My Father’s World Review of Rome to the Reformation

I’ve used My Father’s World (MFW) from Kindergarten on, and we have enjoyed every year of it! The Middle Ages falls within their Rome to the Reformation curriculum package. One aspect that people especially appreciate is their family cycle where all the kids from 2nd to 8th grade use the same curriculum. It contains add-on suggestions for older kids who are in 7th and 8th grade. Here’s our family’s My Father’s World review of Rome to the Reformation.

Book Stack from the curriculum Rome to the Reformation, My Father's World review

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Affording the Curriculum

The Rome to the Reformation complete curriculum package has a hefty $406.30 price tag, and that’s the discounted price (at the time of this writing). They do run sales during the year with the deepest discount usually at the end of the year in December. If you don’t want to buy directly from the company, I usually buy the spines of the curriculum in various “Curriculum buy/sell” Facebook groups, Facebook Marketplace, and Homeschool Used Book Sales. For the literature selections that are scheduled with the MFW curriculum, I can usually find the book at the library, or I buy them used at ThriftBooks.com or Abebooks.com.

History Spines

We used these spines throughout the year. I had never heard of the term “spine” until I started homeschooling. A spine is akin to a textbook that is slowly read over the course of the year. A spine is not necessarily as dry as a textbook, which is probably why people began to use a different word.

The Story of the World Volume 2: The Middle Ages

Story of the World is a secular resource and discusses Christianity the way it describes other religions. We also used the corresponding Story of the World Activity Book. I have the whole Story of the World 4-volume set of books and activity books, purchased used at the same places I mentioned earlier in the “Affording the Curriculum.”

Since I have four kids, I take the activity sheets that I want to use and photocopy them at 25%. One sheet of paper holds four of the same, reduced image. The image ends up being just the right size for the kids. The coloring pages are small so they don’t spend the whole day coloring! The maps and other images are cut out and glued into their history notebooks at the end of the week. Sometimes they will use the map as a template to draw their own maps, and that is fine, too.

Streams of Civilization Volume 1

Compared to Story of the World, I would call Streams of Civilizaion a more “zoomed-in” resource. Streams is written from a Christian point of view and a textbook that I read aloud. While I don’t usually use textbooks, I appreciate the photographs and reproductions of art in the sidebars.

This spine is scheduled across two years and used in MFW’s Creation to the Greeks and Rome to the Reformation. The main points in Streams are usually covered in Story of the World.

This is how I keep my kids patient with me. I say, “Kids, I’m just going to quickly skim this and read aloud anything new.” The kids feel like I’m on their side and not trying to make them sit longer and listen to repetitive information.

The MFW Teacher’s Manual will specify sections that are more in-depth as “Advanced” for older learners to read. Sometimes, I’ll read these sections to all of my kids. Sometimes, I’ll have my older kids read these paragraphs on their own. Other times, I will skip them altogether. It depends on the content, and it depends on you!

Usborne Encyclopedia of World History

The illustrations with small bursts of information make Usborne Encyclopedia of World History a captivating resource that is used through four years of the MFW curriculum: Creation to the Greeks all the way through 1850 to Modern Times. This is a more “zoomed-out” resource, so I read it at the end of a particular topic to sum it all up.

Then, each child writes a narration in their history notebook, and glues or tapes in any photocopies from the Story of the World Activity Book. The older children write the dates of key events or historical figures in their Book of Centuries (recommended for grades 4 and up). I write the same thing on a piece of paper that we tape on our wall timeline together (all ages).

The Roman Empire

The curriculum begins with a 12-week study of Ancient Rome, before moving into the Middle Ages. We enjoyed reading through The Roman Empire and doing a few of the projects.

Books We Didn’t Love, My Father’s World Review

Celebrating Biblical Feasts was scheduled with Creation to the Greeks. Since we began that particular year in January, we jumped in with the celebrations of Purim and Passover, then cycled back around to the beginning of the book in the fall with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The book was a little tedious to use. I read through everything and we did parts of it, but reading the whole script just felt like too much. What did help was watching YouTube videos that explained the symbolism of the Jewish holidays.

Augustus Caesar’s World is scheduled with AmblesideOnline Year 6, so I am okay letting my kids read it at that time. I did attempt to read this to my 7 and 9 year olds but it went into way too much detail for them.

SImilarly, Trial and Triumph was too much for my younger kids. We will try again with the biographies during the Reformation scheduled in next year’s curriculum.

Historical Literature

These literature selections are wonderful. Don’t skip any!

The Bronze Bow and Twice Freed are both religious selections that take place during the Roman Empire. The Bronze Bow takes place during the life of Jesus. Twice Freed is inspired by the New Testament book of Philemon and is set against the backdrop of the 1st century church in Rome.

The Door in the Wall is historical fiction set during the Middle Ages. I was able to find The Bronze Bow and The Door in the Wall as audiobooks and physical books at my local library.

Art

God & the History of Art

This art history resource comes in two volumes and is scheduled across four MFW years: Creation to the Greeks, Rome to the Reformation, Exploration to 1850, and 1850 to Modern Times. I purchased the volumes and notecards secondhand through a Homeschool Curriculum Buy/Sell Facebook Group, and then purchased the consumable “Paint Cards” from Christianbook.org.

All of my kids like art, but they are hit-or-miss with art assignments. On average, three out of four kids will begin the assignments. If they are captivated by it, they will finish. I don’t force them to do the assignments, but I do read the art history readings aloud to the kids during our morning time. Instead of writing directly in the textbooks, the kids do the art assignments in their sketchbooks.

Science

Science in the Ancient World

This is the second volume in the Berean Builders series by Dr. Jay L. Wile who wrote many upper level volumes for Apologia (2nd edition). Science in the Beginning was scheduled with Creation to the Greeks. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to continue with Science in the Ancient World to accompany Rome to the Reformation.

Science in the Ancient World is a historical journey of science discovery from the ancient times through the Renaissance, ending with the science of Leonardo DaVinci. Dr. Wiles explains the history of scientific thought and processes, highlighting people along the way and providing hands-on experiments.

We did not do every experiment, but I usually read the text aloud. At times, Dr. Wiles is long winded and repetitive. It’s fine if a person is reading silently but can become tedious when reading aloud. My way around this is the same as with Streams of Civilization: I just skip reading aloud the sentences that are repetitive.

I do like the questions for different age levels provided at the end of each section. This part fit my varying age groups well. When we did do experiments, the kids made drawings in their science notebooks and wrote short summaries of their conclusions.

We took most of the school year to work through this book. The last segment is about Leonardo DaVinci and the human body, which is when we overlapped it with MFW’s Human Body science schedule.

Human Body

MFW schedules three spines to learn about the human body for the first half of the year. We started at the end of the year and did these lessons through the summer.

Usborne’s First Encyclopedia of the Human Body was a great overview for younger kids. I paired it with a slightly-more-in-depth resource that I already I had at home: First Human Body Encyclopedia by DK.

The Human Body for Every Kid had more details but we liked it for the fun and quick experiments that usually required us to get up and moving!

The Body Book is very interesting. You photocopy certain pages for the kids to cut out and assemble together. The assembly usually ends up having multiple layers so that you first see how something looks from the outside, and as you lift flaps (strategically taped in the proper designated spots) you see the layer(s) below. Some of the major systems, like the digestive and respiratory systems, fit with the skeletal system.

We started strong with the cutting and taping as a team so that we ended up with 1 end product instead of 4. We assembled the skeletal system with brads to make the joints moveable, hung it on our wall, and added a few of the systems to it. By the end of this half-year study of the human body, my kids had run out of steam with cutting and outright refused to cut any longer. That’s okay, we just finished up with the reading!

I added more from our shelves for the kids to explore on their own. After learning about each system, I asked the kids to find the corresponding pages, read whatever looked interesting, and share any new information:

Galen and the Gateway to Medicine

I read about half of Galen and the Gateway to Medicine aloud to my younger two kids along with the corresponding chapters of Science In the Ancient World. I assigned it to my Year 7 kids who had read Archimedes.

Professor Astro Cat’s Human Body Odyssey
Usborne See Inside Your Body
First Human Body Encyclopedia by DK
The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body (there’s also an animated version of this!)
The Way We Work (I helped find key pages to look at; this book is more advanced reading with detailed, anatomical drawings)

Exploring Creation With Astronomy: Young Explorers Series

We replaced this with Science in the Ancient World but we are going to dive into this next year!

Extras

My oldest kids eagerly read Starting Chess when they were about 8 years old. It’s a fun intro to chess that the kids still refer to, especially when trying to teach me something like “castling.”

My daughter and I started the Usborne Build-a-Castle book. Be warned, this is an x-acto-knife-and-Elmer’s-glue type of project. We didn’t finish, but the moveable portcullis that we did put together was really cool!

English from the Roots Up is a great introduction to Greek and Latin roots. We used it with quizzes that people freely shared in the files section of the Creation to the Greeks FB group. The Greek roots are scheduled with Creation to the Greeks and the Latin roots with Rome to the Reformation. My rising 5th grader will continue her studies in Latin with Getting Started with Latin. My 7th graders did this concurrently with Keep Going with Latin.