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Mimip
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| Posted: April 03 2009 at 5:44pm | IP Logged
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Do you think a curriculum should be doing Ancients (what we are doing now) and World History (later on) simultaniously with American History? I am really struggling with this right now. We are using SOTW with Catholic Faith comes to america. BUT I am changing over to Serendipity's American History trail as we speak.( I LOVE IT) and now I am back to the question of World History again.
My oldest 2 are almost 9 and 7 so essentially 2nd and 4th grades. So I guess my real question is just how intense do you think you need to go with World History at this age?? SOTW goes so slow that it starts to bore them. I am definitely wanting to make a Book of Centuries with them (maybe a family one?) SO many questions to consider!!!!!!!!!!
Just looking for some thoughts to bounce around some ideas in this wacky head of mine 
Any links that you think would be informative wou be great too 
God Bless you
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In Christ,
Mimi
Wife of 16 years to Tom, Mom of DD'00, DD'02, '04(in heaven) DS'05, DS'08 and DS '12
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amyable
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| Posted: April 14 2009 at 7:43am | IP Logged
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mimip wrote:
| Do you think a curriculum should be doing Ancients (what we are doing now) and World History (later on) simultaniously with American History? |
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Maybe it's just my kids, but I can't imagine doing US history at the same time as ancient and/or modern world history...and we're a pretty "history intense" family. (i.e. we use Sonlight, my kids love historical fiction and read it on their own, we're always talking about it, etc - not bad for a science major and an engineer  )
Right now we are doing US history (my oldest are 11 and 9 with a bright 6yo and almost 4yo listening in - we're doing SL's Core 4). I may mention something about world history as we are reading if it is pertinent, but we are not *studying* it. I may also go off on a tangent - i.e. we just started talking about WWII and I may read the Diary of Anne Frank to them and discuss from that persepective. But basically we are focusing on the US. When we do world hisotry or ancients again I do the same thing in reverse - mention what was going on in the US at the time, but not study more than that. It's more than enough for my kids to have one "track" of history thoughts going on in their mind.
I just want to use this opportunity to plug my favorite history resource - the CD put out by Calvert School of Hillyer's Children's History of the World. It is VERY low tech - most of the time you or your child is simply reading what is on the screen, but there are funny graphics and low tech animations...quizes available after the chapters and occasional activities (like a mad libs type, etc). It's goofy, but my kids ask to use it ALL THE TIME. For FUN! So I'm sure some of the facts are actually rubbing off on them. At least one can hope.
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Amy
mom of 5, ages 6-16, and happy wife of 
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stellamaris
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| Posted: April 14 2009 at 7:57am | IP Logged
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you jogged my memory..Calvert also has a great interactive Ancient Greece CD that my kids used and loved. It's for about 4th-8th. They have a King Arthur one, too.
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Caroline
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MarilynW
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| Posted: April 14 2009 at 8:00am | IP Logged
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I use a combination of Story of the World (they read so nicely if lacking a little in depth and Catholic world view), Hillyer (my younger ones love this one) and Christ the King Lord of History (dd and dh and I really like this) - I have a plan on my blog using CTK as a spine (for Grade 7) and lots of books and movies - though the books are geared to Grade 7 and up. We add the saints in also. When I do for the younger ones I will go through and add some more picture books and "younger" living books.
I like the Marshall British History book but don't really like the American history one.
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Mackfam
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| Posted: April 15 2009 at 10:46am | IP Logged
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mimip wrote:
| Do you think a curriculum should be doing Ancients (what we are doing now) and World History (later on) simultaniously with American History? |
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I agree with Amy here...I'd never teach Ancient or World History side by side with American. Especially with 7 and 9 yo's. At this age, just providing a context - a framework really - to hang facts from is important. The timeline/book of centuries is valuable at this age (any age). If it were me, I'd move as chronologically as I could (sometimes that's just not possible with different ages) and pick one period of history to study.
Here's how we study:
**Ancient History thru the time of Christ
**Time of Christ thru the 5th century
**Middle Ages (5th century thru the 16th century)
**American History
I spend a year on each time period focus and there is often some overlap and I might deviate from this a bit during the second go-round to focus on a period of time that fits more with a theme we might be studying that year, then the child repeats - so...
**3rd grade - 6th grade I make an initial intro of each time period...we use mostly picture books or read the saints of each period using Janet McKenzie's Reading the Saints slowly introducing more and more historical fiction from Bethlehem Books as reading ability develops
**7th grade - 10th grade we go back to the beginning adding in more context, deeper issues, more reading using reading lists from RC History and Reading Your Way through History and I check out what Sonlight recommends as well. I don't use everything each of these sites recommend, but using the archives and recommendations here at 4Real I can pull together a complete year of reading quite easily with these lists and the resource and reviews from these ladies.
**11th and 12th I plan on spending in depth on American History and Modern History with time for analysis, reflection, and writing on these periods.
I have used spines before, but the kids and I dislike them with one exception, we all enjoy listening to the CD version (with Jim Weiss narrating) of SOTW - it does give some context and background of the period, and we all LOVE listening to Jim Weiss. I use this for car-schooling when we're running errands.
mimip wrote:
| My oldest 2 are almost 9 and 7 so essentially 2nd and 4th grades. So I guess my real question is just how intense do you think you need to go with World History at this age?? SOTW goes so slow that it starts to bore them. I am definitely wanting to make a Book of Centuries with them (maybe a family one?) SO many questions to consider!!!!!!!!!! |
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I think it's important that each child has their own book of centuries...
**you can make your own with cardstock and a notebook.
**I like using fan fold printer paper in the younger years...because if you leave it attached and unfold it down the hall it makes a nice visual for the passage of time.
**Simply Charlotte Mason has a free download for a book of centuries that you can print and use.
**And, my kids this year have loved using Homeschool in the Woods' History through the Ages: Record of Time timeline books. They tuck their fanfold timelines at the front of their books.
With each book the children read, the children add figures, important events, names, dates, etc. to their book of centuries. They illustrate everything. This book follows them through their school years and becomes a very special treasure (my sister -- now 29 -- still has hers from when she was homeschooled!). The Book of Centuries/Timeline acts like glue holding together all that you teach in history...in this way, you could be studying Ancient History, but maybe you spend a week or two around Thanksgiving to talk about the Pilgrims...using your timeline you can add important facts and people, and then after Thanksgiving the kids flip back to where they were in time and are back to reading about the Ancients. They see the relationship between events happening in different geographical areas at the same time (like the French Revolution and America just post Revolution). Can you tell I'm a big advocate?
Was this at all what you were looking for, mimi?
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19, ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
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Willa
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| Posted: April 15 2009 at 12:08pm | IP Logged
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mimip wrote:
| Do you think a curriculum should be doing Ancients (what we are doing now) and World History (later on) simultaniously with American History? |
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Hi!
Mater Amabilis does it that way -- (link is to the year for ages 7-9)
So does Core Knowledge (the link is to the list of 1st grade unit studies that teachers designed to go with the book).
Also the Latin Centered Curriculum book, first edition, was organized to have two "streams" of history going on at the same time: "Classical Studies" (ancient history) and "American Studies" (US History and culture). He changed it in the second edition because a lot of families complained that it was too scattering.
I usually do a modified form of these approaches. When I first started homeschooling I did straight chronological cycles, but as time went on I felt too locked in by that -- four years between sessions of US history seemed too long of a gap, for example. And I find ancient HISTORY to be a bit thin for a whole year history/lit but at the same time as a classically-focused homeschooler I don't like any years to go by without some refresher reading on some type of classical reading.
So for example, Famous Men of Greece AND Rome, plus Augustus Caesar's World, PLUS Plutarch's Lives seems like too much to cram into one year, but spread out over more time it works for us. Since we do Latin all through and some Greek as well, I fit the "Classical Studies" in as an extension and enrichment of the language studies.
You asked for ideas to bounce around! (I have exactly the same way of approaching things! )
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Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
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Mimip
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| Posted: April 15 2009 at 1:23pm | IP Logged
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Thank you all so very much, especially Suzanne who moved my thread so that more people would get to it
Jennifer, I had done some research with History through the ages and was planning to order that this summer and start our Book of Centuries. Since my 1st grader still does not read I think we are going to wait to start her more formal one but still put something maybe scrapbooky together.
Willa, that is exactly why I was struggling with this. We basically used Mater Amabilis when we changed over to the CM approach and they have both at the same time. And yes these are definitely the ideas I wanted to bounce around
So I think I will continue with SOTW volume 1 and start my American History trail and see how that goes:) Thank you all for your input and I really appreciate all the time you take to answer these questions for us "newbies" who struggle to see what really fits for their families.
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In Christ,
Mimi
Wife of 16 years to Tom, Mom of DD'00, DD'02, '04(in heaven) DS'05, DS'08 and DS '12
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4Real Forums : Across Time and Place
Topic: Combining Time Periods with Elem. Age
