History Pockets, Ancient Civilizations [Paperback]

I used these pockets to help me teach my children at home about ancient civilizations, although I mainly relied on Story of the World, Volume 1: Ancient Times Audiobook CD: From the Earliest Nomads to the Late Roman Empire, Revised Edition (7 CDs). Fortunately they fit beautifully together. The Story of the World title gives a lot more information than the pockets, including stories from each culture, and if you get the Audio CD version, your children can play the tracks to their hearts' content. These two titles together work really well but don't supply any of the science, so to flesh it out I used Ancient Science: 40 Time-Traveling, World-Exploring, History-Making Activities for Kids, which is also arranged civilization by civilization. The set of science experiments are couched in historical background, are well explained from both the scientific point of view and from the point of view of what each civilization discovered, and most importantly they really work!

So the pockets by themselves are not going to teach the history, but my children LOVED the pocket activities which had them make things that they can handle, that will remind them of what we covered in other ways. I'd also like to recommend Ancient World (World History Series) for your independent readers. It is also arranged by different major civilizations, but adds in some other peoples, e.g. The Celts, and includes spreads on key figures, like Alexander the Great. My 8yo and I both fell in love with this book. My daughter asked me to buy it for her as her very own copy, and she can remember tonnes of the details because the book is so inspiring.

Using these four titles together has created the best learning experience we've had in our home educating (except for classic read-alouds in the evening).

If you are looking for an easy way to add hands-on projects to your study of ancient civilizations in the primary grades, this is it. The blackline masters are very professionally done so the child's end product is high quality. All you need are basic school supplies including scissors, glue stick, crayons, and construction paper (and a few other things). You do need to photocopy the projects, so start up for homeschoolers might be a little more involved.

The projects touch on highlights of the culture being studied and create memorable products that facilitate discussion. My first grade daughter's interest in history came to life when we added History Pockets to our homeschool studies. She still enjoys taking out the stick puppets from various cultures and having them talk to each other a year later. It's been a great way to show relatives what she's studying and review it for herself in the process. Each culture has a written booklet of info. which creates a nice summary. They also include 4 vocabulary words per culture done in an appealing way. Then there are several other projects, most of which vary for each culture. For example, you make a Parthenon shape book for Ancient Greece.

There is too much coloring, in my opinion. We handled this by limiting what she would color per page and by using fewer colors. The projects still look good even if only certain aspects are colored or if some aren't colored at all.

I plan to use History Pockets with my younger children and look forward to trying History Pockets on other subjects.

Classroom teacher (former classroom teacher, myself): These projects are pretty simple and many could be done at a center with an example to look at. I would make the notebook pockets ahead of time for the kids or allow lots of time to create them with the kids if you're working with a large group. You could have small groups create a combined notebook per group to divide up the projects, depending on how much time you have to devote to projects. These projects would help bring any history text to life.

I've been impressed by the content of the 3 "History Pockets" books we've used in our homeschool (Ancient Civilizations, Ancient Egypt, and Ancient Greece). I think they would be really helpful for visual and tactile learners. Unfortunately, my DD hated all the cutting & pasting involved. She found it to be busywork.

I would recommend the "History Pockets" to students who don't mind all the prep work involved in making the folders/lapbook.

Edited to update: my 2nd child turns out to love the "History Pockets" books. So it really goes to show that it depends on the particular student.