Hands on Roman history resources

As you know, I’m a big fan of hands-on history lessons, and a great way to do that is to have some good books and resources for it.  Here are my favorites I’ve either bought or checked out from the library for hands-on Roman history resources for my Ancient Rome Unit.

Great Roman history books

We checked a wide variety of books out from the library, and bought quite a few of them as well, but these were our favorite 10 books (at one point, I had over 30 Roman history books checked out from the library).

1. Ancient Roman Warfare– because my boys love to learn about ancient battles
2. The Bloody, Rotten Roman Empire: The Disgusting Details About Life in Ancient Rome (Disgusting History)– because young boys like disgusting stuff

   

3. Life in Roman Times (Everyday History)– because it gives you great background

   

4. How to Be a Roman Soldier– more young boy likes

   

5. The Romans: Gods, Emperors, and Dormice– because I like the personality in this one

   

6. Rome: In Spectacular Cross-section– because I always love cross section books
7. TOOLS OF THE ANCIENT ROMANS: A Kid’s Guide to the History & Science of Life in Ancient Rome (Build It Yourself)– because it’s cool
8. Ancient Rome Step Into The Time Of The Roman Empire With 15 Step-By-Step Projects And Over 370 Exciting Pictures (Hands-On History) Ancient Rome– For inspiration
9. City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction– because anything by David Macaulay is automatically cool to me
10. The Hands on History: Romans: Dress, Eat, Write and Play Just Like the Romans– more inspiration

If you’ll notice several of the books I highlighted are hands-on types of books, that’s because we all enjoy looking at those books. After a while kids history books tend to get similar and the same information, so I tried to highlight a variety of types.

Roman history videos

Hi, Future Ticia 2025, and I’m updating this. And since I first wrote this post over 10 years ago, I’ve since taught ancient history again, and there have been several more years of videos produced. I’ll still admit most of these videos are not intended for young kids. The videos on my list are intended for middle school and older.

I’m going to be honest and say right now, there’s not a lot of good stuff out there right now to show kids.  Or at least not that I was able to get ahold of without spending large amounts of money (I try to keep my buys to items I’ll use often and have heard good reviews of).

Also, the current trend of historical soap operas/excuse to make horrible TV shows is rather annoying.  Pompeii was really just a remake of Titanic set in 79 AD. You’ll just have to picture my eyes rolling and the vast amount of sarcasm and restraint I am showing right now.  Seriously, I could write 1000 words just to rant about these shows.

Moving on.

Past Ticia’s list of videos:

1.  Pompeii – The Last Day– great documentary on Pompeii, if you have elementary-aged kids, gauge how your kids will do, mine were okay, but a little wigged out by the video
2. Drive Thru History: Ancient History (Extended Length)– As a heads up this is a Christian viewpoint, but the host’s sense of humor is great for middle school kids who think everything is “lame”
3. Decisive Battles of the Ancient World (History Channel)– We LOVE this series; however,it is all on YouTube for free (I’m linking all of the Roman battles below)

Here is current Ticia’s playlist of videos. These are not currently, as of June 23, 2025 in the order I would teach the lessons, because I keep finding more, and just adding them to the list, not putting them in order.

Now, here are my caveats for this playlist. Then I’m going to take a break from my backwards update of this post (I started at the bottom and am working my way up, by accident):

1. I created this list when my kids were in junior high, so what I allowed them to watch was slightly looser than what I allowed them to watch when in elementary school. Keep that in mind.
2. There are still videos that are appropriate for young kids. As I sit here and see the first video is Drive Thru History, and that is totally appropriate for young kids.
3. There are several videos for a single topic. No single video covers everything, and many of these are videos created more for humor than to truly teach. While they will give you a fun overview, they don’t completely teach. It can be a good overview.
4. Some of these are exploring an alternate history, which can be a fun discussion point.
5. Most of these videos are 10-15 minutes long, but a few are so good I just couldn’t resist having a 30-minute video.

Enjoy my weird history obsession.

Roman History Toys to pick up 

I never really found any great Roman history toys or other things I wanted to pick up, have you seen any that impressed you?

Future Ticia just remembered a few things I’m going to add in.

• Playmobil Roman Legionaires– Playmobil on a semi-regular basis has some form of a Roman playset, this is one that seems to continually be available.
• Roman Arch building set– this is a building set to create an arch like the Romans did, which is rather interesting
• Ancient Rome Toob– this is one of those toy sets many homeschoolers will get to keep their kids busy during their read alouds
• Hadrian’s Wall– This is a great worker placement board game if you have older kids and like a more serious game like this. My son who loves Ancient Rome loves this game
• Off-brand mini LEGO Colosseum

For the rest of our Roman posts head over to Hands on Roman History