Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #199125 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-31
• Released on: 2004-05-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 275 pages

About the Author
Susan Wise Bauer is a novelist and educator. With her mother, Jessie Wise, she co-authored The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home (Norton, 1999), a book which has rapidly become an educational standard. Susan teaches at The College of William & Mary in Virginia. She was home-educated herself; she and her husband Peter now teach their four children at home as well.

Customer Reviews

Good ideas but they should have hired an artist
I really liked the "Story of the World" volume and eagerly ordered this activity book to go with it. There are good activity ideas in this volume but the coloring pages and other graphics could have been drawn by a 3 year old. For the price, which is more than I would have paid if I had seen it, I expected a quality product. I guess if you are using it for an older child and don't care about the graphics it is a good resource for someone who just wants quick ideas and doesn't want to research their own. However, I don't think the original volume "Story of the World" would be that great for an older child so you end up with activities for one age group and text for another. If I wouldn't be out shipping both ways I would return this book. I highly recommend that you view it somewhere before purchasing.

Next time hire a proofreader...
This book is full of spelling errors which makes me really wonder about the authors. I mean, they're telling us what to use and what to do to educate our children and they can't spell! The projects are nothing more than busy-work and half the time, if you follow the instructions word-for-word, the project does not come out correctly. About the only good thing in the book is the narration questions and the supplemental reading, but SOTW barely scratches the surface of history and if you do all the supplemental stuff and the activities there is absolutely no way you'll get through the book in the time that you're supposed to (one school year).

All in all, save your money and go to the library. Look in the reference section or ask your librarian for both fiction and non-fiction books on whatever period of history you're doing and then read, read, read. The kids learn more by reading and discussing than by trying to mummify a chicken which does nothing more than stink up the house for weeks and the chicken does not end up mummified.

I will NOT be buying any further volumes in the SOTW series (either the text or the Activity Books) and I very quickly sold my copies of both.

Extremely disappointed
I am very surprised by all the positive reviews this book has received. Though I was warned by the few negative reviews, I decided to go with all the positive feedback and order this book. I have never ordered I book that I consider to be as useless as this one. The tone is so juvenile even for grade one students. The pictures to color are simplistic and boring and the activities are (for the most part) so ridiculously time consuming that your child would become bored and leave you to finish (and would take you all day to clean up from). I am extremely disappointed in this book and wished I had saved my money.