Since sharing that we are using the Quest for the Ancient World from Winter Promise on my blog last summer, I have had lots of questions and inquiries about this program!! I have shared various ancient history ideas over the past few months, but I had one reader as for a “typical day” with Winter Promise looked like. I thought that was a great idea for a post! So, here we go!

If you’d like to read about what one of our TYPICAL HOMESCHOOL DAYS is like, please click here. I’m not going to share our entire day in this post, just the history and Winter Promise portion!

Using Winter Promise has been a huge blessing in our home! You might remember that this is the first time we’ve ever gone with a full set curriculum like this. I was nervous and apprehensive because I wondered if I would stick with it. I have a tendency to not stick with things. 🙂 But, our year has been great thus far! We started in August with Quest for the Ancient World and are still going strong!

First, I want to share my favorite things about Winter Promise:

Why We Love Winter Promise

• Daily lesson plans and reading plans ~ I don’t have to schedule anything!! It’s done for me!
• One page of lesson plans per week ~ Everything I need for that week is listed on that one page! Book titles, what pages in Mystery of History, what hands on activities I need to plan for, etc.
• The combination of Mystery of History AND Story of the World ~ this combo has been great. We read Mystery of History aloud together, the girls read Story of the World independently as scheduled in their weekly reading assignments from Winter Promise
• Hands on activities and books to give us PLENTY of options for hands on learning! If I don’t like a particular idea, there are so many options that I am sure to find SOMETHING to add to our reading. Projects and hands on learning are really one of the biggest parts of our homeschool. I just think kids learn better with these FUN activities.
• Fabulous reading selections for our chapter books and the girls independent reads. I researched 3-4 major companies when looking for an ancient history program, and actually there was a LOT of similarities in the reading list! This makes me feel confident that the BEST books were chosen to go along with this history program.
• Weekly assignment sheets already made up for my girls as well as me!! I printed off all the independent assignment sheets (designed for grades 4-8) and put them in a 3-ring binder for my girls. This is helping them become more independent in their learning, which was one of my goals in purchasing this curriculum!
• Part of the girls daily reading assignments are the BIBLE! I love that they are reading portions from the Bible along with our history as things happened. I never learned history in this way and I am learning as much as they are! I love seeing the things that were happening in the Bible alongside what was happening in the rest of the world!

Weekly Topics for Quest for the Ancient World from Winter Promise

A Typical Morning with Winter Promise

I will start off by saying that *most* of our school mornings look similar. Most days include my children fighting over anything and everything. They include little brother bugging big sisters as I read aloud. They also include brain breaks to break up our school work and give our minds a break. So, while most days aren’t even close to perfect, they do tend to move in a similar fashion…

I’ll share the things we do each school morning in the order that we do them. We have a general *routine* but not an actual schedule.

1. Chores & breakfast
2. Bible reading, Scripture memory, other memory work {Poems, hymns, etc.}
3. Read Alouds ~ this is where we read whatever chapter book is listed in our Winter Promise curriculum guide. We read aloud for quite awhile. First, I read the Mystery of History portion for the day, then I read from any other books listed on that day’s assignment list. This includes chapter books that came with this package as well as the The Usborne Encyclopedia of the Ancient World. While I read, my kids play with legos, color or just hang out. 🙂
4. In between the reading, usually every 30 minutes or so we do a brain break. These are very necessary to our day!!
5. Timeline figures ~ I am using a combination of the timeline we received from Bible Study for All Ages {read my review and find links to products here} as well as the timeline figures here from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I purchased hers because they were only $5. 🙂 I had the kids color those timeline figures, I laminated them and we are adding them to the timeline wall chart from Bible Study for All Ages. That timeline did come with figures, but only for Bible characters, so you can see the different ones in the picture below. We add the appropriate timeline figures to our wall when we read about them.
6. Discussion questions happen as we read…I will stop and ask questions. But when I’m done with all our reading each day, I just ask some basic questions that allow each child to “narrate” back to me what we’ve read that day.
7. After we’ve read that day’s portion (which varies, some days it is 30 minutes, sometimes it is over an hour of reading) and after we’ve discussed, we go on to any activities, hands-on ideas or worksheets for that day.  There are activities listed each week in the Winter Promise lesson plan for the teacher. These ideas come from various places such as the The Mystery of History, Vol. 1, The Story of the World, Activity Book 1, books such as Explore Ancient Greece!: 25 Great Projects, Activities, Experiments , etc. Mystery of History and several activity books like the Explore books are all a part of the package from Winter Promise, or you can purchase individually from amazon. The Story of the World activity guide has maps we are marking up, coloring pages and things like word searches as well.
8. History takes up the bulk of our morning! When we finish with these things listed above, it’s usually lunch time! After lunch we do math and any other independent items the kids need to complete on their own. This includes their independent reading assignments that come with Winter Promise. See sample below.  

Sample Teacher Lesson Plan for one week from Winter Promise

Sample Student Weekly Assignment Sheet from Winter Promise

Well, friends, I hope this helps!! Do you still have questions?? Please leave them in the comments below and I will come to the comment box and answer! If there are enough questions, I can come back and add my responses to this post later. 🙂

Ancient History links to explore:

• Curriculum Choices for 2013/2014 year
• My initial thoughts on Winter Promise Quest for the Ancient World
• Ancient History pinterest board
• Play List of videos to go along with Mystery of History Volume 1
• Weeks 1 & 2 highlights 
• Weeks 3 & 4 highlights
• Ultimate List of FUN Egypt Learning Ideas
• More Egyptian FUN
• Kings, Prophets & Idols {learning ideas}
• Ancient Greece {and Winter Olympic} study