Reviews of “Big Book of History” & “Big Book of Earth & Sky”

Today I’m sharing reviews of 2 unique books called Big Book of History and Big Book of Earth & Sky.

These are both published by Master Books and can be purchased at Educents.

My kids and I had a lot of fun exploring the books.

Big Book of History:

The Big Book of History contains a 15-foot fold-out timeline from Creation to Modern Computers. You can either flip through it as you would a typical book or pull it all open and see all 15 feet at once! It is attached to the book cover, so it can’t be removed to put up on the wall. The book cover itself is a thick hardback, so it protects the timeline nicely, which is printed on thick card-stock paper.

There are several things I really like about the timeline. It is based on biblical history, so it starts with the days of creation. It assumes the biblical years of counting backward, so it puts creation at 4004 B.C. I love how it uses 4 colors to weave through history. Light green is for Biblical/Christianity events (Noah born, Saul’s conversion to Apostle Paul, and John Bunyan born), orange is for World Events (Ancient city of Ninevah destroyed, Pilgrims arrive in America, and Battle of the Alamo), dark green is for Inventions/Technology (Archimedes invents the water screw and lever, Gutenberg invents the printing press, and Titanic sinks), and red is for Civilizations/Empires (Minoan civilization at its height, Emperor Augustus of Rome, and Mexico gains independence from Spain).

 

The colorful timeline is full of drawings, graphics, maps, charts, and photographs. There are “Did you know?” fun facts scattered throughout, such as explanations about the torch of the first and our modern Olympic games and about the lost library of Alexandria.

Big Book of Earth and Sky:

The Big Book of Earth and Sky is equally impressive. Instead of a horizontal timeline as we had in the Big Book of History, now we have a vertical 15-foot chart illustrating the inner core of the earth through the outer atmosphere. The thick hard-back book carefully holds the chart, which can be flipped through like a vertical book or opened up to see all 15-feet at once. I also love that it can be put up on the wall like a poster.

Once again the science taught in this book/chart is from a biblical perspective. It’s wonderful that kids can get it here since most other science books they’ll read leave God completely out of it. One thing that’s really fun is that most pages have a little game to play. It will ask a question and then the kids have to search for the answer. It’s a good motivator to encourage them to read everything.

Some of the different types of science they’ll learn about in the Big Book of Earth and Sky are oceanography, astronomy, meteorology, geology, paleontology, biology, and earth science.

Each of these books contains a free download of a teacher resource guide.
I have thought of three ideas of how to use these books in your homeschool or classroom:

1. Have the kids read through and study the timeline or chart on their own. Then have a race to see how fast they can locate the event (on the timeline) or place (on the chart) that  you name.
2. Have your students choose one of the fun facts or charts as a stepping off point for writing a paper or a giving a speech explaining about the topic.
3. Put the chart of Earth and Sky up on the wall and have the kids draw the basic parts on a piece of paper, from inner earth, through the ocean and up into outer space, labeling with all the new vocabulary words they’ll learn.

If you are interested in these two Master Books, you may also want to check out 3 other Master Books which are also available at Educents.

Science Starters: Elementary Chemistry & Physics (Curriculum Pack)

Bugs: Big & Small, God Made Them All

Children’s Atlas of God’s World. I’ve used this one with my kids in studying geography. I highly recommend it!

 

(Disclosure: I received complimentary copies of the Big Book of History and Big Book of Earth and Sky from Educents in order to write these honest reviews. This post also contains affiliate links.)