Monday, March 25, 2013

All Through The Ages - What A Treasure!

My Book Basket - bought this one at WalMart
One thing I really loved about My Father's World curriculum was their "book basket" list.  Book basket is a big pile of books that you keep in your home (in a basket or whatever you chose) for your children to peruse while you are exploring certain subjects in your homeschool.  We used ours for chosing readers as well as just having it for great books to look through or read.  I didn't want to let go of this idea when I changed over to The Mystery of History.  However, the resources that most curriculums have are either included, or they only have a minimal list.  That's fine, I'm not complaining, but I wanted a bit list.  So, I set out to gather resources from various sources (Sonlight, My Father's World, Veritas Press, Tapestry of Grace, etc.) and come up with my own list.  I wanted to know about every single living and interesting book out there! 

All Through The Ages - 3rd Edition
One of the lists I paid for was an eBook called, "All Through The Ages."  I figured I would have to basically purchase a bunch of instructor guides from various curriculums so that I could piece it all together chronologically.  I know, nuts.  That would have cost hundreds of dollars.  When I received my link to download All Through The Ages (ATTA), I was amazed that it was over 350 pages long!  I paid less than $20 for this!  I started looking through it, but for some reason I set it down and went on to look at other sources.  My mistake.

As I was going through some of my gathered lists, I started getting discouraged and aggravated.  Ugh.  This was going to take forever.  I was determined, however, to have tons of books to choose from, and make this list!

About a week later I remembered ATTA.  As I started going through it, I realized that each and every book that I saw on the other lists was on this one, too!  I started looking for books that I loved that this list might have missed, just to test it.  I was like, "Okay, but did she include Usborne books? Yep... Okay, but did she include missionary stories? Yep..." 

Her list is all I need.

This list is amazing.  It is listed chronologically, and you can also see the list by country.  Amazing.  The author (Christine Miller) even talks a bit about the time periods.  Lovely.  You can read more about this list here.  Be sure to read that page so that you can learn the great way she organizes this list! 

I also like how she puts a brief description after each book title.  She even says what source she found them at.

Now I just grab my copy of ATTA and get on my computer and start borrowing from our inter library loan system.  No more missing out on great books!  My children and I get a choice!

Thank you so much, Christine Miller.  Now if I could just find a list where great supplemental movies are listed chronologically.  If you know of one, please comment below and let me know!  :o)

2 comments:

  1. Guesthollow has just such a list for free. It is called The History Shelf and included books and videos. http://www.guesthollow.com/history_shelf/history_shelf.html

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    1. That is a nice list, but the ATTA one is separated by reading level, type of book, and includes books about history before Christ. Thank you, though! :o)

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