A history book with engaging activities and thoroughly detailed narrations. This volume includes fun games/role-playing for students and different learning techniques for the teacher to try. A simple yet logical approach to teaching world history. ( )

The authors present a balanced, informative read on world history from 15,000 BC to 1500 AD. Students are encouraged to be active learners, including asking questions and lightly debating others.

The contents span human settlements, religions, civilizations, economy, war, slavery, exploration and expansion. The content is age appropriate and offers a well rounded survey of world history.

The text is strong enough to be a primary book for a course yet also provides plenty of flexibility for teacher approach/style in terms of choosing segments of focus. Overall, the authors provide an engaging text. ( )

My wife an I are home school parents in search of THE PERFECT HISTORY RESOURCE. That is, we want a history book that does not wear one bias or another. We don't want one saying that all Europeans are saints, but we also don't want one saying that all Europeans are monsters. We just want one that deals with what happened, and doesn't try to justify it as good or bad, but rather as the cause of some later effect, which we're smart enough to understand as "good", "bad" or "a little bit of both."

That being said, I had such high hopes for Inquiry-Based Lessons in World History, Volume 1: Early Humans to Global Expansion by Jana Kirchner and Andrew McMichael. This book, published by educational resource publisher Prufrock Press, seemed, on its label, a fairly open History resource. However, we stepped away from it disappointed. Our disappointment was not in the book, per se, but rather in our expectations for such a book not being fulfilled.

Obviously, don't come to this book expecting it to teach you all about history. It's not that kind of book. It's more a curriculum than a text; that is, it's a book that guides you through the teaching of the subjects, rather than a book that teaches you about the subjects.

However, it's not exactly a curriculum book. It's more an additional resource, or a teaching aid. You, as a teacher, already have a text and a plan to teach that text over the school year. This book provides engaging activities to get the students more involved in the history.

While it was shocking to see large swaths of history stepped over, and some of the interesting bits glossed over (I could have read an entire book on Ancient Sumeria and their myths), I don't think it's a fault with this book, as this book aligns to Common Core. It's more, I suppose, a fault in Common Core.

In the end, I can recommend this book to a teacher looking for ways to make history more engaging to a junior high/high school crowd. The nature of the book doesn't fit much with most homeschooling (aside from the fact that it treats all religions with similar import, something that might not mesh with your typical homeschooling parents), as it seems to work best with larger groups of students working together to answer questions about history.

In the end, I think our history curriculum unicorn is still out there, waiting for us to discover it dancing in the meadows of time. Until then, we'll just keep reading a variety of sources to get the best, least biased take on how we got where we are. It's not so bad, if you ask me. ( )

Each chapter starts with Historical Context - What do I need to know?, which has a brief over view. Than there are sections for: Standards addressed, questions, materials needed, lesson plan, hook, questions, examine the sources, make your hypothesis and optional extension.
There are links to freely available online resources. ( )

This seems like a great supplemental to curriculum instruction, or pulled from for creating a curriculum map. Easily understood lesson plans that are seeming aligned to Common Core Standards. I teach elementary, but I can even see myself using this as a resource to modify for my own students. ( )