Hi friends! As most of you know we’re trying out a new history curriculum this year. So today I’ll be sharing our review of the Story of the World homeschool history curriculum. The Story of the World is a classical based curriculum written by Susan Wise Bauer. It is considered a read-aloud style curriculum meant to be used with elementary students and includes several hands-on projects and activities as well. You can also use it with grades 5-8 as an independent study as well.
Watch my video review for the Story of the World history curriculum here:
Where to buy:
Of course you can purchase the Story of the World just about anywhere. I tend to buy online and used if possible. You’ll want to get the student reading text (available in print or on kindle for less!) along with the accompanying activity book. This does include the student workbook pages as well. There are also audio versions available which are nice too!
Current versions available are:
- Story of the World vol.: 1 Ancient Times
- Story of the World vol.: 2 The Middle Ages
- Story of the World vol.: 3 Early Modern Times
- Story of the World vol.: 4 The Modern Age
Our thoughts:
So far we are really enjoying this curriculum. We’re currently doing it as a read-a-loud since I’m using it with three of my kiddos. It would also be great as an independent study for older kids grades 5-8. Then you could just ask them the questions after they’ve read. Like I mention in the video with the ages of my kids, we’re finding the student activity pack to be way too easy and so we skip it most days.
The curriculum is also full of fun projects as well. We do some here and there, but you definitely have to read ahead to make sure you have supplies on hand for any projects that you’re interested in doing.
One of my favorite things about this curriculum is that if we’re short on time we can just read the section for the day and call it good. It’s definitely not an open and go program if you plan to do the accompanying projects, but if you just want to keep it simple you can just read through the text and do the review questions.
There aren’t really any quizzes or tests that I’ve found, but they do have some great review flashcards in the back of the activity book that we use to review the main events/people that we’re learning about.
For more curriculum reviews make sure to check out my Curriculum Reviews here!
If you have a certain curriculum you would like a review on please leave a comment below.
Happy Homeschooling 
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We have a test book for each Volume 😊
Thanks for the info!
And I’m glad you told ME there’s an activity book.😍I just ordered it for vol. One . I had only been using the book and the tests 🎆😊😊
I buy the activity book mainly for the additional reading lists. We’ve learned so much more by requesting those books at the library ahead of reading each chapter. For instance this year we are on Vol. 3, and when we got to the chapter on Jamestown, we stopped and read books on Pocahontas and the colonists that they suggested. We are currently using your Three Musketeers literature unit as we read that book to go along with the last chapter we read in Story of the World. We did the same last year in Volume 2 with your literature units for Robin Hood and King Arthur.
Yes, they have a great reading list!
Erica, we use the review cards in the back for timeline figures. I copied them onto cardstock and set the copier to shrink down to a smaller size, probably about 1 and 1/2 by 1 and 1/2 and then tape or glue these into our timeline book
Great idea!
We have these books on audio and the test booklet. We listen to the cd’s in the truck, it’s great!
Thanks so much for the review! These have been so helpful in us deciding which ones are a good fit for our family 🙂
The biggest thing you will need for crafts is clay. There are so many projects with clay. I use air drying. There’s a few different choices for crafts in each chapter. So far I’ve found African recipes; I’m not sure about other regions yet. I would highly recommend extra resources that show the ancient world maps as a whole so your children can get a full picture of the locations. There isn’t a full map in the book or activity book. My 9 year old loves it too! He’s excited to do it every day!