Starting From the Beginning Again With History

There is a threefold reason for the title of this post:

1. We had started off on a terrible footing on Tuesday, with the children resisting me and me getting grumpy about it, so after a heart to heart with my very sensible sounding board of a husband we started over with History.
2. I started this History curriculum with Eve last Spring but we got no further than chapter three with the Egyptians and then we stayed with the Egyptians (see here) for ages, stalling the progress with the rest of the book but learning a lot in the process!
3. The curriculum begins with the beginning - a timeline of a child's life to date!

The girls love to hear stories from before they remember and to look at mementoes and photographs so we found out their baby books and boxes and my stash of photos and we pulled out some little snippets. These were things like their first words ('bup bup' or beep beep for Eve and 'look' for Faith!), when they walked, first clapped their hands, drank from a cup, went on holiday, and most importantly.... when their beloved siblings were born! We were happily engaged in this for over an hour and it made a lovely start to the curriculum!

I read the chapter to them whilst they drank milk and a snack and I had a cup of tea

 which was a really companionable snug way to do history - I think I will continue to do it this way. It is a great way of 'calling them to order' without being school teacher ish about it!

The curriculum that we are using was recommended to me by a friend and it is a classical one - 'The Story of the World, Volume One: Ancient Times' by Susan Wise Bauer, and Activity Book One to accompany it by the same author.