Last night I met Dan Baker, the creator of one of the best World War One resources on the internet, TheWW1.com. Incredibly fortunate for us! We’ve just started studying the 20th Century and will be coming up to the Great War in February. I had originally planned about a month to cover it. Now I’m changing the name of this semester’s course to “History of the First World War”. Just using this site and the resources it suggests will give us enough information for an entire history credit. What really impressed me about this site was it’s design. Every thing is clear and easy to find.  TheWW1.com has alot of information, but it’s all in easy to process, well organized, bite-sized pieces.

The site contains:

It’s an exciting time to start reading this blog that captures what happened in WW1 one hundred years ago this week. Right now we’re in January 1912, the lead up to the Great War: scandal in France, secret Bolshevik meetings in Prague, war in Libya, and a heated naval rivalry between England and Germany. All these will come together to change the course of history. 100 Years Ago will be updated every week  (more often as the war begins) , so if you’re lucky enough to have kids just entering middle school, the events of the First World War will take them all the way to college.

The For Students section is the part I’m most excited about. The title page is an overview of the entire war. There are links to specific events in the war that lead you to short but well explained paragraphs. This has enough information for a high school or univeristy student, but is easy enough for an upper elementary student to understand. Dan has even included questions for some topics that would be excellent essay assignments. Last night he mentioned that he was planning on adding even more to this section, so stay tuned!

Dan provides links to out of print books, (that’s REAL books, Charlotte Mason peeps) that are now available for free on the web. He has these categorized, so it’s easy to find the subject you’re looking for. There are the topics you’d expect, like books about the Western Front and Fighting Forces, but there are also some surprises, including Letters, Economics, Humor and Poetry. There are also links to Juvenile fiction so along with the student section, I’ll be able to actually (finally, for the first time ever) coordinate the 9 year old’s history with his big sisters.

Another great section featuring books you can buy. Dan has read and reviewed each one, so you know what you’re getting ahead of time.

This one sounds perfect for me:

World War One: A Short History

Norman Stone, 2009

This recent book is for the general reader who wants a very short introduction to the cataclysmic events of 1914-1918 while at the same time gaining an understanding of the causes of the war and of how the outcome of the war ultimately led to its “second phase”  — World War II.

Dan provides a link to purchase the books from Amazon.com.

Excited. I’m very excited about TheWW1.com. It’s hard to believe that it wasn’t designed specifically with homeschoolers in mind. Check it out. Love it. Tell your friends about it. Thank me with chocolate.