Next year: History (Star)

Yet again, I am in a muddle with history. Last year I set out to do ancient history with Angel and Star together, only to find that Angel had made a cognitive leap that stretched the gap between them too far for working together to work out. (Three and a half years is a very awkward age gap. Sometimes it works to combine them, though more often it doesn't - but the occasional successes make it tempting, especially as Angel is not good at working independently.) We made it through Egypt and a fair amount of Greece before falling apart under the pressure of health problems and pregnancy. This year they will be working separately and I have been dithering over what to do with Star. Last year we were hopelessly inconsistent, swapping around between books and never quite finding a good fit. This year I thought of using Hilyer's Child's History of the World (one of the books we dabbled in last year). I even drew up a schedule for it ... and then changed my mind. On second thoughts I opted for Susan Wise Bauer's Story of the World Vol.2, covering the middle ages and the Renaissance. It means we will skip Ancient Rome and jump straight into its collapse, but Star did learn something about the Romans when we were doing British history the previous year. This was another study that eventually fell apart part way through. Oh, the number of historical failures we have had in this house! At least the section on Romans in Usborne's Time Traveller was a hit so the fall of Rome will not appear in a complete vacuum. My thinking is that after this we can move on either to Level 2 of Mater Amabilis (British or American history survey, plus Greece or Rome), or continue through volumes 3 and 4 of Story of the World. My plan is for three history lessons of around 20 minutes each week, during which we will read Story of the World, make notebook pages and keep up a timeline. I will add in some supplementary reading as interest and time allows. This is my ideas list:

Term 1: Fall of Rome to the Vikings
Beowulf by Kevin Crossley-Holland
Medieval Monastery by Fiona MacDonald
The Holy Twins by Tomie de Paola
Usborne Time Traveller: Viking Raiders
Viking Adventure by Clyde Bulla

Term 2: King Alfred to the Wars of the Roses
Castle Diary by Richard Platt and Colin Riddell (we read this not too long ago, but it was enough of a hit to bear repeating)
Medieval Castle by Fiona MacDonald
St.George and the Dragon by Geraldine MacCaughrean
St.Francis by Brian Wildsmith
Saladin by Diane Stanley
El Cid by Geraldine MacCaughrean
Marco Polo (an old children's biography on my shelf)
The Apple and the Arrow by Mary and Conrad Buff (story of William Tell)
Joan of Arc by Josephine Poole

Term 3: Ferdinand and Isabella to Elizabeth I
Meet Christopher Columbus by James de Kay
The Apprentice by Llorente
Good Queen Bess by Diane Stanley
Shakespeare biography
Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease