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The Mystery of History by Linda Lacour Hobar
Note from Julieanne: My years in public school provided me with mostly U.S. history, poorly taught, focusing on memorizing a ton of dates, names, and places...but leaving out all of the truly interesting stuff! As well, we only reached WWI once, so anything after that time period wasn't taught in the schools I happened to attend. I've talked to lots of other moms who had a similar background in history: no European history; very little ancient history. I was determined not to do this to my own children when we began studying history at home.
During the summer of 2005, I spent many hours researching history curricula. I weeded out everything that wasn't chronological - my brain needed to start at the beginning (Creation) and work forward without skipping around! I also weeded out anything that wasn't from a biblical perspective. This doesn't mean that every book we've used in our history studies has been biblical or written from a Christian point of view, but the backbone of our history studies needed to recognize that all of history is actually HIS-story. That was the point!
It's amazing how much curricula can be sorted through and weeded out when a person wants a classical, biblical, chronological study of world history, that reads more like a conversation instead of a boring textbook.
I realized I had found what I needed when I opened up The Mystery of History by Linda Hobar. This was a huge answer to prayer! I have never regretted learning history along with my children with this series of books. Our journey through these books has taken me from hating history (okay, I said it!) to passionately loving history! That in itself is a true miracle.
My own family's experiences with "MOH", as we like to call it, have been fabulous! Here are some of the things I've developed or learned over the years to use with our studies of history:
Timelines:
We chose to use Rod and Staff's "The Human Register" timeline. It is 13 feet in length and already comes laminated. This worked well for the amount of wall space that we had available. The graphic below shows each page separately, but when taped or fastened together, this is actually a seamless timeline with no black edges to separate the pages.
If you click on the timeline, it will take you to the Milestone Ministries online store where this may be purchased. You can also view a much clearer and larger shot of several of the pages of this timeline. It was simple enough for us all, yet beautifully done, for us to enjoy for years to come.
Since there are a lot of dates in any history book, including The Mystery of History, I designed some Date Cards to accompany our Human Register timeline. I printed these and cut them out. Then, because I knew they'd be up on the wall for years, I laminated them as well, although you don't need to do that unless you want to. Where each date belonged underneath The Human Register timeline, I used Blue Stik by DAP to fasten them to the wall. You could also use tape, push pins, or whatever you prefer, to do this.
Mrs. Hobar recommends 12 Key Dates to be memorized from every volume of The Mystery of History. This has worked very well for us!
Mrs. Hobar recommends 12 Key Dates to be memorized from every volume of The Mystery of History. This has worked very well for us!
12 Date Cards to help your family remember the 12 important dates from
The Mystery of History
Volume 1 : 1st Edition
These cards were made for the 1st edition of Volume 1. The dates are slightly different for the 2nd edition.
12 Date Cards to help your family remember the 12 important dates from
The Mystery of History
Volume 1: 2nd Edition
12 Date Cards to help your family remember the 12 important dates from
The Mystery of History, Volume 2
12 Date Cards to help your family remember the 12 important dates from
The Mystery of History, Volume 3
Timeline Books:
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We chose to use Amy Pak's History Through the Ages: Record of Time books for our girls to affix their timeline figures that they had colored with Prismacolor watercolor pencils. This book is more expensive than others on the market, but it is more durable, better designed, and even has very faint writing guide lines on each page so that student writing is straight and looks more professional. Since the cost was split up over 12 years of schooling, that made it more affordable, in my mind. Amy Pak's website also now has a "do-it-yourself" CD version so you may print off your own notebooks with these same pages, for multiple children in your family, at a reduced price. The CD also includes a placement format so you can clearly see where to place each of her timeline figures. Nice!
For our first time through each volume of The Mystery of History, we are having the girls place their colored timeline figures onto the pages. When we use this series a second time (when the girls are in high school), we'll have them write very brief summaries of each figure near the figure itself.
If you choose to use the Record of Time books along with Amy Pak's timeline figures, remember to photocopy or print them at 65% to 70% of the original, onto cardstock or full page sticker paper, so that they'll fit more easily onto the pages.
For the first half of MOH Volume 1 (over one year's time), we photocopied the timeline figures onto cardstock and used double-sided scrapbooking squares to affix them to the pages. However, they didn't stick as well as we had hoped. For our second year using the second half of MOH Volume 1, we chose to photocopy the timeline figures onto full-page sized labels, and they are still holding up very well with no edges sticking up and getting in the way.
I purchased this set of sticky paper for our timeline figures because every edge would stick down permanently and easily. The girls would color the figures on the page, cut them out, and peel off the removable backing so they could stick the timeline figures down onto the correct page in their timeline books.
OnlineLabels.com is the least expensive and most trustworthy location I found online for full-sheet labels (and other labels, as well). I've had excellent success with their products. They will send you samples of specific labels if you would like to try out certain labels. The white, full-sheet labels are #OL175WX.
Journaling with www.HomeschoolJourney.com:
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We decided to have our children do some journaling and notebooking with our history topics. The finished result turned out so well! This version is for ages 8-9 and older. |
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This "Junior" version of the History Portfolios wasn't available when we began using these in our family, but my youngest was able to keep up with the modifications I made for her own regular History Portfolio. This is for third graders and younger. |
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Eventually, Barbara Shukin developed these very handy Teacher's Guides that we loved using! It was so nice to be able to print off high quality art work, graphics, etc. and lined note- booking paper to place inside the portfolios! |
Barbara Shukin has developed all kinds of extras that go along with these
history portfolios, some of which are FREE!
Mapwork and Coloring:
Why do mapwork and coloring with the more expensive watercolor pencils?
 Watercolor pencils cost quite a bit more than the typical colored pencils designed for school use. If my children were attending public or private school, I would probably not ever send watercolor pencils with them as part of their school supplies. However, since we educate the girls at home, we have the freedom to use the nicer watercolor pencils for mapwork and fine detail coloring books, like those from Dover Publications. If you are interested in using watercolor pencils such as Prismacolor and the like, you can watch for sales at the craft store in your area, or use a 40% or 50% off coupon when they aren't on sale.
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If you remember using Crayola or RoseArt colored pencils when you were in school, you may have noticed the heavy drag when you colored, or how they squeaked against the paper as you colored. I remember having to press so hard to color maps in geography classes, and they still didn't look all that great.
This is why we switched to the more expensive watercolor-style pencils. The girls weren't allowed to use these pencils for any 'ol scribbling and goofing around. For that, they had crayons, crayon pastels, and markers. We saved the watercolor pencils for mostly schoolwork. As their artwork developed over the years, and they were more careful with the watercolor pencils and didn't need any supervision, then we began letting them use them to color in their everyday artwork. |
On our first day of using watercolor pencils, we realized that we shouldn't use a regular pencil sharpener to sharpen them. I sharpened one pencil, and about 1/4 of it was quickly "eaten" by the electric pencil sharpener we owned. Yikes!
Thankfully, a Timberdoodle catalog came in the mail later that week, and I noticed this snazzy, little KUM Color-Combi manual pencil sharpener that was designed to work well with Prismacolor pencils and other fine watercolor pencils. While these are more expensive than the average "el cheapo" manual pencil sharpener, they are well worth the cost. You will save so much money by not needing to buy watercolor pencils as often, that it is worth it!
Thankfully, a Timberdoodle catalog came in the mail later that week, and I noticed this snazzy, little KUM Color-Combi manual pencil sharpener that was designed to work well with Prismacolor pencils and other fine watercolor pencils. While these are more expensive than the average "el cheapo" manual pencil sharpener, they are well worth the cost. You will save so much money by not needing to buy watercolor pencils as often, that it is worth it!
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We used these full-color maps to help us fill in the maps within our history portfolios. They are high quality and easy to print. You can view a sample of one of these maps HERE. |
Any links you see here on this page are not connected to "affiliate links" nor will they earn me any money. They are merely here to show you an online location where items may be purchased.
The Mystery of History logo, images, and references are used by permission of the author and the publisher. Copyrights held by Bright Ideas Press and Linda Lacour Hobar. This material has not been published or produced by Joy In Our Journey.com, but permission has been obtained from the publisher to share these materials.