Where to start on African history?
I didn’t know much about African history, outside of Egypt, until I studied these history sentences along with my kids.
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At our local library I found this book: African Beginnings by James Haskins & Kathleen Benson.
and it has been a GREAT resource/overview for studying African history.
One of my favorite features of this book, is the map at the front. It shows the various tribes/people groups on a large map of Africa, with some of the major geography features labeled.
It devotes a page of two to several of the things we are learning about in CC – Ghana, Mali, Kush, Egypt, Zimbabwe, and the slave trade. It also gives information about other people groups like the Nubia and Benin and Jenne-Jeno.
It has several pages devoted to how the slave trade affected the continent of Africa and ends with the modern strength of the people of Africa.
This book has been a great discussion starter to move just a little past our memory work. I love tying our memory to maps and pictures and discussions.
If you are looking into going more in depth in your study of Africa, I recommend several missionary stories set in Africa.
Currently, our campus is heavy into a map drawing challenge. We as a campus are attempting to draw 950 maps over six weeks. So, we will be drawing maps of Africa using the African Beginnings book, our Foundations guide, and another map drawing resource I recommend.
For our drawing challenge, it is up to mom what counts as a map – it can be traced or very loose for young children or more detailed for older children. A map must have 7 key features labeled. So, for our community, a well done map with 49 things labeled can count as 7 maps. (Again, up to mom on what counts as labeling.)