REVIEW: Story of The World Vol.2 PLUS Read Aloud List

A look at and review of The Story of The World Vol.2 plus the read aloud books we added in. Click ↓ SHOW MORE to see the books list and for links ↓

Approximate Read Aloud Schedule:

Ch 1-3: Otto of the Silver Hand
Ch 6-8: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon
Ch 9: The Big Wave
Ch 10: A single Shard
Ch 12- 13: Shadow Spinner
Ch 14: Son of Charlemagne (Tried The Story of Rolf and the Viking Bow as well )
Ch 15: The Sword in the Tree
Ch 16: Adam of the Road
Ch 17: A Samurai's Tale
Ch 18-19: Robin Hood
Ch 20: Li Lun Lad of Courage
Ch 22: A Grain of Rice
Ch 23-26: The Trumpeter of Krakow
Ch 27- 28: The Door in the Wall
Ch 32:The Corn Grows Ripe
Ch 34-35: The Apprentice
Ch 36-37: Red Huge
Ch 38-39: The Shakespeare Stealer

Independent Readers:

Retelling of Beowulf- by Michael Morpurgo
Sir Gawain & The Green Knight
The Minstrel in the Tower by Gloria Skurzynski
Dingoes at Dinner time- Magic Treehouse
Viking Adventure by Clyde Robert Bulla
The Vikings in Ireland
Horrible Histories Measly Middle Ages by Terry Deary
How to Live like a Medieval Knight by Anita Ganeri
Genghis Khan Ruthless by Enid A. Goldberg
A Wicked History Genghis Khan
You Wouldn’t want to be Joan of Arc
Who was Joan of Arc?
Who Was Christopher Columbus?
The Life of Christopher Columbus- graphic novel
Johann Gutenberg and the printing press by Kay Melchisedech Olson

Joan of Arc Documentary:

Plague Documentary:

Secrets of The Castle- Why Build A Castle? Documentary

*The first two art projects were actually done in reverse order.

We are a family of 7 with children between the ages of 2 and 11 living on the Canadian prairies.

See more of our everyday life here:

[cyndifrederick]

I don't think I've ever seen such a thorough video on curriculum. Thanks for all the info!

[cherylsosciacassidy]

Thanks for the reading lists! That is exactly what I headed to Youtube to look for.

[mycupoverflows]

You're so organized! What a great video! Love this! I'm contemplating doing SOTW with my grades 1, 2, 5&8 next year. These are absolutely amazing ideas!

[amygrace]

This was great! I was trying to figure out how to still do lots of read alouds with SOTW and you made it easy! I appreciate your time. Thank you :-)

[godsbuckets]

I LOVE the idea of family projects in the evening. I'm going to use SOTW audio and activity book to go along with TG&TB. Can't wait!

[ajoyfulplanner]

Wow! best video on how to use this resource in such a practical and realistic way! The ideas, and booklist...so good! We are still in volume 1, but I am definitely going to be printing the kid's individual workbooks for the remainder of the book! Doing crafty activities on the weekend while husbands are around is such a genius idea!!! Thank you

Q: How do you schedule the SOTW chapters and all the read-alouds? Do you wait till you're finished your chosen extra read alouds before moving onto the next chapter in SOTW?

[TeachingTinyDisciples]

This was a great video, thank you! I was considering using this as a supplement to another program, but I'm starting to think this may be right up our alley as our main history curriculum instead. I really appreciate the read alouds you mentioned and seeing the finished projects. Honestly, the projects and books are our favorite parts of history.

[rachaelsavini]

This is incredibly helpful; thank you for your insight and for sharing your compiled lists! Can I ask how much time you spend of history a day or a week? What is your routine; every day, or a couple times a week? Would love to learn how you managed to get all of this beautiful content into your homeschool rhythm.

[mrscouts]

Wow, thank you for that read-aloud list! We are wrapping up Vol 1 and honestly my boys (2nd grade and 4th grade) are NOT feeling the activities from the student book and the crafts and everything are just too much for one subject. However, I LOVE reading the texts aloud to them and think it would be a great idea to supplement with extra read-alouds. I also cut apart the guide and sent it to Office Depot for binding. Thank you for this great video! It was exactly what I needed.

[chasaw]

So I ended up purchasing through Thrift all the books you mentioned in your video. Not the ones that you listed in the description. What I wanted to know is which chapters these books would correspond with. And if at times you had more than one book per chapter. Thanks so much!!

[SixFiguresUnderFamily]

I love watching all of your reviews Christina! I think I've watched more than a dozen of them in the last few days. We've decided to homeschool this year! I'm planning on doing volume 1 SOTW and I would love to supplement it with literature like you did here. I'm also looking at doing The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts with some of my kids. And I'm doing Saxon Math. I have enjoyed seeing all of your family art projects on Instagram over the years. Thank you for sharing all of your wisdom! I'm curious how you budget for homeschool things (I'm sure that doesn't surprise you!). Do you put money aside each month for it or just take a big hit in your curriculum buying month?

[JP-ecei]

You have great diversity. Most videos I’ve seen focus on castles. I’m excited to start the second book. Enjoyed your video. I’d love to see you do a video on the third book.

[stlilymov]

What a great video. We are long time SOTW users and it has been a favorite in our homeschool. I use the Professor Noggins games too, for memory work. We use them for science as well. I love that it's a simple and fun way to memorize history and science facts. We our history study very similar to how you do it. We'll be going through volume 2 next year. Thanks for sharing.

[jessicajones]

Brilliant idea with the read alouds! Can I ask for the schedule of the books, when did you read each book? What books like up to particular chapters? I’d love to try this x

[sarahlenhard]

How do you incorporate the read aloud? Do you read certain days from the read aloud and certain days from Story of the World? Hoping this question makes sense!

[jessicaheath]

How fun! Your homeschool sounds amazing.

[klevesque]

How did you finish some of those thicker books in just a week?