Ancient Civilizations Final Thoughts (Build Your Library) | Secular Homeschooling

Today we’re going to wrap up our thoughts on our secular ancient civilizations study with Build Your Library!
Build Your Library Level 1 - buildyourlibrary.com/purchase...
Curriculum spines:
History Quest: Early Times - www.pandiapress.com/history-q...
World Mythology for Children - amzn.to/44xYSbA
The Usborne Encyclopedia of World History - amzn.to/3NHuPHC
A Child Through Time - amzn.to/44h8GH9
13 Artists Children Should Know - amzn.to/3XPXJtN
13 Art Techniques Children Should Know - amzn.to/3NLzYyk
Heroes of the Environment - amzn.to/46DeHj7
Backyard (One Small Square) - amzn.to/3PNW71x
The Nature Connection - amzn.to/46HStwc
National Geographic Book of Nature Poetry - amzn.to/3XXXXPP
Natural World: A Visual Compendium of Wonders from Nature - amzn.to/3O81p7a
We have a playlist for all our videos about ancient history:
• Homeschool Ancient Civ...
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homeschooltogether.gumroad.com/
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Website: www.homeschool-together.com/

[@alenatorres7071]

I’m thankful for BYL 0 level because it introduced some really great books. It did make me realize we aren’t literature based curriculum people, though. We love reading picture books/chapter books, but not on a schedule. I discovered The Waldock Way for Around the World and it worked way better for us. This coming year we’re diving into History Quest with the activity guide. My boys will be a young 7 and young 5 so we’ll see how it goes.

[@HomeschoolTogether]

I love that we have options to tailor to our kids specific needs and wants. So glad you found a curriculum that worked better for you! Let us know how the activity guide goes. I've heard good things about it.

[@amandasegur]

I agree...We love BYL, but for us, BYL 1 has worked best for all of my children for the 8-10 age-range, quite honestly. As such, we just focus on other things from age 6-8...It all turns out fine in the end (in our experience). : ) As for Torchlight 1, some of its literature skews younger (so, definitely appropriate for the 6-8 age-range) and some skews older (books that I would absolutely wait until my kids were in the 8-10 age-range to read)....Kind of a mixed-bag in our experience. If I were going to do an Ancients curriculum with my children in the 6-8 age-range, I would probably go with Torchlight as the base, really, and just drop the books that skewed older, as I found it easier to scale down for the suggested age-range....But we do prefer BYL, so, for us, waiting is best (though we do pull in a few resources from Torchlight 1 still alongside BYL 1 when we do go through it). 💚 Regardless, even though we are mostly beyond you (I do still have one more to move through Level 1 with, though : ), I just love your videos because of how thoughtful and thorough they are -- and, too, I love watching the pair of you homeschool as a team....It isn't my experience, but I wish that it could be everyone's. 😊 Thank you, Ariel and Matt!

[@HomeschoolTogether]

Thanks for the kind words! That's really insightful information about the differences between BYL1 and TL1. Thanks for providing that for everyone. I agree that ancients is a bit tougher to grasp at younger ages with most of the books listed. I think we're going to take our time and move up when we're ready. Like you said, it all turns out fine in the end :)

[@jessicaTX964]

Layers of Learning would be a really good resource to pair with this. Lots of hands on "explorations," Very nice maps and timeline pieces. They also curate a KZbin playlist with each unit that is really good from what I've seen. They also have a whole writer's workshop piece (that is a separate purchase from the history) and each history unit has some suggested writing projects for each of the writing units you may be working on poetry, descriptive, stories, essays, etc.

[@inquisitivemindsacademy]

I second this!! I’ve mentioned this on their FB group! Love BYL and LoL!

[@HomeschoolTogether]

I really need to check that out! I'll add it to my growing list :) Thanks for the recommendation!

[@capturinglifeinprogress1999]

Great review! We took a year to do other things and we'll do level 1 next year, right after my kids turn 8 and 6.5. I have already bought most of the books and they've been just sitting in my basement, waiting for the right moment. For the next level you could try using the activity guide from Pandia to go along with it. I believe it has more hands-on projects there. I find it interesting to see what are the strengths and weaknesses of each curriculum. BYL is definitely great at the history and literature part, but the other areas are not that strong.

[@HomeschoolTogether]

I heard about the activity book just recently. I think we'll definitely try that on the next go round!

[@rachelsilva782]

The History Quest and Story of The World activity guides have tons of hands on activities and crafts to add to this. Great review guys!

[@HomeschoolTogether]

Thanks! We keep hearing about HQ activity guide. Definitely need to check that out the next go round!

[@MrsPerdueArt]

First off, congratulations on finishing up your school year!!! 🎉It sounds like you had an amazing year- your kids are very lucky!! This series has been SO helpful and so fun for me- thank you for sharing all your hard work!! We are planning to start BYL1 with my 6yo and almost 8yo and your experience has really helped me with how to plan!! First off, I’m going to start with the prehistory unit study so my 6yo will be closer to 7yo when we start Level 1! I’m also l planning to add in the projects from the History Quest instructors guide to make it a little more hands on! I’m also adding in the book ‘Vincent's Starry Night and Other Stories: A Children's History of Art’ to connect the art to the history more. And we have another lighter science curriculum we’re going to add in alongside the nature study. Thank you again- I SO appreciate you sharing your experience to inform my planning!! I’m just bummed you won’t be doing Level 2 ahead of me!! 😂

[@HomeschoolTogether]

Thank you for the kind words! We're so glad this was helpful. Great book rec for art history. I definitely need to check that out!

[@velmag583]

I came across your website and see that you have some PDF ebooks …. I’m wondering how you utilize these within the BYL format ….

[@HomeschoolTogether]

If you mean the resource guides, we use those to supplement when we can't find the book in BYL or if our kids want to dive deeper. We also use them to find KZbin videos to accompany. We're hoping to put out a resource guide for ancient civs at some point too...

[@brookeally1346]

My son is 5 1/2 years old so we just started around the world from BYL and we are headed into week 3. He’s loving it a lot at this age although I would say he’s advanced for his age. He really enjoys looking at the Children just like me and the atlas by himself reading the little tidbits of info. Little brother is about to be 4 but I might come back to it in 2 years. My question is, if around the world is completed in the next year he will be 6 1/2 Do you think I should do something like pre history in between?

[@HomeschoolTogether]

We really loved the great foundation that prehistory provided. You can just do the 6 week BYL unit study as a quick primer if you don't want to take too long. I'm glad we did it.