World History with Living Books

Using Living Books as a History Spine in your Homeschool

Aug 25, 2024

Living Books as Curriculum

This post has been a long time in the works, friend. When I began our homeschool journey many years ago, we dabbled in all manner of curricula but I NEVER used a boxed curriculum. I've always pieced together different texts and programs. I guess in some ways I've always been a rebel ;)

Then as I dove deeper and deeper into Charlotte Mason's methods and her beautiful philosophy, I began to feel much more confident in creating our own curriculum. Now I get so incredibly excited to plan out each term that I often have to take a few days to check myself and reel it in because I want to include so much! I'm sure you understand.

Living Books are a beautiful way to engage your children in learning and keep them interested. A living book will bring to life even the subjects your children find dull. It will not necessarily create a passion in them for that subject, but it makes the study of that subject more tolerable and engaging. Living books always beat out dry, tedious texts that lecture and drone.

A note on our home library collection - I have been building our home library since I was a teen. I was always an avid library user as well as a curator of books of my own. As my children came along and the culture continued to change in ways that are contrary to our family values, I continued to add more to our home library and visit the local libraries less.

I am grateful to be of service and bring you quality homeschool and homemaking content. I receive compensation through subscribers and affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

We no longer utilize the local library at all. We have our home collection, we use Audible and Librivox, and we purchase most books used. This is what works for our family. Please don't feel that you need to run out and purchase all these titles. Many can still be found within library systems or borrowed from friends.

Living Books as History Curriculum - Using The Landmark Series as a Spine

As promised, I'm sharing our world history plan for the next 2 years. It could very well carry over into 3 years, but that's fine, too. And I do mean full years, not school years. We enjoy learning together as a family and in order to get through this cycle and still have time for all the military histories my oldest wants to complete in high school it just makes sense to keep the reading and discussions going. Without further ado - Let's dive in!

First, let me explain that our family studies the Bible chapter by chapter and we are beginning in Genesis and reading straight through for our Bible study time as we go through this history cycle. I have not included the Bible in this list of books we are using because it's a constant in our home. But I encourage you to consider a full cover-to-cover read-through at least once while your children are at home in addition to your regular studies!

The Landmark Series is a wonderful series of American and World History books that Random House published between 1950 and 1974. It includes Landmarks, World Landmarks, and Landmark Giant books. We are using the Landmark series books that we own as our spine. They were originally geared for ages 10 - 15 so they are perfect for a middle/early upper grades history overview. My history lover (13 and a half - he says the half is important- and he's already read many of the Landmark books at least once) will fly through them (as usual) and my reluctant history reader (11) will be able to complete the readings without stress. We are also adding biographies, documentaries, and other titles that I have curated for our family.

For our other resources and references, I relied heavily on the IEW Timeline of Classics (which includes several Landmark Books) and my own research to put together this history program. The IEW Timeline of Classics is truly an invaluable resource if you, like me, enjoy building your own curriculum.

I am reading the first few books now to get a head start and refresher on the topics covered. We have reached the amazing stage of education where we are able to read (together or independently) and then come together to discuss events, people, ideas, and what biblical truths we can see playing out in the things we are learning. I LOVE this tween/teen stage! It's truly a joy to see these incredible connections being made by my children. Be encouraged, mama. All this work and love you're pouring in does matter and it will bear fruit!

We will be reading, discussing, and adding one entry each into the boys' Paper Peony Press Book Journals weekly. The book journal entry (also called a commonplace book) may be from any reading as they also have literature and free reads throughout the year. My goal is for them to read 1-2 books from our history selections per week. Several of the biographies are doing double duty as civics/character study and many of the novels and movies are doing double duty as literature.

I opted to purchase more "keepable" journals for them this year as they are reading higher-level books and the notes they make are ones, I hope, they will go back to fondly in the years to come.

*UPDATE: We are nearing the end of the first year using the Paper Peony Press Book Lovers journals and they have worked beautifully! The boys have been recording each history book they've read, and their journals are nearly full. Two new journals just arrived! *

We have a family movie night a few times a month when my husband is able to join us. I have acquired many of the mentioned movies and documentaries for us to watch during those times as he also enjoys history and having discussions around what they are learning with the boys. Building those conversation channels between our children and ourselves is incredibly important! Make learning a family adventure whenever possible.

***The titles included are in as chronological order as I could get them, so if something is a little out of order, thank you for your grace!

The Beacon Lights of History by John Lord - These exquisite history tomes are set aside here for my young historian to read in High School at his leisure. If you have a history lover, I cannot recommend these enough. Our set is the 1921 edition.

You can tell this is where our chronological shelving starts to get a little cattywampus.

The West Point Story

The Story of the Naval Academy

The F.B.I.

The Story of the U.S. Marines

The Story of the U.S. Air Force

The Story of Submarines

The Story of Dwight D. Eisenhower

The Country Artist: A Story about Beatrix Potter

Balboa, Discoverer of the Pacific

The Red Baron

The Story of the Paratroops

The Story of Amelia Earhart

King John and Magna Carta

Ronald Reagan: Young Leader

The Story of Helen Keller

Come on Seabiscuit!

KON-TIKI: Across the Pacific by Raft

The Boyhood Diary of Charles Lindbergh, 1913-1916: Early Adventures of the Famous Aviator

The bottom shelf of this bookcase is a conglomeration of picture books like Henry's Freedom Box and The Gunslingers, biographies like Blood and Guts and Explorers Who Got Lost, heart-warming heroism like Always Faithful and Down Cut Shin Creek, and so many more. These will be added in where we can and are always available for the boys when they want to dig into a topic more deeply.

So that's our plan! Have you tried building your own curriculum? I'd love to hear what and how so drop a comment below!

World History with Living Books

Using Living Books as a History Spine in your Homeschool

Living Books as Curriculum

Living Books as History Curriculum - Using The Landmark Series as a Spine

Creation through John Paul Jones

Rogers Rangers to The Story of Buffalo Bill

Master Detective Allen Pinkerton to the Battle of the Bulge

Discussion about this post