Waldorf Ancient Rome Resources

The sixth graders in my class are in the throes of learning about Ancient Rome!

For this teacher that means mornings of marching, stories of fierce and bloody battles and not-so-subtle reminders of the importance of the law of the land!

I’m having a great time teaching about Rome again, and I’m absolutely astonished by how truly different every block is every time I teach it.

This time around my students are completing Rome reports. We’ve got projects about Pompeii, the Colosseum, aqueducts, roads, law, the Latin language — I’m so glad their interests are taking us all over the Roman Republic!

We’ve been very busy, but I couldn’t resist stopping here to give a little update about some of the resources I’m using this time. As usual, I’m making liberal use of my public library, but the books below are good enough to purchase, if your library doesn’t have them.

Here are the Waldorf Ancient Rome resources I’m using this time.

I often begin preparing with a review of the broad, sweeping overview that is presented in A Little History of the World. I just love the friendly voice of this book and it does a great job of giving the big highlights of huge expanses of history. I have used it for some storytelling, but it doesn’t give a lot of detail, so I usually rely on other sources for that.

Ancient Romans: Expanding the Classical Tradition (Oxford Profiles)
has been my go-to book this time around. It focuses on biographies of the important figures in Roman history, so it’s great for storytelling. I tried reading it aloud one day when I wanted to quickly get through some content, but found that it really needed my personal touch to freshen up and enliven the stories. I’ve found the stories delightful to read myself, though, and I’m sure most of my students would love to read it through on their own.

I’ve also used books from the adult section of the library much more than I ever have in the past. I’ve found that since I have a pretty good idea of the basic overview of the history, I don’t have to face reading those thick adult books in their entirety. Now I pretty much know what I’m looking for and I can find the right content in the book and read it through. The adult library books have been giving me a nice amount of detail to fill in my stories. I’ve always been a huge proponent of the juvenile section of the library, so I’m surprised by how much I am appreciating the adult section these days!