Middle Ages Homeschool Resources

Here is a list of resources compiled from recommendations from other homeschoolers on the Well Trained Mind Boards. Books marked with an x indicate they were mentioned multiple times. I added in books that I was reminded of that we enjoyed last time we did the middle ages. I also have a few more books listed at the end that I found searching. I'll need to check these out to see if they are good.

The good news is that I am pretty sure we have over half of these books in storage. The bad news is that we're going to need a lot of bookshelf space for this era. And I think that our reading list will probably outpace the time alloted for the middle ages. But this is a good problem to have. Better than the alternative.

1066: The Year of the Conquest

Adam of the Road

Adventures in the Middle Ages: Good Times Detective Agency – Linda Bailey

Adventures with the Vikings: Good Times Detective Agency – Linda Bailey

The Ancient Celts (Scholastic; some detailed description of pagan practices)
The Apple and the Arrow

Augustine Came to Kent (Bethlehem Books)

Bard of Avon- Stanley

The Beduin’s Gazelle (stand alone sequel to The Ramsey Scallop)

Beorn the Proud – Madeline Pollard

Beowulf: A New Telling – Robert Nye

Beowulf – Ian Serraillier

The Bible Smuggler

The Black Arrow (by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The Blue Fairy Book (and other colors, by Andrew Lang)

Brother Caedfael mysteries – Ellis Peters

Canterbury Tales retold by Geraldine McCaughrean
Castle (by Macaulay)

Castle Diary - Richard Platt x

Cathedral – David Macaulay

Catherine Called Birdy - Karen Cushman

The Children of Odin (by Padraic Colum; Norse myths)

Crispin: Cross of Lead – Avi x
D’ Aulaire’s Book of Norse Myths x

Dark is Rising sequence – Susan Cooper (as a treat after we’ve read Arthur)

Days of Knights and Damsels (activity book)

The Door in the Wall x

Famous men of the middle ages x

Famous Men of the Renaissance

Favorite Medieval Tales - Mary Pope Osborne

Good Masters, Sweet Ladies x
The Hidden Treasure of Glaston – Eleanore Jewett (Bethlehem Books)

Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott (Great Illustrated Classics)

Joan of Arc – Stanley xx

King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table – Roger Lanceyln Green

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table – Rosemary Sutcliff (The Sword and the Circle, The Light Beyond the Forest, The Road to Camlann)

King Arthur and his Knights (CD) – Jim Weiss

The King of Ireland's Son (by Padraic Colum)

The Kings Shadow x

The Kitchen Knight – Margaret Hodges

Knight’s Fee – Rosemary Sutcliff

Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare

Leif the Lucky (by D'Aulaires)

The Little Duke – Charlotte Yonge

The Making of a Knight - Patrick O'Brien

Marco Polo for Kids (activity book)

Matilda Bone - Karen Cushman

Medieval Fashions (Dover coloring book)

A Medieval Feast - Aliki

Medieval Tales (by Mary Pope Osborne)

Men of Iron – Howard Pyle

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (by Howard Pyle)

The Midwife's Apprentice - Karen Cushman
The Minstrel in the Tower

The one and future king TE White x
Otto of the Silver Hand (by Howard Pyle)

The Pied Piper of Hamelin (by Browning; included here based on its setting of the late 1200's, not on when it was written)The

Ramsey Scallop – Frances Temple

The Red Keep – Allen French

The Road to Damietta by Scott O'Dell - about the life of St. Francis

Robin Hood

Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest

Saint Patrick: Pioneer Missionary to Ireland (Christian Liberty Press)

Saladin Diane Stanley

The Samurai’s Tale – Eric Haagard

The Seventh Expert

Shakespeare Stealer series

The Shield Ring – Rosemary Sutcliff

The Shining Company – Rosemary Sutcliff

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – Tolkein

Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady

Son of Charlemagne - Barbara Willard

St. George and the Dragon Margarete Hodges (My kids loved this so much the first time through the middle ages that we about wore out our copy.)

Starry Messenger (about Gallileo)

The Story of King Arthur and Other Celtic Heroes (by Padraic Colum)

The Story of Rolf and the Viking Bow – Allen French (Bethlehem Books)

Sword in the Stone xx (Separate entry because it was specifically mentioned)

The Sword in the Tree - Bulla

Sword Song – Rosemary Sutcliff

Tales from Arabian Nights (because it fit with the caliphat and harun-al-rashid)

The Trumpeter of Krakow -

Usborne Internet-Linked Medieval World

Usborne Norse Myths
The Viking News

Whipping Boy – Sid Fleishman


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Books I found in my searches that look interesting:

Bearskin – Howard Pyle

Big John’s Secret – Eleanore Jewett

The Great and Terrible Quest - Margaret Lovett

If All the Swords in England

The Magna Carta – James Daugherty

Margurete Makes a Book - Bruce Robertson

Merlin and the Making of the King – Margaret Hodges

Minstrel in the Tower - Gloria Skurzynski

Lost Baron – Allen French

One Thousand and One Nights – Geraldine McCaughrean
Sword of the Rightful King – Jane Yolen

The White Stag – Kate Seredy

The big list is a little anglocentric. Having been in Germany last history cycle, we had a heavy exposure to figures like Charlemagne and William the Conquerer. I’d like to find more books about central European stories and history, like the Niebelungenlied and Ludwig der Springer. And religious figures like Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, whom we kept running into (but who I'd not heard of before as a protestant American). I think that I need to find some good versions of Grimm’s fairy tales.

Looking at the US with the Eyes of a Tourist

After seven years of being global nomads, we're headed back to the mainland United States. The last time we lived there, Rutabaga wasn't yet of kindergarten age and Artichoke wasn't even walking. I have sadly observed that while my kids can cheerfully watch Amazing Race and point to landmarks in Rome or Hong Kong with familiarity, they can't consistently identify the regions and states of the US. Nor do they have much of a sense of American history excepted in a detached, something happened over there way.

So with the relocation of Percival Blakeney Academy to the US, it is time to put some serious effort into also grasping basic facts and nuanced stories that make up America. I want them to know not just that Kansas and Nebraska and Missouri border each other, but that there was a bloody history in the formation of Kansas that contributed to the Civil War. Even deeper, I want them to know that they have a family connection there that brushes up with the figures in history books like William Quantrill and John Brown.

So in addition to our regularly scheduled history studies, which are leaving ancient Rome and heading to the Middle Ages; we will need to add some basic American Studies. Some of this will be through local history in the DC area, which stretches from colonization to the present with highlights around both the American Revolution and the Civil War; through reading good books set in American historical periods; through a study of American holidays and through games and songs and art and anything else I can think to throw in.

This afternoon we played a couple rounds of USA Edition Borderline. This is a card game where each card has a US state or a body of water. You take turns playing a card with a state that borders the previous card. I gave myself a handicap by printing out a map with state names for the kids to use as a cheat sheet. They were pretty miserable at the beginning, especially before I gave them the map. But they both got better and got more excited at making matches. I think we'll keep playing this for a while.

December 7th

December 7th went mostly unremarked here this year. Instead of standing in our back yard watching the ceremonies on USS Arizona, we were in the midst of packing up our apartment.

But I had to share this note home from a sailor on USS Enterprise from 1941. I think that there used to be stacks and stacks of these postcards for use in just such occasion. (For that matter, there is a family story of one of my uncles being stationed in Viet Nam and being ordered to sit down and write to his mom because it had been so long since he'd written that she'd contacted Red Cross.)

Thinking about Writing

I signed up to do NaNoWriMo in November. No it isn't something related to a flesh eating virus. It stands for National Novel Writing Month and is a month long dare to write every day and eventually finish writing 50,000 words before the end of the month.

I failed.

I have a raft of excuses that I could float out. Probably it was more than idealistic to try to combine writing a novel and prepping for moving in the same month. I found that it was far harder than I realized to discipline myself to sitting down and writing. On the other hand I found that I thought more about what I wanted to write about than I had in a very long time. For ages I've had a story idea floating around in the back of my head, in such a formless state that calling it amoeba like would be a compliment.

One thing that did come clearly into focus is that while I have some prospectively vivid characters in my head, I don't really have a good solid conflict to write about. I'm not sure if this reflects a reluctance to throw really ugly things at my fictional creations or if it is a sign that for all the stress in my life, it is really pretty conflict free.

I also learned that I should go with what sets the stage for the most lively writing. Early on I had what felt like a brilliant and exciting idea. I made the mistake of asking other people what they thought. They couldn't get past the absurdity of the premise to see the potential in what would happen next. So I tried to make it smaller and more understandable. But I think that in the process I ended up gutting it too much.

I'm going back to that first, shiney idea that had inspired me and made me giggle and twirl my fingers in anticipation. So what if it is improbable and if you can come of with a list of reasons why it probably wouldn't happen that way in real life. This is my fictional story after all, not real life. Beginning in medias res, I am skipping over the hows and whys of the crisis and going straight to what happens to the people because of it.

I'm intending to keep writing. I may even be able to salvage some of what I wrote in November. I actually had a notebook out for some jotings while teh packers were here. I don't know if I'll be done in December or January or even in time for next November's NaNoWriMo. But I will be writing.