Disclosure: As a Family Christian blogger, I received this book to review. The post contains affiliate links. Opinions shared here are 100% mine.

For many years, I taught 6th grade social studies. In our state curriculum, students learn about ancient civilizations and cultures. It was so much fun to teach about the river valley civilizations (Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and India) because the deeper learning was so new to many students. These days I’m teaching Language Arts and find that my background in the other academic subjects has been a huge help to me in the literary department. No matter where you stand on the whole Common Core issue, it’s hard to deny the fact that the basic idea of teaching children to analyze and support their opinions is an essential lifeskill. To help with this development, teach your child how to look up information, analyze an image, draw inferences, and make conclusions using the evidence presented in the text. Don’t feel anchored to a textbook.  You can do this with many forms of media, from newspapers to magazine advertisements! Try using reference books when you’re working with your child, whether it’s a homeschooling situation or you’re just helping with homework. For this example, I’ll show you how I would set up a lesson using this Discovery House Bible Atlas.

When I’m developing a lesson using a specific book, I have at least three items handy.  A post-it note is helpful for marking pages.  A notepad and pencil (or highlighter) is essential for keeping my thoughts grounded. I have a tendency to start with one lesson plan idea and end up with an entire unit!   At the forefront of your mission, decide what you want the essential learning target to be.  Let’s pretend that I’m planning a lesson on the history of the Fertile Crescent region for a middle school Sunday School class.  

You might expect that an atlas would only have maps.  Part of the Common Core initiative is centered around exposing children to high-quality texts, like this Bible Atlas.  It doesn’t serve just one purpose.  Instead, I found ways to include all four major academic areas as well as fine arts and theology! Although I didn’t list it in my notes, you could support the math area by using the maps to find distances, area, and more.

This Bible Atlas was incredibly interesting to read. It was well written yet simple enough for a middle school child to understand.  Although scriptural references are made, the text is completely supported by outside sources as well.   Using the Index, I was able to find several examples of textual support to supplement a lesson on the Fertile Crescent region.   In my notes, I wrote down a few examples to go with each “strand.”  These could be set up as centers or an online webquest!  For middle school students, it’s sometimes difficult to imagine foreign places.  That’s why I loved the Greek, Egyptian, and Roman artwork featured throughout the passages; they helped to make those people and places real to me.  The post-it note holds a quick reminder so that I could easily locate specific pages as we progress through a lesson.

Using reference books as supplements to learning can be extremely helpful.  Texts like this atlas can provide a developmentally appropriate support for children who are struggling readers as well as an enrichment tool to challenge students at a higher ability level. Consider adding books like these to your home library so that you can help build your child’s background knowledge!