Target audience: ages 10-15

Description:  This 170-page book includes both student text and activities. (I recommend a semester to complete it.) This curriculum is ideal for use with a homeschool group or in a classroom (it contains some group games and activities), but it still works very well for individual students, too.

       The text is arranged chronologically starting at about 4000 BC with the Proto-Indo-Europeans living on the shores of the Black Sea.  (If you thought the roots of English were Latin and Greek, you need this book!)  Each chapter traces these people groups as they move across Europe and eventually tells the story of the Anglo-Saxons moving into "Angle-land."  When William the Conqueror crosses the channel and conquers the Anglo-Saxons, he brings Norman French with him and changes English forever.  The French rulers can't quite catch on to Old English, so case endings get dropped and "ed" gets tacked on to most past tense verbs.  English survives, though much changed.  The Renaissance brings us Chaucer, Shakespeare and the King James Bible, all of which had profound influences on the English language.  We see English cross the Atlantic and take over North America, splitting into many accents and dialects brought in by immigrants from Europe, Africa and Asia.  

          At the end of each chapter there are activities that reinforce the concepts presented in the chapter.  The activities include word puzzles of all kinds, maps to label, group games, web sites to visit, stories to read, audio tracks to listen to, read-aloud activities and more. 

Topics covered:  The table of contents is availabe in the free download.