers. Write the narration until the student can write it independently. You can instead ask a young child to draw a picture of her favorite part of the history lesson and then describe the picture to you. Write the description beneath the picture. Put the narration or the picture in a History Notebook—a looseleaf binder that will serve as the child’s record of her history study.
Additional Reading and Activities: The Activity Books provides titles of books that you can find at your library for additional history reading. When you reach a topic that has a wealth of interesting books and activities connected to it, stop and enjoy yourself; don’t feel undue pressure to move on. The recommended titles range in difficulty from books for reading aloud to first graders to advanced books appropriate for fourth graders and older students to read independently. When appropriate, ask the child to draw pictures, to narrate, or to complete brief outlines about the additional reading as well. Put these pictures and narrations into the History Notebook. This should begin to resemble the child’s own one-volume history of the world. Don’t ask the child to narrate every book or she’ll grow frustrated; use this as occasional reinforcement for a topic she finds particularly interesting. Because students from a wide range of grades will be using the Activity Books, we have tried to provide a range of activities, appropriate for different levels. Some are more appropriate for younger students; others will require more in-depth thought. Select the projects most appropriate for you and your students.
Maps: Almost every section has an accompanying map activity. Instruct the student using the provided information. The corresponding blank map is in the Student Pages section; an answer key showing the correct, completed map is in the back of the Instructor Guide.
Encyclopedia Cross-references: The appropriate pages in The Kingfisher Illustrated History of the World, The Kingfisher History Encyclopedia (revised), The Usborne Book of World History, and The Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History are listed for you.
Recommended Literature Lists: Choose appropriate titles from the list and read these with your child. Classical philosophy discourages the use of “reading textbooks” which contain little snippets of a number of different works. These textbooks tend to turn reading into a chore – an assignment that has to be finished – rather than a wonderful way to learn more about the world. Instead of following a “reading program,” consider using the “real books” from these literature lists. Following each title is a range of grades showing the appropriate reading level. (RA=read aloud, IR=independent read)
Review Cards: Every four chapters, use one of your history class times to prepare your history review cards. Photocopy (or print from the PDF) the history cards – use card stock for longer-lasting cards – and cut them out; have the student color the picture. Review the cards once or twice a week to review material already covered.
Check out this FAQ to learn more about The Story of the World family of titles.