Comparison of Diana Waring's Activity Books and Susan Wise Bauer's Story of the World Activity Books.
The STORY OF THE WORLD Act book and DIANA WARING Act books are very very different. That’s because they were designed for very different purposes.
From what I understand, DIANA WARING designed hers to meet the needs of parents whose older children were using the older Study Guides, and wanted something that fitted in for their younger children to be occupied with, while learning something too. It wasn’t originally meant to be a stand alone course – although I have seen it work just fine that way for many.
Each unit contains a map (or map-maze in a few cases), a ‘draw a picture’ page, a vocabulary builder exercise, come easy cooking ideas, a practical craft idea, usually a funny song or poem (Diana’s sense of humour) and a couple of brief bios about people of the time. I will note that, IMO, the bios are too old for the children for whom the Activity bok is geared. They are packed with info, like an encyclopedia article…so I omit them. What DIANA WARING DOES include is a mini-Bible Study using verses that pertain to the history period studied, something SUSAN WISE BAUER doesn’t do in any way, shape or form. DIANA WARING is very concerned in looking at everything as God’s Story of the World, and starts this with the youngest children. Personally I’d use these Activity books for this reason alone – at least it has been really helpful for me.
SUSAN WISE BAUER designed hers to flesh out STORY OF THE WORLD. As you know STORY OF THE WORLD Act book contains a whole lot of literature and non-fiction choices to read along with each chapter of STORY OF THE WORLD, as well as colouring pages, maps, flash cards and the occasional craft activity or game. There is a whole lot more in the SUSAN WISE BAUER Act books.
However, people with older children and a toddler or two are not always looking for “a whole lot more”. They want to touch on the main things, read some good books together and move on. That’s why DIANA WARING Act book works better for us. In the meantime my 8 year old has benefited a heap from these books, and learned far far more than she would have learned in school, anyway.
For parents whose oldest child is, say, 9 or ten, and they have another one or two younger school aged children also, they may do better with the SUSAN WISE BAUER – STORY OF THE WORLD Act books, as they don’t have to cope with older children doing extra, and can fully concentrate on giving their younger children a very full curriculum.
| <- Previous Page | Next page -> |