Recommendations for History, 6 yr old

[MissRubyandKen]

My dd, 6, loves History. She can't seem to get enough of it. Mostly her interests right now pertains to different cultures, past or present. Anyone recommend any books, series of books, videos, or websites in particular for exploring past cultures, geography, animals and crops specific to region, as well as present day societies around the world. Her interest goes above and beyond the curricula available from K12 at this point so I'm looking for some supplements.
She also has expressed interest in Mesopotamia in particular. We had a lesson about Mesopotamia and the building materials used. We have been making plans for an ongoing project. We are going to bake mini mud bricks and build a model of a mud brick house. I'm thinking we could use cardboard as base and playdough for features such as water, bushes, animals, and grass. Any thoughts on this? Would playdough be the best medium or would clay be better? Should we consider using plywood for the base? It may end up being quite heavy. Anyone done anything like this? Would playdough hold the mud bricks together or should we use a waterbase sealer or flour/water paste as mortar? Ideas please! Also any resources to tie into this would be appreciated.

[NoHiddenFees]

Originally Posted by MissRubyandKen

She also has expressed interest in Mesopotamia in particular.

Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors and Ancient Israelites and their Neighbors are two excellent project based history books. There is a lot of information in addition to the projects. We like these. IIRC, they recommended using sugar cubes for and glue at least one of the building projects. Sometimes they call for the use of paper clay or (drawing a blank for the name) the clay that doesn't need to be baked.

I'd recommend a good spine, like the Usborne Internet Linked Encycopedia of history or the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia. If she's interested in a chronological study of history, I'd highly recommend History Odyssey, essentially a series of secular history and geography lesson plans using an encylopedia, Story of the World, Child's History of the World, the project books above and a few other resources. There is a supplemental reading list (and sometimes videos) for each lesson. HO follows the classical approach: four years of chronolocial study starting with the ancients. I don't recommend the Story of the World Activity Guides, though many do like them. Too much busy work and not enough depth for us (though we are mummifying a chicken).

[Satori]

We use SOTW and the activity guide and are enjoying it

[Roar]

Originally Posted by NoHiddenFees

Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors and Ancient Israelites and their Neighbors are two excellent project based history books. There is a lot of information in addition to the projects.

I agree. We got these from the library and they were quite good.

Another less detailed guide but with pretty easy projects is http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Kids...528939?ie=UTF8

[OTMomma]

I'd use clay instead of playdoh for the craft, I think. Playdoh tends to crumble when it dries, and I think clay would last better.

[Hera]

We use Story of the world and the usbourne internet linked world history. Between the two, if I had to choose, I'd go with the Usbourne. SOTW is OK but not fabulous, I'm going to continue with it but it is a very small part of what we do for history. We'll read a chapter and then get a bunch of library books on the subjects covered.

I just found Joy Hakim's The Story of Science, and I am really excited about it. It isn't necessarily a history spine, but it seems like it can go along fairly well and bring scientific discovery into the context of history.

[The Duchess]

Hera could you give more details on both the history resources you mentioned? Esp. the usborne?

Thanks :

[Hera]

Originally Posted by The Duchess

Hera could you give more details on both the history resources you mentioned? Esp. the usborne?

Thanks :

Sure, someone else mentioned these two as well:
usborne
Story of the world This is book one, there are 4 books and also activity books.

And Joy Hakim:
http://www.joyhakim.com/work2.htm