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Teaching Ancient History Through Picture Books

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A simple, literature-based approach to studying ancient civilizations in your homeschool

Learning history through picture books is an incredibly effective way to build a strong foundation of knowledge.

I experienced this firsthand when we studied American history through picture books in our homeschool while my children were in the elementary years. Later, when we worked through a more advanced textbook covering modern American history, we found ourselves constantly recalling those earlier picture books. They had given us a solid background—and made the new material easier to understand and connect.

As we approach ancient history this upcoming year, I know I want to take a similar approach. But as I began researching, I realized that studying ancient history looks a little different.

A Different Approach to Ancient History

Unlike American history, ancient history doesn’t always work neatly in a straight timeline.

Instead, it often makes more sense to study individual civilizations as their own units. As you do this, the bigger picture begins to come together naturally over time.

I also noticed that dates don’t always align across resources. Questions about timelines—and even the age of the earth—can come up quickly. Because of that, I decided to focus less on exact dates and more on the quality of the content.

If a book presents meaningful, engaging, and educational material, then it stays on my list.

I’m so excited to share this list with you. As the parent, you can always choose how much detail you want to include with your children when it comes to exact timelines and dates.

A Note for Parents

It’s also worth mentioning—some of these books are a little wild.

Ancient history is full of folklore, gods, goddesses, and cultural traditions that may be unfamiliar or even contain beliefs that are different from what you believe.

As a Christian, discussing multiple gods can get tricky with little ones, but I also understand that it’s a huge part of these ancient civilizations. Each and every family will need to make unique decisions regarding this, and I encourage you to do what you think is best.

I do enjoy using these instances as teaching moments for my own children – sharing what we believe as a family and how it differs from what we are reading. With that being said, there are books on this list that I wouldn’t read to my youngest ones (under 8-10 years).

I’ve previewed these books, but ultimately, you know your children best. Please preview these books on your own as well to decide what feels like a good fit for your family.

What You’ll Find in These Book Lists

These lists are built around:

  • A few carefully chosen nonfiction titles for background knowledge
  • Story-driven, engaging picture books
  • Rich literature that helps children experience the culture of each civilization

Once you’ve built a basic understanding of the ancient civilization, you’ll move into stories that bring the time period to life.

I’ve also included a novel for each civilization. This is simply a fun addition if you’d like to include a read-aloud alongside your studies.

Finding the Books

I encourage you to use your local library for the majority of these books. It’s a simple and affordable way to make this approach work in your homeschool.

If you’re unable to find a specific title, here are a few easy alternatives:

Interlibrary Loan
Check to see if your library offers interlibrary loan. This allows you to borrow books from other libraries—sometimes even from across the state or country—and is a great option when your local branch doesn’t have what you need.

Search for Read-Alouds Online
Some of these books can be found as read-alouds online. Try searching the book title followed by “read aloud” and see if it’s available.

Purchase the Books
You can always purchase books and build your home library. Check your local bookstore or order online. I’ve linked each book in this post. These are affiliate links. If you follow one of my links I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my blog.

Look for Used Copies
If you’re hoping to save money, used book websites can be a great option. Many offer discounted prices and occasional deals when you purchase multiple books. (www.thriftbooks.com is my go-to)

A Final Note

There are many wonderful books on each of these topics. I’ve chosen ones that I felt were especially engaging and well-suited for this approach, but they are not the only options.

If you can’t find a specific title, simply look for another book that covers a similar topic. It will still serve your purpose well.

Let this be a guide—not a set of rigid rules. Pick and choose the books you want to read. It’s OK if you don’t read all of them. The goal is to learn, enjoy the process, and build a meaningful understanding of history together.

As a heads up, some books may be a bit longer than your average picture book. My advice would be to split it up into a couple days to keep everyone’s attention and really get the most out of the story.

If you’d like a printable book list to stay organized and check books off as your read them, you can get that at the bottom of this post.

Informational Books

For each ancient civilization, I’ve included a selection of informational picture books.

Non-fiction books vary greatly! Some contain chapters and chapters of text, some are in graphic novel form, some contain hundreds of small images with captions…the list could go on.

I’m very particular about the ones I choose. I want it to be easily readable, almost like a story, and I want it to contain interesting images to keep it engaging. The length is also important to me as I have a variety of ages in my home.

I’ve noticed in my research that libraries don’t always have the entire set in a series for these nonfiction books. Because of that, I want to list a few of my favorite series that I think are easiest to read to elementary students.

As you work through these book lists, if you can’t find the specific non-fiction book I list, see if you can get your hands on one from a different series listed below:

  • A Look at Ancient Civilizations by Daniel R. Faust
  • Ancient Civilizations – Blastoff Discovery (Various Authors)
  • You Are In… by Ivan Minnis
  • DK Find Out! by DK Publishing
  • If You Were Me and Lived in… by Carole P. Roman (more story-like than informational, but she does have a few in her series)
  • Technology in the Ancient World by Charlie Samuels
  • You Wouldn’t Want to… (various authors)
  • Life in Ancient Civilizations (Various Authors; Published by Millbrook Press)

Ancient Mesopotamia

A Look at Ancient Civilizations: Ancient Mesopotamia by Daniel R. Faust

Technology in Ancient Mesopotamia by Charlie Samuels (When you get past the introduction of this book, there is a bold paragraph on each page. If I were reading this to my youngest children, I’d only read that bold paragraph and observe the pictures. Older children may enjoy digging deeper and reading more)

You Wouldn’t Want to be a Sumerian Slave by Jacqueline Morley (This series is pretty silly and filled with info. I’d save it for your older elementary kiddos. My suggestion would be to read the larger font so it reads more like a story. Then, pick and choose the small images you want to read about)

The Babylonians: Life in Ancient Babylon by Martha E. H Rustard

Gilgamesh the King by Ludmila Zeman (This ancient myth is part of a trilogy. You could read all three if you wanted to add to this unit.)

NOVEL: The Golden Bull by Marjorie Cowley

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

A Look at Ancient Civilizations: Ancient Egypt by Daniel Faust

National Geographic Kids: Pyramids by Laura Marsh

Pharaoh’s Boat by David Weitzman (spend a few days with this one – It’s longer, but very interesting!)

Nile Crossing by Katy Beebe (fictional story based in ancient times; will introduce school and hieroglyphics)

Hieroglyphs from A to Z by Peter Der Manuelian

You Wouldn’t Want to Be Tutankhamen! by David Stewart (I’d save this for your upper elementary kiddos)

Cleopatra by Diane Stanley

Egyptian Cinderella by Shirley Climo (fictional tale based in ancient times)

Egyptian gods and goddesses by Henry Barker (If you have older children and want to learn more about the different gods and goddesses of Egypt, this book will do that in a simple way. Preview it and make the call for your family.)

NOVEL: Boy of the Pyramids: A Mystery of Ancient Egypt by Ruth Fosdick Jones

Ancient Greece

If You Were Me and Lived In…Ancient Greece by Carole P. Roman

What’s your angle, Pythagoras? By Julie Ellis

The Librarian Who Measured the Earth by Kathryn Laskey

King Midas and the Golden Touch retold by Charlotte Craft (Greek myth)

Surprise, Trojans!: The Story of the Trojan Horse by Joan Holub (Greek myth/legend)

Aesop’s Fables by Jerry Pinkney (a collection of short stories written during these ancient times and still enjoyed today! You may enjoy reading these throughout your study of ancient Greece)

The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus by Aliki (This book is wild! I’d recommend for older children. If you want to learn about the different gods and goddesses of Greece, this book will do that in a simple way. Preview it and make the call for your family.)

NOVEL: The Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skene Catling (Not a historical novel, but a fictional story based on King Midas and the Golden Touch)

ancient rome

Ancient Rome

You Are in Ancient Rome by Ivan Minnis

20 Fun Facts About the Colosseum by Drew Nelson

DK Find Out!: Ancient Rome – This does not read like a story, but I love this series. It’s very enjoyable to look at, contains great photos, and even some quizzes. It may be a fun one to just skim through and read what interests you.

Pompeii: Lost and Found by Mary Pope Osborne

Mosaics by Nathanial Harris – This is not specifically about the ancient times, but it contains the history of mosaic art and three to four examples from ancient Rome and Greece. Read the intro and look at the story behind a painting or two from Rome. The back of the book contains a few art projects to try on your own as well.

You Wouldn’t Want to be a Roman Gladiator by John Malam (I’d recommend this for upper elementary and beyond. Stick to the larger text on the pages to shorten this read; enjoy picture captions as you are interested)

Romulus and Remus by Anne Rockwell (Roman mythology)

Eat Your Peas, Julius! by Shirin Yim Bridges (the storyline of this one is really pointless, but it’s cute and there’s great information in the back about Julius Caesar as well as the food eaten during this time period)

NOVEL: The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare

Ancient India

A Look at Ancient Civilizations: Ancient India by Daniel Faust

Ancient India (Blastoff! Discovery) by Sara Green – This is another informational book series. It’s very readable with great images and has a little more detail about the history and daily life of ancient India.

The Elephant’s Friend and Other Tales from Ancient India by Marcia Williams (multiple ancient tales to read, choose one or more)

Once a Mouse… by Marcia Brown (an ancient tale; I’ve listed multiple tales in this Ancient India category. Many tales were told to teach lessons. This could bring great discussion – What lessons do you think were behind these stories?)

Rama and the Demon King: An Ancient Tale from India by Jessica Souhami (an ancient tale)

One Grain of Rice by Demi (a folktale)

Savitri: A Tale of Ancient India by Aaron Shepherd (an ancient tale, may be better suited for your older kiddos)

Under the Bodhi Tree: A Story of Buddha by Deborah Hopkinson (Buddhism originated in ancient India. If this is something you want to explore with your children, this book will tell you who Buddha is and where he came from.)

NOVEL: The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (not historical, but it is a classic novel based in India)

ancient india

Ancient China

You Are in Ancient China by Ivan Minnis

Great Wall of China by Kristine Spanier

Ming’s Adventure on China’s Great Wall by Li Jian (a fictional story about a boy that visits the wall and travels back in time with a General; There are a few Ming’s Adventure series books about China. If you enjoy this one, you could look into the others, as well.)

Technology In Ancient China by Charlie Samuels (When you get past the introduction of this book, there is a bold paragraph on each page. If I were reading this to my youngest children, I’d only read that bold paragraph and observe the pictures. Older children may enjoy digging deeper and reading more)

The Silk Princess by Charles Santore (This is a fictional story based off an ancient Chinese legend. More information about the legend is in the back of the book. The process of making silk is fascinating! Dive deep into this with more books/videos if you have interest)

Mulan: The Legend of the Woman Warrior by Faye-Lynn Wu (Ancient Chinese legend; You may desire to compare this to the Disney movie, “Mulan”)

Scroll by Hui Li (fictional story, introduces Chinese calligraphy)

Additional Reading for Kids

If you have early readers in your house, another great option is to assign independent reading as you study the ancient civilizations. Below are a few suggestions. These could also be chosen as a read aloud or played as an audiobook, if you prefer.

Both of the series listed are designed for early readers and follow the same type of story line, kids traveling back in time to solve a mystery. Imagination Station is a Christian series.

Magic Tree House Series:

Imagination Station Series:

More Literature-Based Learning

We love learning through literature in our home. It’s such an engaging way to teach a subject and it makes our lessons memorable and enjoyable. Some of the other curricula I have created to do this are listed below:

American History Through Picture Books – With this literature-rich curriculum, your family will explore major events in American history through engaging stories that make the past feel vivid, memorable, and fun. Learn history together in a way that feels natural, connected, and truly enjoyable.

Science Through Picture Books – Experience science the simple, memorable, and joyful way—through beautiful, carefully selected picture books. These literature-based units give you a curated book list, discussion guides, narration and notebooking tips, enrichment ideas, and optional videos so you can confidently teach foundational science without a textbook. Perfect for family-style learning.

Novel Guides – Transform your language arts with a simple, story-driven method the whole family can enjoy. One novel, flexible plans, and rich learning for multiple ages.

Picture Book Studies – Gentle, one-week language arts units based on a theme. Teach spelling, vocabulary, grammar, handwriting, narration, and comprehension through one meaningful passage per book.

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    Teach Science through Picture Books in Your Homeschool

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    I love to teach science with picture books in our homeschool. The thing about picture books is they’re great for every age. From toddler, to teenager, to me – the adult! We can learn so much through one book.

    Over the last couple of years I find myself moving further and further away from textbooks and workbooks in multiple subjects and focusing more on literature-based learning. It has been such an engaging and memorable way to learn.

    There’s something about a science textbook where every time I open up to start the lesson, I dread reading it out loud. It’s like I already know it will be hard to keep their attention the whole time. This year I bought a science text for my older girls that they were taking in our co-op and thought we could just use it as a family study since it was made for elementary ages…I couldn’t do it!

    The thought of reading it to my youngest ones (ages 5 and 6) was overwhelming. I’ve been thinking a lot about my youngest two and how fun these elementary years can be – so much wonder and curiosity and play through learning. I want to take advantage of these years and enjoy what we are reading. This is what led me to create my newest literature-based curriculum – Science Through Picture Books.

    In this blog post I’ll share a little more about what it is and how it works. I’ll let you know my plans as I work on piecing units together over the next couple years to create it for my own family. Picture books have brought so much joy to our homeschool, and I hope it can do the same for you.

    This post contains affiliate links. If you follow one of my links I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my blog!

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    An Overview of Science Through Picture Books

    Science Through Picture Books was created as a family study for your children ages kindergarten through fifth grade. It will be made up of multiple units, and each unit will contain a list of twelve books.

    These twelve books can be read at any pace you like. Read one per week and finish the unit in twelve weeks OR two per week and finish the unit in six weeks. Read three per week and finish in four weeks…and so on!

    You have the choice to read as many as you’d like throughout your week, making the unit fit into your family schedule as you desire.

    Each book is paired with an optional video. These are short videos to enrich the lesson from the stories and can provide more visuals and discussion opportunities with your children.

    As you read these books, I will guide you in introducing and discussing the stories with your children. (See example in photo above) For each book, I give you notes on reading it aloud, a script for introducing it to your kids, and optional discussion questions and narration prompts.

    Science note booking is also an option. I will teach and encourage you to practice narration as you read this books. The unit will list multiple ways to keep record of your science notebooks in order to differentiate your note booking for different ages and skill levels.

    Finally, I provide you with a list of enrichment activities that you have the option to add to your studies. The activities range in prep and difficulty containing super simple ideas or more complex projects that take a little more time.

    What is a Lesson Like in Science Through Picture Books?

    Picture this: Gather at the table, snuggle up on your couch, or lay out a blanket in the grass. Read a book and have your children narrate to you. It’s that simple. If you’re not familiar with narration, I’ll guide you through all of that in this guide. 

    Some of you may like to go a little further, and that’s encouraged if it brings you joy! You’ll see in the section above all of the additional videos and activities that are included in this unit. The point is, you can make this as simple or as complex as you’d like.

    Unit Topics – Meeting the Standards

    As a homeschooling mom, I try not to focus so much on the standards, but at the same time I know that some may feel peace of mind knowing they are following a certain standard as they teach their child. So, in this section, I hope to do my best to meet both sides in the middle.

    As I researched science standards while developing this curriculum, I realized that they are not the same across the country. Common Core standards exist, focusing on literacy through science in grades K-5, which is great, because you’ll get plenty of that through these books!

    Some states have their own unique science standards while others have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards, released in 2013. (NGSS)

    My hope is to provide a variety of science units for families to choose from to help build a foundation of knowledge in the subject. These units will focus on three out of the four disciplinary core ideas listed in the NGSS: physical sciences, life sciences, and earth and space sciences.

    These categories will guide me as I choose themes for the different units. The standards will not be stated in these units, because my intention is to make this a family study, which would be an extensive list covering multiple grade levels. However, if you’re curious about what these standards are, I encourage you to do your own research on their website which provides free, downloadable lists of the standards for each grade. 

    One thing you may notice is the majority of the standards can be met through these books and your discussion. Reading the standards can feel very “official” or possibly overwhelming, but remember that the goal of these elementary years is to build a foundation – the NGSS will tell you the same thing! We aren’t trying to reach a mastery of topics. We are encouraging curiosity and igniting their desire to learn even more!

    Look-Through the Curriculum

    Want to see inside one of these units? I know sometimes that can help get a better idea of what a specific curriculum is all about. Head to my YouTube channel to learn more about this and see inside the unit guide.

    Watch the Video Here.

    Future Units

    These units will be published as I complete them with my own children. I have a goal to complete four this year. We may or may not get to more than that. Here’s what you can expect this year:

    Each unit will follow the same pattern as I mentioned above in the overview.

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    Choosing Books

    I work really hard to research and read tons of books for these units. I enjoy it very much as I get to know authors and illustrators while increasing my knowledge on different topics.

    There are hundreds of books on these topics. However, my goal is not to provide you with tons and tons of books. I hope to give you a simplified, streamlined list in order to help you build a foundation of science knowledge with your kids.

    A beautiful, informative picture book always engages my children and me. Some people might refer to these as living books. These are the books that draw your attention and make you eager to listen and learn. It never fails when I read a great picture book with my kids, we are wanting to read more! It’s like it can spark a certain curiosity to dig deeper. 

    That’s exactly what science should be in these elementary years. We want to spark our children’s curiosity to learn more about the world and increase their desire to explore and experiment and even question ideas. All of this will develop their knowledge of science topics as well as their critical thinking skills. 

    When it comes to collecting these books for your family, the library is such a great way to do that. With the list of books in hand, you can easily put books on hold as you prepare for the unit! It’s such an inexpensive way to learn science with your kids.

    How to Use these Units

    In my own home, I use these units as our whole science curriculum. I don’t find it necessary to add anything else. Even as I research standards, I am confident that the content and the discussions provide my children with an excellent foundation in science knowledge.

    You do have other options to consider:

    • As stated above, use this on its own for your homeschool science curriculum. More units coming soon!
    • Use the book list as a supplemental resource to enhance a science textbook you plan to work through.
    • Let the booklist be your guide as you create your own unit study stretching across multiple subject areas. 

    However you decide to use it, I can promise you one thing – You’re going to love these books! 

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    Stay in-the-know About Releases

    If you’re not on my email list already, you’ll want to join now, because that’s where I will announce new releases. Each time I publish a unit, I’ll send out an announcement with a link. I know joining email lists can be frustrating at times, but it’s the best way to communicate with you all.

    Emails are sent to announce product releases, sales, and to share the videos I make on YouTube. I hope you’ll connect with me there!

    Interested in more Literature-Based Studies??

    American History through Picture Books – Work through the timeline of history, one picture book at a time.

    DIY Language Arts Novel Guides – Make LA a family study with these novels! No more workbook.

    DIY Language Arts Picture Book Studies (K-2nd) – Practice LA skills through books you know and love.

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    Knights and Castles – Middle Ages Mini Unit

    coat of arms

    We are beginning to study the middle ages in our homeschool, and I’ve decided to make it into a bunch of different mini-units. Our first one will focus on knights and castles.

    Read further for all the books we read as well as the activities we did, but come back soon and check out our other middle ages units as well. I will be posting them on the blog as we complete them!

    This post contains affiliate links. If you follow one of my links I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my blog!

    the door in the wall

    Read Aloud Novel

    “The Door in the Wall” by Marguerite de Angeli takes place in the middle ages. It follows the story of a young boy who is destined to become a page but is suddenly ill and unable to fulfill his duty. A monk comes to his aid and encourages him to learn new things and work on becoming stronger. His hard work will soon pay off as he will play an important role in protecting the castle.

    This book came highly recommended (from many other homeschool mamas online) as a historical fiction novel to read while studying the middle ages. The language can be tricky to understand, and by reading it aloud, I was able to explain what many different things meant. (I also learned some things myself!)

    The book is 121 pages and contains 10 chapters, most of which we were able to read in one sitting. The last two chapters were much longer and took us a couple of days to get through.

    I also love the message and theme that surrounded the story. Hard work and perseverance can really pay off. When one opportunity ends, another one might come along. You may think about a modern day phrase, “When one door closes, another opens”. All of these ideas brought on great discussion with my kids.

    We all enjoyed this book so much. Although we used it to study history, we also used it for my oldest daughter’s language arts lessons. (Read about that here)

    More Books

    I love using the library as our main source for books, and for this unit, I even visited a local used bookstore. That may get dangerous in the future. I could’ve bought so much! I found tons of good reads and I’ll share the best ones here. You can also check out my YouTube video where I share a peak inside of the books as well.

    coat of arms

    Coat of Arms

    Almost every book we read about knights talked about a coat of arms. Knights would decorate their shields in a way to represent who they were. This was a fun activity to express who we are and decorate our own pretend shields.

    You could definitely cut cardboard and paint if you wanted to go all out. We just used white paper! I cut the papers into a shape of a shield and I offered a couple of options. Decorate the whole shield or divide it into 2-4 pieces and add different designs to each piece. They each did something different, but I loved seeing what they chose to add to their shield.

    I had them tell me about their designs and what it meant to them so I could write it on the back. It’s a great piece of art for their portfolios.

    cardboard castles

    Create Castle and Drawbridge

    This activity and the two following activities were completed after reading portions of “Castle” by David Macaulay. This book seemed a little intimidating to me because it’s quite long, but it was highly recommended. It turned out to be absolutely wonderful and we learned so much! It did take about 3 days to get through it all.

    We created a castle using a cardboard box from our pantry. This blog post breaks down the entire process. Since I have younger ones, I did a little bit of prep to help the activity run smoother. By the time we were ready to start, I already had the boxes shaped.

    I had my two oldest each decorate their own castle. I will admit that once it was time to create the drawbridge, I could only help one at a time. If you had older kids, it may be fun to hand them the supplies and say – how can you make this work?

    With my two (ages 6 and 8), we talked about it as we went, and I had to do a lot of the work so that the drawbridge would do what it was supposed to. Even still, they loved the finished product and immediately got their Barbies out to start acting out a castle attack. It was pretty cute to watch, and such a fun way to assess what they’ve been learning – through play! I love it!

    Castle Drawing and Narration

    Before we read our Castle story one morning, I found a video that taught my girls how to draw a castle. Now, we love Art for Kids Hub, but their castle drawing could only be watched if you pay for a subscription on their website.

    So, we did something crazy and decided to just draw the Ice Castle from their YouTube channel. I encouraged my girls to decorate it like the castles we have been reading about. My oldest did just that and kept the snow. My other two girls just went full blown Frozen and kept the ice castle.

    Either way, it was still fun and I decided to use their pictures as a visual for their narration of what we read that morning. I wrote something for my two oldest girls and kept it in our yearly portfolio. I love how it turned out.

    Build-A-Castle Rotation

    Just one more day of reading this book (“Castle”), and I wanted something fun to finish it off. We have a few open-ended toys at our house, so I chose four different bins full of blocks to get us started.

    I set out four blankets for our morning time and put a bin on each blanket. We had Magnatiles, Mega Blocks , Duplo Legos, and wooden blocks. I told each of my kids that I would set a timer for five minutes and they’d have to build a castle out of that specific toy.

    At the end of the timer, no matter if they finished or not, they would rotate to the next blanket and build another castle. They thought this was the coolest. It really broke up the time well! They made all kinds of castles and it was the perfect way to finish off the book while keeping hands busy and ears listening. It was also neat to see their creativity and became a beautiful way to assess their understanding!

    Still on My Wishlist

    I always like to have a few ideas in my head of what I want to do for our unit studies. I’ll usually make a board on Pinterest (See my middle ages board). The thing is, I don’t always get to every single one. That’s because they are mostly enrichment! And if it adds more stress to complete it, then I put it off for another time.

    I love homeschooling with this philosophy because I don’t feel pressured to check a bunch of things off. We still learn so much through our readings! The next couple of activities are ones I wanted to do but didn’t quite get to during our unit. However, they’re too cute not to share! I’ll be saving them for a rainy day, but I hope they might inspire you if you’re studying the middle ages!

    Sir Cumference

    The Sir Cumference series is so much fun. They are picture books based in the medieval times that teach math concepts through stories.

    We found ours at the library. I checked out four of them and we simply read them together before bedtime for a few nights in a row. My kids loved them!

    Although we didn’t do an activity to go along with it. I kept thinking how fun it would be to do a simple graphing idea with some candy or cookies, just like in the “Roundabout Battle” story. Check out this candy bar graph for an idea of what I mean. You can also see this photo of an M&M pie chart for another type of graph the book used.

    These are such simple ways to bring the book to life and experience the graph in our own hands instead of just the story.

    Armor of God

    One of the books that we read had a Christian message, and it was called “The Brave Young Knight”. The book was great alone, but I had this idea to do a little armor of God study to go along with it.

    You can find the armor of God in the bible in Ephesians 6:10-20. Once we read about it in scripture, I wanted to create a fun, easy knight using aluminum foil shapes. This link will give you a better idea of what I’m talking about.

    As we review the armor of God, I hoped to cut the different pieces of the armor out of the foil, glue it on construction paper and label it. I just feel like this could be such a fun way to link our study of knights to what we learn in scripture. It’s also a great visual to help us memorize the verses.

    Movies/Shows

    We have a family movie night on the weekends, and I love when I can match it up to what we are learning. During this unit, we watched a couple of movies that were related to knights and castles.

    First, was The Sword in the Stone. This is an old Disney film that follows the adventures of a young boy who wants to be a knight. It is very magical, but it does take place in the time period. Since I have kids ages 2-8, it was a great one that we could all enjoy.

    Another weekend, we let the bigger kids watch A Knight’s Tale. Now, this one is rated PG-13 and it took a little editing on our part.

    First, we had to talk with the kids about the language. We also had to be prepared to skip a love scene in the film. The only other thing was one of the first scenes. You see a man’s butt and there’s also a visual of someone hanging in the background. Beyond those few parts, the rest of the film was fantastic!

    I highly suggest you read through the Common Sense Media page, and as always, choose what you think is best for your family. Everyone has a preference for movies, and as parents we get the privilege to choose what is shown in our home. In my opinion, it was worth the watch, even though we skipped a small bit. The film portrays that time period so well. You can really see the different classes of people as well as things like jousting and coats of arms, all of which we discussed together the weeks before.

    More Unit Studies

    Come back soon for more unit studies related to the middle ages. If you liked looking through these ideas or if you try one at home, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

    We’ve been doing unit studies like this all year and I have most of them on the blog. I’ll link some of them below if you’d like check them out!

    Ancient Egypt

    Weather

    Space

    Ancient China

    Vikings

    Thanksgiving

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    Vikings – Homeschool Unit Study

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    It’s time to learn about Vikings in our homeschool! I’m so pumped because I don’t know much about them (HA!) That doesn’t scare me! It makes it all the more exciting doing it with the kids. We will be learning so much together, and I’m thrilled! So, as we go through our unit, I’ll be writing this blog post. I hope to share the books we are reading for our unit study as well as the different activities we do.

    This post contains affiliate links. If you follow one of my links I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my blog!

    Library Haul

    My first step in any unit study is to collect books from the library. I’ve shared this before, but my main strategy is to just head to the non-fiction section and start putting books in my bag.

    This time around I did have a few books I put on hold just in case. So, I grabbed those first and the rest were a surprise.

    I’m so excited! For this unit I had some time to make a YouTube video sharing all the books we used. Check that video out here.

    Below are just a few of the books that we got and loved for our unit. The first three were great to read front to back as a fun read aloud. The rest are good reference books that we used to research other topics, like geography, art, clothing, and more.

    planning a unit

    Planning

    Next, it’s my turn to do the studying. I like to just flip through the library books and skim through the pages. The pictures and text inspire me before I start hunting for different activities on Pinterest. This also helps me know which books will be easy to read to my kids and which ones might just be a good reference book on our shelf.

    As I looked through each book, I made a note of some focus topics that the book discussed: ships, food, Viking men and women, recipes, clothing…anything.

    Next, I headed to Pinterest and looked for some inspiration of any topics that I knew would interest me or my kids. I’ve saved all of my pins in one board called “Vikings” if you’d like to take a look.

    Read Alouds

    We always do our read aloud novels before bed time. This has been so great for us. We read so much more, my kids can wind down, and most of the time it’s quieter than our morning time.

    For this unit, I’m trying something new and reading TWO books at bedtime. One is nonfiction – “Magic Tree House Fact Tracker: Vikings”. The other is a fictional novel – “Imagination Station: Voyage with the Vikings”

    In addition to that, each of my bigger kids (8 yrs and 6 yrs) listened to an audio book separately during their quiet time. Through our library app (Libby) we checked out “Magic Treehouse: Viking Ships at Sunrise” The book is only about 40 minutes long so they were each able to listen to it in one day and had a chance to exchange what their favorite part was.

    These three books alone will teach my kids and I so much. Having this as the backbone to our unit will help us learn all sorts of information, but it also gives me confidence that I don’t need a ton of extras. We will be soaking in facts and fun through books!

    Extra Activities

    Now is the part where I get to share the fun, “extra” things we did for our unit. I personally think reading together is great and the following things aren’t necessary to learn. However, it brings me joy planning them and my children LOVE them. So, we continue to add a few fun things here and there in our units. I hope sharing them with you may inspire your family, as well!

    geography activity

    Geography

    The Vikings lived mostly in Scandinavia, but they sailed to many different countries. I felt like this was a great opportunity to talk about our seven continents.

    First, I found a free printable online that was blank, black and white, and would allow us to label the continents. Once we did that we colored each continent a different color.

    I also shared a couple of videos online that talked about the different continents and what you may find there. One is shorter, animated, and silly. The other is a little longer, has real pictures, and LOTS of facts. Both were great to watch!

    We were also able to use a few of our library books. Almost every book has some sort of map in them, but a few had maps that showed different routes the Vikings traveled.

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    During our second week of study, I printed out a Viking Map that I found online for free. We were able to mark where the Vikings lived, where they raided, and where they settled. It was super simple and easy to do together. The website where I found this gave an example of the finished product so there was no guessing or researching for me.

    baking Birka bread

    Baking Bread

    I planned to make a bread recipe that we found in one of our books from the library, “Viking Longships”. The recipe was for something called Birka bread. I’m not sure what happened, but it smelled bad, and it looked like slop. It did not have a dough consistency, so I was unsure how it would turn out.

    I quickly found another recipe I saved on Pinterest and threw it together so that we could try both breads. It was really easy, and I happened to have all of the ingredients already in my pantry.

    The Birka bread was sort of like a pancake consistency and had a sweet flavor. It definitely tasted better than it smelled. A couple of my kids actually preferred it over the other. The other bread was very dense and pretty dry. It was good with butter and honey.

    Either way, it was fun to make and eat what the Vikings may have eaten long ago!

    Viking lunch

    Viking Lunch

    This was probably the easiest themed lunch I’ve ever done. I had everything already at home and decided to throw it together last minute. I found the idea from a blog post that suggested to read “Leif the Lucky” along with it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find that one at the library OR a good quality read aloud on Youtube. So, we just ate the lunch!

    All it took was a PBJ sandwhich, pretzels, raisins and bananas. My kids were so surprised and thought it was so cute. Now, if you see the picture, the bananas act like horns on the helmet. However, from what we’ve been reading, that’s actually a false representation of a Viking helmet. Real viking helmets did NOT have horns. Fun fact of the day!

    viking runes

    Art/ Runes

    The Vikings art was really in their craftsmanship. The carvings, and weapons, and jewelry were all really neat to see in our library books. We were also able to see runes, which are kind of like a Viking alphabet. We used one of our books that had a chart of all the runes to do a simple and fun activity.

    Using a toothpick, we carved words into Play Doh to make it look like runes on stone. It was neat to see our names written that way.

    My oldest and I enjoyed cracking the code a little bit. Her and I would come up with a 3-4 letter word and use the chart to try and decode the message. This can get tricky because some symbols represent multiple letters.

    drinking horn snack

    Snack – Drinking Horns

    When I saw that the Vikings used drinking horns, I was certain there was a craft for that, but didn’t find anything! So, I came up with my own simple little snack to pretend we were Vikings.

    You’ll need the triangular shaped waffle cones to be your horn. We filled ours with yogurt and granola to make a simple parfait, but you could definitely fill it with ice cream or something else.

    That’s it! It was so silly and fun, and the kids loved saying “Cheers” before eating it.

    Music

    The DK find out! series had a page on the music that might have been played during Viking times. Over lunch one day I read through this page as we observed the different types of instruments and read about how they were used.

    I found this GREAT selection of videos from YouTube that shared more about the same instruments and the guy hosting the video even played them. It was really neat, and it brought the instruments to life for us. The videos are short and sweet and made the instruments very memorable!

    viking language arts

    Language Arts

    During this unit, I was re-evaluating our language arts program and trying some new things for my oldest daughter. While doing that, we were able to use the history books we read for a few language arts lessons, which was really a lot of fun.

    I would read a story about the Vikings from the library. Then, my daughter would write 2-3 sentences about what we read. I’d sit down with her and help her edit her sentences or add to them if we needed to.

    As a treat, I’d let her add a picture from an online drawing video. I’ll link the two videos we used below:

    This was really a great way for us to incorporate our studies into language arts and it really inspired me to do it more.

    Notebook/Portfolio

    At the end of each unit we do, I like to have the kids draw a little keepsake for our study. It’s very simple. I have them tell me about something they learned and write it down on the paper (Sometimes my oldest will write it on her own) Next, they draw a picture.

    While we did this, we listened to an audio book about vikings, “How to be a Viking” by Cressida Cowell. This book was written by the author of the “How to Train Your Dragon” series. We learned that this picture book was the one that started it all!

    We keep all of these drawings in a binder, and it’s so neat to go back and look at all of the things we’ve learned together over the year. This is my first year doing a portfolio like this, and I will definitely continue!

    We loved studying the Vikings!

    This was such a fun study for us. A couple random things to add in…We did watch How to Train Your Dragon 2 during our study because it’s technically about Vikings. I was actually kind of disappointed with it. The movie itself was fine, but the Vikings didn’t look like what we studied and they didn’t even ride in longships! So, that ended up being kind of a bummer for me. Maybe the first one is better about that? I haven’t seen it in a while.

    This next thing is not really kid-friendly…but I’ll share anyway. During our unit study, my husband and I started watching the series called “Vikings”. It was originally produced by the History Channel but eventually it moved to the Prime app. We started it about a week before our unit kicked off, and it got me really pumped up to begin our study. JUST A HEADS UP – this show is very gory, creepy/disturbing at times (I’m talkin’ human sacrifices and such…yikes!), and there are some love scenes as well. Like I said, NOT child friendly at all. However, it was very fun to connect with my husband in a way that related to our homeschool studies! So, watch at your own risk…everyone has their preferences.

    Well, that about does it for our history unit! I always hated history as a child, but I am loving it as I study with my children. I feel so blessed to have these days with them. Have you studied the Vikings yet? I’d love to know if you do any of these activities! Comment below or tag me on Instagram @simply.learning.together. I love hearing from you guys!

    More Unit Studies

    NEW – American History

    Ancient Egypt

    Ancient China

    Space

    Weather

    Knights and Castles

    Novel Units

    The Secret Garden

    Mrs. Piggle Wiggle

    The Boxcar Children

    The Courage of Sarah Noble

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    Christmas Picture Book Activities

    nativity lunch

    When we get to the holidays, our schedules tend to fill up. I know in our homeschool, I’m ready to wind down as we prepare to celebrate. I’m always looking for something super easy, and the solution for us has been books! This Christmas I invite you to simplify your routine and try this out.

    Below is a list of books. Each book is absolutely wonderful on it’s own, but sometimes it’s fun to add a little something extra, but simple! With each book, I have described a short activity to go along with it.

    Choose one of these, two of these, or do them all. That’s it! No worksheets, no schedule, just read the books with your kiddos. If you want to add in the activity, go for it! We have loved using picture books to study during the Christmas season, and I hope it can do the same for you and your family too!

    This post contains affiliate links. If you follow one of my links I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my blog!

    Great Joy

    BOOK: “Great Joy” by Kate DiCamillo

    This sweet story follows a girl with a big heart who wants to share the Christmas spirit with a lonely man she sees sleeping on the street.

    ACTIVITY: Angel Ornaments – Any time I look for a craft, I want something unique but also with supplies I know I will have around the house. I most always have craft sticks, so the only kicker in this supply list was the yarn. However, the cuteness-factor of this craft motivated me to purchase the yarn and go for it. This angel is so sweet, and I think my kids will adore seeing the final product.

    watercolor christmas tree

    Christmas Farm

    BOOK: “Christmas Farm” by Mary Lyn Ray

    In this story, a woman asks the help of her neighbor to plant Christmas trees on her property. Their time and hard work result in a beautiful Christmas tree farm that they can share with their community.

    ACTIVITY: There are so many different ideas out there to craft a Christmas tree. I’ll share a few simple ones here, but the picture above is an example that’s great for little ones! I drew the outline of the tree and had my little ones paint it with green watercolor. Next, I provided them with q-tips and paint to make ornaments. This was so simple and turned out cute! Listed below are a few more Christmas tree ideas:

    The Gingerbread Man

    BOOK: “The Gingerbread Man” by Karen Scmidt

    This classic story about a runaway gingerbread man is entertaining and silly. The pictures are fun and the ending is a bit of a surprise!

    ACTIVITY: This one may seem obvious, but it’s a great opportunity to bake gingerbread cookies together. We’ve been using the same recipe for years and it’s absolutely delicious! If you want to make it even simpler, you could play with play dough instead. Use gingerbread cookie cutters and things like beads or buttons to decorate.

    nativity lunch

    The First Christmas Night

    BOOK: “The First Christmas Night” by Keith Christopher

    This rhyming book tells the story of Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus starting from the arrival to the stable. The pictures are so beautiful and almost look like real people!

    ACTIVITY: I found this precious nativity lunch idea on Pinterest, and it turned out adorable. (Get directions and FREE printable here) One thing I loved about it was that the food was pretty good for you! (Minus the marshmallow sheep and candy gifts) This was SO easy to add into our day because we actually had almost all of the items, and we eat lunch every day! No extra time needed.

    As a side note, we used our play doh shapes to make the star. I bought these play doh shapes years ago when my oldest was a toddler. They are awesome and get used all the time!

    Merry Christmas

    Happy Reading! I hope you enjoy these books with your family. If you end up doing one of the activities along with it, I’d love to hear about it! Send me a message or tag me on Instagram @simply.learning.together