So I'm planning out our next school year. History is completely driving me nuts. I can't figure out what to do. I'll have a 6th grader, 3rd grader, a Kinder and a newborn coming in Dec.


I've done Sonlight K-4 already. I don't want to do core 5, it would be way over my 3rd graders head and it's very time consuming. I had thought about Winterpromise, but the reality is that I'll have a newborn baby. I just don't want to have to commit that kind of time to history.

I acutlly looked at Abeka and Bob Jones thinking maybe just for next year I'd use a textbook, but for my 3rd grader, he'd be studying the time period we are finishing up right now.

I was mulling around the idea of doing SOTW starting with Ancients. Blake hasn't ever studied that time period, Bryce did it a long time ago. Seems like I could do as much or as little as I felt up to KWIM?

So anyone have any other great History suggestions?

Kelly,

History is my favorite subject and I love to talk about it. I just bought WP AS2 to finish up our 4th year classical study. I think you should give it a try; it looks to be far easier than SL. I received my guidebook on Friday so I've been going over it a bit. Here are some reasons I think it would be easy (even with a newborn):

The guide is divided up into topics, not only weeks like SL

There is middler guide for your oldest - the guidebook is written to him

Games/crafts- my kids love these but with SL I had to order additional things or come up with them on my own (time consuming!)

Less reading. Don't get me wrong, I love to read aloud to my kids, but I found the SL schedule a bit much. My dd would have to read "x" pages, I would read "x" pages of history aloud, plus "x" pages of the read-aloud

The guidebook contains two pages per week. One for you, the teacher, complete with notes and activity suggestions. The other page is written the student (this is different than the middler pack). This guide part is called "On my own" and is exactly that. The AS 2 would be very easy for your middle child to follow.

Now, I can only speak for AS 2, but if CAW is written anything like AS 2 (which I believe it is) then you may want to try it. That way your middle child can study something new. :)

I"m loving story of the world for that very reason. I hate reading aloud though so I plan to play the cd's in the background when we're doing handwork. Also, my 11 yr old likes doing the coloring pages while listening. I know, you'd think she's too old for them but she loves them.

We've been using Mystery of History and I'm enjoying it. What's nice is you can do as little or as much as you need depending on the child.

I love SOTW for all the ages your kids are!

We have been doing SOTW for my soon-to-be 4th grader but she just seems so bored with it. We like the projects but the actual reading doesn't really keep her attention. A friend had suggested Peter Marshall's books to us so we may try those (matches up with the correct era for WTM as well) and supplement with some history pockets and/or lapbooks for projects.

Kelly,

History is my favorite subject and I love to talk about it. I just bought WP AS2 to finish up our 4th year classical study. I think you should give it a try; it looks to be far easier than SL. I received my guidebook on Friday so I've been going over it a bit. Here are some reasons I think it would be easy (even with a newborn):

The guide is divided up into topics, not only weeks like SL

There is middler guide for your oldest - the guidebook is written to him

Games/crafts- my kids love these but with SL I had to order additional things or come up with them on my own (time consuming!)

Less reading. Don't get me wrong, I love to read aloud to my kids, but I found the SL schedule a bit much. My dd would have to read "x" pages, I would read "x" pages of history aloud, plus "x" pages of the read-aloud

The guidebook contains two pages per week. One for you, the teacher, complete with notes and activity suggestions. The other page is written the student (this is different than the middler pack). This guide part is called "On my own" and is exactly that. The AS 2 would be very easy for your middle child to follow.

Now, I can only speak for AS 2, but if CAW is written anything like AS 2 (which I believe it is) then you may want to try it. That way your middle child can study something new. :)

Psstt...what's AS 2? What's CAW? All those acronyms...ya sound like a Navy wife or something. :p

We started with just Story of the World (vol. 1 with activity guide), which is a great program, but we also added in Mystery of History 1 to get more Bible history, too. I found a site to line up the lessons, and it's going very well. My kids are LOVING history and think it's great to use the Bible as our history text :) It really helps them get a sense of everything going on in the world at that time, too. Just my two cents.

www.winterpromise.com creates themed units.

AS2 = American Story, part 2 (1860-present day)

CAW= Children around the World

sontanned, thank you, i was wondering what they were also.

I just bought The Mystery of History for next year. We havent used it yet, so i cant tell you how we like it, but it looks like its laid out really well. We are excited to start.

mystery of history would be easy to combine for all your children -- the supplemental activities are broken down for younger, middle, and older students. so you can do the same "lesson" and then break it down for each age group.

it's biblically based, which i love (vs sotw which was my original choice).

sotw on cd is my favorite

I'll join the SOTW band wagon and add in (since I see the sig photo there0 that for Ameircn history I'm doing the American Girl books. We're starting at Molly and working out way backwards, a girl a year. Molly's life was kinda like Annabelle's is and the differences are minor. But then when we go back to Kit there are more differences but they build on the minor differences from Molly.

It's working out great so far. We tend to do a book a season and really dive into learning about the time period. Rather than focusing on the battles of WW2 we've focused on the effects on society and what life was like for kids. It's been a great base for talking about war and what it is and why it happens. All last summer if we had to go to the basement for a tornado warning she played that it was a Blitz attack. We listened to old radio shows on the Internet and 1940s era music and the like. Annabelle is even liking Nancy Drew books just because of the Molly study.

We're going to try out MOH this year as well. I'm doing science the first semester and history will start in the fall (W. will be 6.5 then) and continue on as long as it takes. I have the book already and really like it. I plan to order the CD set before we start.