My Dream History Program Part I

I love history, good history, history that reflects Christ and His Church as well as our salvation as the center!

I've been gathering some thoughts and ideas on what I would do if I were to write or create my ideal history program. First of all, it would definitely take a similar sequence to The Well-Trained Mind Format. We would study Ancient History for the first part of the four year cycle.

I would like to begin with the Creation of the World and move on to a then to a short unit on pre-historic creatures. I'd like it to cover all of the major early world civilizations. When focusing on the near East, I would like to draw from the Old Testament and histories of the Old Testament written by priests and Catholic scholars.

One part I would definitely have would be a book with photographs of different parts of civilizations, kind of in a program by itself, similar to Child-Sized Masterpieces. The student would use the photographs to become familiar with major archaeological sites and be able to identify them and also many of the works of art associated with different civilizations.

As far as the near East, I would cover a little on all of the OT prophets, appropriate to the age. From around the world we would focus on important people from each civilization, like Hammurabi or Ramses. Many of the lives of the people on suggested list in TWTM would be appropriate to study.

When it comes to the Life of Our Lord, I would love for the children to learn about what it was like to live at the same time, as a special focus. We would then study what happened to each of the Twelve apostles as they went out to spread the Faith to the world. We would also study each council of the Church, beginning with the council of Jerusalem. However, at an age appropriate level.

I would incorporate a study of philosophers, such as Aristotle, that the saints drew from (St. Thomas Aquinas in particular ). We would also learn about and read the Fathers, on an age appropriate level.

When we learn about the history of the Roman Empire, we would do a huge unit on the Martyrs. I think we would make a martyrs notebook. We would also make a popes notebook because we would be memorizing the names of the popes all the way up to the end of the time period we are studying.

In between, we would be studying how all of the ancient cultures lived, worked and their wars and conflicts. I don't want the focus to be solely European. One thing that I would probably omit, at an early level, would be details about pagan gods. I just don't think it is necessary at a younger age to cover this topic in detail the way some other classical programs do.

I think I'd end the time period at the Council of Carthage, where the canon of Sacred Scriptures was set.

I would also like to have a book that was in a narrative format to read each lesson from, as well as a project idea book.