Book Basket - Favorites from Rome to Reformation

[LSH in MS]

I'm looking ahead to next year. I've purchased the RTR basic package along with a few items from the deluxe package. I was looking in the back of the TM at the book basket suggestions and I was wondering if any of you would reccomend buying any of them. I see that Famous Men of Rome is used quite a bit. Are there any other books you bought or wish you had bought? I did buy the Read Aloud Set. Thanks!

I bought the Famous Men of Rome as well as the readers I wanted my children to read during independant reading time. For my age dc these included A Triumph for Flavius, Detectives in Togas, Mystery of the Roman Ransom, Beowulf, Augustine Came to Kent

I also bought some of the Jim Weiss Cds that we really like because our library didn't have them. Jewish Stories, (or is it Holidays) Robin Hood, Arabian Nights, King Arthur and His Knights and Shakespeare for Children. I got everything at Rainbow Resource.

[MJP]

I bought Famous Men of Rome, the G.A. Henty books for that time period, Beowulf, and a couple of other Bethlehem Books from that time period.

[hollyjay]

We also bought Famous Men of Rome and some of the Bethlehem books too.
Another one I've purchased is The World of Christopher Columbus by Genevieve Foster. It is listed for week 24 saying that it compliments the history studies for the rest of the year. I figured it would also compliment the beginning of next year's as well so it would be a worthwhile purchase.

[Julie in MN]

I was wondering if someone could post a sample of the book basket recomendations that would go with the 2 sample pages for RtR on the MFW web site? Thanks!

Hi Jean,
The copyrights don't allow us to do that. You could ask at the office, but the answer might be the same, I'm not sure.

Here are a few things that might help.

- There are some posts about RTR "book basket" in the RTR archives. Maybe those will give you a general overview? viewforum.php?f=12
I think a few of us shared some of our favorites here, too: viewtopic.php?t=2845

- You can find the specific topics likely to be included in sample weeks 17-18 by going to the RTR samples & looking at the topics on the very top line of each grid. Things like Beowolf and Vikings -- those will be topics in book basket.

- Also look at the art & music topics (Mozart, illumination, etc.). There will probably be small groups of book basket recommendations on those topics.

- I should mention that some book basket items would not be found under weeks 17-18, even if we could share that. Several topics may have been introduced during an earlier week (such as Mozart books listed the first week that you study Mozart).

- Along the same lines, RTR in particular had a lot of book basket items that applied to a large portion of the year, so those would be listed at the beginning or the first time the topic came up. I am thinking of several DVD sets that my husband and I watched as we prepared for RTR (Christianity's first 1000 years was one, I think), or overall reference books that I used over many weeks.

Does that help give a picture?
Julie

[Quiver0f10]

Thanks, Julie. It does help and I will check out the links you provided.

[dhudson]

Has anyone supplemented RtR with the Story of the World activity book?
What about extra reading such as The Hobbit, Beowolf, Robin Hood?
I'll have a 5th grade dd when we do RtR in the fall.
Thanks!!

I did add some books to RTR for my oldest as he loves to read but it seemed to me that RTR was pretty thorough so we didn't add the SOTW activity book although we bought several sets of wooden blocks designed so that you could build Roman arches, medieval castles and so forth. My dh is is a collector of anything Roman so we had A LOT of Rome extras.

The Hobbit was great [recommended in the General Reading List for fifth graders and up in the back of the TM], I think my son read the Chronicles of Narnia that year, a version of Robin Hood, Detective in Togas (there's another book as well that I can't remember the name of by this author), The Shakespeare Stealer and then many of the book basket books. We loved the Medieval Night and the dinner at the Monastery night. We also had a big Roman feast with a group of friends which was so fun. Building the Medieval Castle was fun but really time consuming ( although the kids are still playing with it) and learning how to play chess was great. I think what I am basically saying is that there are tons of great activities in RTR so I wouldn't add much.

[4Truth]

Agreeing with Dawn, I don't recall The Hobbit being part of Book Basket [it's one of the listed "classics"], but Robin Hood and Beowulf were. Don't buy too many extras in advance, because you'll see once you have your manual just how much additional literature is in there. It's also very rich with activities.

I just had my oldest dd read an abridged version of Beowulf, and I'm glad now because I see that Beowulf is included in year 2 of high school.

Postby 4Truth » Sun Mar 29, 2009 11:14 pm
The Narnia series wouldn't be history related during RTR, either. That would be WW 2 era. It's a little deceiving because the "theme" once they're actually IN the land of Narnia seems more Middle Ages/Renaissance. However, the story takes place during WW 2. (Just an FYI for anyone who's reading and wondering. )

[HSmommi2mine]

I occasionally pull some coloring pages from the AG (since I already own it) and I use some of the review questions and that kind of thing. Most of the time the activities scheduled into MFW are just right for us.