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GraceandCoffee
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| Posted: Aug 08 2007 at 10:44pm | IP Logged
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I've been using the Mater Amabilis website as a guide for putting together my booklists for this year, and I just think the history book suggestion is too weighty for my nearly 6 year old boy. I am thinking I am going focus on just teaching him to read better, to write very well, and to master addition and subtraction this year. The rest will be gravy.
I plan to do some geography using the family geography ideas, and the locations of saints, and puzzles, and foods from other countries and some looking at facts like "here is what a Viking is..." and for music "here is what a violin looks and sounds like..." and for art history "here is a van Gogh..." And really just take the picture book together on the couch route for all the gravy stuff.
Where do most of you start with history??? I am lost. Or am I doing the right thing?
I just really think he needs a better foundation in the world around him before i jump into history. And we'll read about Columbus and the pilgrims and things when those holidays present themselves. I just don't see him understanding the Declaration of Independence yet.
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Wife to the most wonderful man in the world, and mama to 4 beautiful children: meteorologist age 7, naturalist age 5, ballerina age 4, and baby boy age 19 months
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lapazfarm
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I agree with you 100%!!!!!
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Theresa
us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
LaPaz Home Learning
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Paula in MN
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Last year we tried the MA way, got through 15 chapters and we were all unhappy. We stopped for a few weeks and just played with map puzzles, memorized Yo,Sacramento!, looked at our globe and atlas, and talked about where things were. After that we started with Story of the World, going much slower, and everything is clicking!
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 Paula
A Catholic Harvest
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adnilpress
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Absolutely! Basics first, and history can certainly be put off a while.
My little ones have all enjoyed 'Galloping the Globe'. We've then used Story of the World - ancients, which is also great, but I think around age 8 is best to start this series (just my opinion, of course!)
God bless,
Linda in Australia.
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guitarnan
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You will probably cover more social studies material by using the method you've described than any 6-year-old would learn in "traditional" school. It sounds just great - and it's a lot more interesting than "the policeman is your friend".
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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
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GraceandCoffee
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guitarnan wrote:
| It sounds just great - and it's a lot more interesting than "the policeman is your friend". |
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 I think so too!
Oh good, I'm glad to hear we've got the right idea. We're so brand new at all this. 
I'll check out some of those books you all mentioned.
I was walking around a school supply store yesterday, you know the kind of place that has all the fun classroom stuff that makes you want to become a kindergarten teacher just to set up the classroom... And I finally had the experience of seeing the difference in homeschooling and site-based schooling and how abstract everything is in the latter. I noticed all these super cute bulletin board packages to do with colors and seasons and the like, and thought, well, I don't need that, my kids learn their colors and seasons just from me pointing to things around them. We don't need a cartoon version on color to teach colors. We're past that already anyway... So I think I'm starting to 'get it' in more of an experienced way and less of a theoretical way.
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Betsy
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+JMJ+
For my 1 grader last year we use RC History...well at least the first three units  . Anyway, my experience showed that by just reading the Children's Bible stories (Creation - Moses) we were able to cover history and a great deal of religion all at once. Point being, your religion program/reading the bible will be a fine "history" program if you are concerned about it.
BTW...call me crazy...but I skipped Math for my first grader to get all of the other basics down before I introduced that! So, I am all for just picking a few subjects in the beginning grades and doing them well.
Betsy
P.S. While we are on the subject I don't even remember being taught any history until 4th grade (state history) and 5th grade (American history).
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Macmom
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I may be in the minority here, but history is practically the center of my curriculum. (I'm a classical nut, I suppose!)
History can teach not merely the story of humanity (both salvation history and it's secular counterpart), but literature, art appreciation, music, arts and crafts, logic (natural philosophy), as well as practicing writing skills and dictation/ narration. And RELIGION, as you look at the morality of great men and women's actions, especially the lives of the saints.
Whew!
Don't give up on it.
We LOVED RC History's "Connecting With HIstory" (mentioned above). You learn the "big picture" of salvation history along with putting it in context with secular history from the Ancients. It will help the child to understand that God is REAL and acts IN TIME. Unlike the ancient Egyptian or Roman gods whose stories are about "once, long ago Zeus did THIS" your child will be able to state with confidence that Issac lived around the time of Hammurabi, the prophet Elijah lived right after the great Greek poet Homer, or Isaih was preaching around the time of the Greek city-states being founded.
We do history in 4 year cycles (ancients, medieval, renaissance to American Civil War, modern). All of us study the same period, at different levels. It really sticks with the kids as we go through the rotation, they remember not only names and dates and stories, but have a better sense of where we exist in history and how much has come before. They do lots of crafts (making a ziggurat out of boxes, carving an Egyptian amulet) and read lots of good historical fiction and period pieces (like "The Illiad!"), as well as dictate to me to create their own history book. (Often they dictate, I write, then they re-copy in their own handwriting!) We looked at and discussed pictures of ancient art, as well. And tried to copy them or do a similar style.
So maybe do reading, math, religion and history?
Peace,
Macmom
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Erin
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Macmom
I hope you don't mind but I posed a question for you over here
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Erin
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MaryM
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 GraceandCoffee! Picturebooks are a fantastic way to jump into history with that age. It's my favorite resource for that.
History is pretty much a central part of our study as well, but not in the sense of following a history text and presenting as a subject in the early years. I didn't read the original post as giving up on history, rather just not approaching it as through a textbook/subect approach with a very young child. If one does look up the scope and sequence of traditonal school in first and second grade there isn't "history" per se. There is social studies and of course learning about the world around us including our past is part of that. I would second what Nancy said aobut yougiving your 6 year old more substance with this approach than they would get in school.
I love all your ideas for history study, Macmom. That sounds alot like what we do here. The hands-on really makes it come alive. History is just what it sounds like - our "story." When we engage in it, it becomes more meaningful. That's why I love this particular board - "Blowing the Dust off History" - because of the great suggestions and ideas that are presented here. I would love to see us start more threads on that - the ways to make specific history topics come alive.
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Mary M. in Denver
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Mary G
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Picture books and fun read alouds are usually what we do around here -- Sid Fleischmann has some relaly fun historical fiction which can lead to lots of rabbit trails ... also we go with what the kids want to investigate ... so we've done lots of "units" on middle ages, altho this year we're tackling the ancients (but with lots of lit tie-ins -- myths, etc -- and first-hand accounts of my neice's honeymoon in Mexico and the Aztecs, etc).
Just keep it fun and as MaryM says "blow the dust off" -- get 'em excited and don't worry about hitting ALL the history ... they'll get it as they learn and seek their own interests.
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MaryG
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4Real Forums : Across Time and Place
Topic: So maybe I'll just skip history for now?
