We stopped using My Father’s World as our main curriculum at the end of 2023. It is a good curriculum, it just was not working for us anymore. I was eliminating things because of differing views and found some things repetitive and we were honestly kind of getting bored. What I did love about it, was the idea of making the way through history, so we kept it and transitioned to Ancient Civilizations with Gather Round.
Gather Round still offers family-style learning, with different levels of workbooks. It covers all the subjects except math. So far everything we wanted!
One of the things I kept from MFW was doing The Children’s Homer as a read-aloud. It was a walk down memory lane, I remember reading the Odyssey and the Iliad in high school. This book was a much easier way to get into the story. I drew some character charts to keep things straight in the battles and who belonged to which side. I look forward to them getting to it again in high school, and maybe I will read it along with them again.
We had spent a lot of time on the Egyptians with MFW and our fusion classes, so we hurried through those until we got to something fresh in our history, the Olmecs.
The Olmecs were known for creating and using rubber. One of its uses was to make balls to play with. When we were done with that lesson, we made our balls too. We had a kit that one of the girls received and I suggested they save it, because I knew this was coming up. There was a variety of colors and molds to use. While they were drying, we also made balls with glue. The glue balls were the best bounce, but they did not hold their shape for long. Memories are always made when we get to take the learning out of the book.
The girls also made masks during the Olmec study and then weaved yarn bowls when we revisited the Hebrews in the bible. The yarn was our replacement for natural materials, such a dried grass.
For the Minoan Civilization, we learned that the reason they disappeared is still debated. One of the possibilities was acid rain that was a result of nearby volcanoes. We conducted an experiment to show what acid rain would have done to a civilization.
We took living and non-living items and put them in two different jars. In one jar we put water and in the other jar, we put vinegar. We kept an eye on them, and by a week, we took the items out. The items in the Vinegar had changed dramatically, either dying or turning black.
I think our favorite, definitely my favorite activity was having our own family Olympics. Together the girls designed their 5 Olympic rings and we decided that each ring was an event. So they also had to come up with 5 events. They had to think of an activity they thought they would excel at and not just physical tasks. We learned that Art was an activity at a future Paris Olympics, so it was not simply sports.
The Activities they Selected were, Long Jump, Cartwheel, Fruit Roll-up eating challenge, running, and an art challenge. The whole family was to participate! Our Olympics happened to coincide with the Paris Olympics, which was fun.
I love that Gather Round has a long-term project for each full unit. For ancient Civilizations, there are two. One is a time capsule that we filled throughout the lesson and is now sitting on top of a shelf, waiting to be opened. The other is a travel brochure. The girls had to create a travel brochure to encourage people to visit one of the civilizations that we covered.
Evie encourages you all to visit the Wonders of Ancient Green and Isla would like you to come to Ancient China. Which tour would you like to take?
