My sons and I have collected a few sites geared toward children about ancient Rome. Good way to help children get some understanding before their visit. Suggestions for books and further reading would be much appreciated. (And yes Bill T.- they're working their way up to your site. )
Thank you Amy, I have bookmarked all the websites listed and I can hardly wait for my two older children to come home from school and check them out! Perhaps I can talk them into doing a report for their classes either prior to our trip or when we get home! Thanks again, Laurie
There's almost nothing good online for children. I'm partial to <a href="http://members.aol.com/Donnclass/Romelife.html" target="_blank">Lin Donn's site</a>, probably because she flattered me by asking for my advice and actually taking most of it. Seriously, it is squarely addressed to children, and we worked very hard at squeezing out of it any false or romanticized statements.
For a few years there was a wonderful, truly excellent, site called "Lucius' Library Labours: A Fanciful Journey Through the History of Ancient Libraries in the Mediterranean", which used a fictional young Roman boy "as an entertaining means to make a web site about ancient libraries". Alas it is quite gone: I can't understand why people don't leave things up when they're good; this was on a university site, too, so it's not like they paid a commercial server.
The Ostia site is remarkable, but it's a very scholarly site, hardly for children.
http://www.ancientworlds.net/ It needed to be S.P.Q.R. Apparently it has been offline for a server move...familiar? SPQR is the game, the above is the site. The graphics of Rome are terrif, secondo me. I am just another twerp, however, as my daughter will tell you. Have a look and decide for yourself. Ancient Worlds
Posts: 2727 | Location: Umbria | Registered: 13 September 2001
Thank you for the additions, Bill and Judith. That Daily Life one looks excellent. We'll attack that and Ancient Life this afternoon. I agree that the Ostia site is 99% more involved than most children need- but the "Short Introduction" is well within the grasp of most kids over 10. Good photos, also!
Posts: 8272 | Location: Newton (outside Boston), MA | Registered: 17 June 2001
quote:Originally posted by Amy: I agree that the Ostia site is 99% more involved than most children need- but the "Short Introduction" is well within the grasp of most kids over 10. Good photos, also!
Amy, I agree. The pictures on the site are what grabbed my kids (11 and 13) when I showed them this afternoon. They've been sorely disappointed that we won't get to Pompeii but when they saw the Ostia site, all talk of Pompeii disappeared.
Does anyone have any good similiar sites for Florence or Tuscany? Carolyn
Posts: 56 | Location: california | Registered: 28 December 2001
Thanks again Amy. We usually don't do much web education before our trips. I usually get hold of videotapes and books to help the kids understand where we're going but these sites are great.
We've allowed a full (long) day while we're in Florence to go to Vinci and to Pisa (we'll have a car)as both kids are fascinated with Leonardo Da Vinci.
Carolyn
Posts: 56 | Location: california | Registered: 28 December 2001
A little girl sets a pigeon loose in Rome, and the pigeon travels all over the city. He meets Roman cats, goes to the Coliseum and many other great places, sees lots of people on cell phones, notices the traffic, etc. It's beautifully illustrated- and I think it's for kids, but I really like it, too!
Maureen
Posts: 4718 | Location: Boston or Florence | Registered: 07 July 2001
Very cool, and great for helping children imagine how the structures may have looked. Click on the thumbnail to see a recent enlargement. Click again, and you see a computer reconstruction.
"How do they know this?" Good question, kids. Be sure to talk about all the things historians need to look at in order to have some ideas about how buildings looked or were used in the past.
Topic Closed
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