Packing up my shelves this week as we transition from our units on geological eras and prehistoric life towards ancient civilization. I wanted to share some books before they go back on our “library shelf” (which currently is just an avalanche of books waiting to happen. Organization fairy, please come rescue me from my good intentions).
Here are some great titles I recommend for reading alongside the Clock of Eras presentations.
I highly recommend everything from Fossilicious.com. They were created by Montessori educators and make excellent readers for 6-9 year olds. My seven-year-old was able to read these books by himself and learned a lot.
I also made some command cards / research cards that correlate to the materials. If anyone is interested in a copy, feel free to DM me on Instagram @cosmic_montessori and I will email you a link.
Fossilicious sells awesome fossil kits as well as their own albums.
I also loved this book, The Fossil Girl, for the kids. I wanted to do more on Mary Anning, but this was a great first introduction to her this year. We’ll do more next time.
Here are a few more titles we read from the last couple months for history and science:
The Story of Life by Katie Scott
The artwork! Muah! *kisses closed fingers, opens hands in Italian Grandma way* Ignore me. I had too much coffee today.
Life Story by Virginia Lee Burton — a classic set on the stage!
When Whales Walked by Dougal Dixon
The illustrations are beautiful and it’s a really well-organized book on animals through the time periods. Definitely use this one with the Timeline of Life.
Continental Drift by Martin Ince
This was our most utilized and my favorite resource on the topic — it covers a lot of ground.
Prehistoric Life from Eyewitness Books
This is a fantastic transition from the 2nd to 3rd Great Lesson and into early civilizations. We just finished reading that most recently (you can see the other 3rd Great Lesson books we used here).
The Street Beneath My Feet is a good introductory book to explaining geological layers of the earth in an impressionistic, narrative way.
You can see that one in action here (scroll, scroll, scroll — there’s a video too).
Not a book but here’s a final resource I thought may be helpful. Heidi at Work and Play is amazing, and she gives her homeschool Clock of Eras overview here with additional sources. She also eloquently explains our shared view of evolution from a Catholic perspective — far better than I can.
Of course here’s a recent post with more book recommendations; these resources can be utilized for the 3rd Great Lesson but still in conjunction with the Clock of Eras. This is why I group 2nd and 3rd Great Lesson into a kind of big prehistorical, geological history and science lesson.
