high school history ideas

[brla]

I am in the process of planning out the last 6 years of my first set of children. I have been researching everywhere for what best fits our family and have a few questions for those who have been there and done it already.

 

I am looking forward with my high school credits and think I may use parts of the TQ MA, Ren to Ref, AOR I, II, & III to teach "worldview" in history for the kids. I am also looking at using it in conjunction with something like Walch's Focus on US History Series or http://www.classicalhistorian.com/

 

We are eclectic in our HS approach and tend to do a mix of providential/christian viewpoint books with secular and source documents. I am trying to find a balance with our religious beliefs and fact, without going to an extreme in the religious end - as we don't tend to fall into the traditional "providential" catagory. I find much of that material to be "over the top". (I am NOT invoking a discussion on this topic, so please understand that. I am trying to get opinions on types of materials to consider to reach my family's goals for our education)

 

As of right now, they are using HOD- Resurrection to Reformation. we have found it to be a good year and have found some new favorites for the younger set in our home. BUT, I've had to practically redo the whole thing to make it fit our kids. I don't really like the next guide (yes, I own it and have looked thru the first 27 weeks of lesson plans). There's nothing "wrong" with it, but it just doesn't fit where my girls are now and would require a complete overhaul to make it work for next year. Besides that, my kids have NEVER had American history past the settling of the 13 colonies (not intentional) and we would like to do that before they hit High School. They've had extensive history on Ancients/Bible History and Middle Ages.

 

I've tried Sonlight - again a complete rewrite

Winterpromise - hated all the crafts and didn't like the flow

MFW - really didn't like

Tapestry of grace - I cried for 3 months - too overwhelming for some reason.

STOW - We used a lot of this over the last several years Just never made it thru the rest of book 3 or 4

 

 

So, not interested in the above (other than I tend to use them for various resources).

 

I also have a 3rd, 1st and young PK coming up behind them.

 

So, here's my basic plan - geography, cultural studies will be interwoven throughout:

7th - American History 1 (using Guerber books, Focus on American History (Walch), lots of living books, state study notebook, composer study for music appreciation)

8th - American History 2 (Focus on american History (walch) - I think, president study, not sure what else.

9th - world history- picking up in the early church/late Roman era thru 1600's (creation to Christ being covered in Bible/worldview and we have already studied ancient culture/civilization 3 times pretty extensively)

10th - World and US history 1600-1865

11th - World and US history 1865- 1900's (flexible on the time's here)

12th - World and US history 1900's - current year, including Government and Economics

 

So, any suggestions of books, curriculum, ideas would be helpful and greatly appreciated. I would like to use non-textbooks materials for a majority of my studies but am not opposed to a good text spine.

 

Thanks in advance!

Heather

[1Togo]

You might want to look at Biblioplan - 4 years - Ancient, Middle Ages, Early America w/World, Late America w/World, interesting core/tex/spine, family guide/TM that covers all ages, wonderful maps, tests for history and geography, lit suggestions for high school students, reading suggestions for all age groups, Bible and church history scheduled, no heavy planning for Mom - just choosing and buying books, flexible, reasonably priced, writing suggestions for all ages, great service.

[CyndiLJ]

I think I want to go to school at your house! I love your plan, eclectic, interesting and balanced!

[brla]

You might want to look at Biblioplan - 4 years - Ancient, Middle Ages, Early America w/World, Late America w/World, interesting core/tex/spine, family guide/TM that covers all ages, wonderful maps, tests for history and geography, lit suggestions for high school students, reading suggestions for all age groups, Bible and church history scheduled, no heavy planning for Mom - just choosing and buying books, flexible, reasonably priced, writing suggestions for all ages, great service.

 

 

 

I had considered this option. The 8-12 cool histories are newer and I am just now seeing them. I've also requested the 3 week samples to look at this.

 

Question - how hard is it to substitute books with what they have planned out already? Will it throw off the rest of the schedule?

 

What kinds of things are suggested for the 8-12th grade - other than the fill in the blanks, short essays and maps?

[mom31257]

My only advice is to look at your state's graduation requirements when it comes to credits required. You could also talk with a few colleges about their requirements. When I've spoken with some admissions counselors, they are going to expect to see a transcript and test scores, but they are also going to want to see course descriptions with lists of textbooks/books used. Some are asking for sample work that has been graded, so I wouldn't rely solely on discussion/reading for the grades you put on the transcript.

 

It seems to me that while you would think colleges would love to have unique students who have studied a diverse course of study, in the end, they really want transcripts to all look the same.

[mom31257]

 

 

I had considered this option. The 8-12 cool histories are newer and I am just now seeing them. I've also requested the 3 week samples to look at this.

 

Question - how hard is it to substitute books with what they have planned out already? Will it throw off the rest of the schedule?

 

What kinds of things are suggested for the 8-12th grade - other than the fill in the blanks, short essays and maps?

 

 

I've used Year 1 and now using Year 2. The program is rather routine, every week there are fill-in-the-blanks, short answer, short essay, a map, and a research topic for an essay. There are unit tests over the geography and history; however, the questions come directly from the weekly work. They are not even worded differently.

 

I chose it because it seemed the best option at the time, and dd likes working on paper like that. After doing Year 1, I felt I had to at least finish out Year 2 so that I could give her 1/2 credit in World history for each year. I personally don't think the geography is enough for 1/2 credit each year, so she is using Glencoe's World Geography this year, too. I plan on giving her 1 full geography credit for that book and both years of BP. They do suggest literature guides for Year 2, but they didn't in Year 1. The literature is scheduled but only by unit because there are several choices. They don't schedule which pages to do on each week/day. There aren't any literature questions/discussion/written assignments in the program for high school age. There are writing ideas for logic and grammar stage each week.

 

It's not hard to substitute books since they technically aren't scheduled daily. If you just want a program that schedules the study for you and would allow you to keep all the kids in your family studying the same thing, I think it might be a good fit. Dd has really enjoyed Glencoe's World History book as a spine. It was scheduled for Year 1 and isn't in Year 2, but I just schedule it myself. It seems very fair and balanced.

[brla]

My only advice is to look at your state's graduation requirements when it comes to credits required. You could also talk with a few colleges about their requirements. When I've spoken with some admissions counselors, they are going to expect to see a transcript and test scores, but they are also going to want to see course descriptions with lists of textbooks/books used. Some are asking for sample work that has been graded, so I wouldn't rely solely on discussion/reading for the grades you put on the transcript

It seems to me that while you would think colleges would love to have unique students who have studied a diverse course of study, in the end, they really want transcripts to all look the same.

 

 

I am using the Homeschool Tracker Software for scheduling, so hopefully that will be sufficient? I am able to print out every single book read (and yes, I am one of those people that has put in every single book we own for school into the library option). Would that be sufficient to add to a transcript? Test scores - we're doing essay tests, so will that be sufficient? The kids also keep a notebook/journal of all their history studies (well, we kind of do it for everything right now). So, would that count as a representative of their work for history?

 

I have just recently started looking at potential colleges in our area. Fortunately, many of them are very homeschool-friendly and even have early or dual enrollment starting at 16. They also allow clep tests and some other test (don't remember the name but it may have been just that school's version of a clep). So, I'll follow up with a few emails or phone calls to those schools.

 

I totally agree with you, diverse students, diverse study - you think they would appreciate that. I guess it's just really hard to measure knowledge and readiness if they don't look like everyone else. Thanks for the heads'up on that.

[MommyThrice]

For middle school years, we really liked Notgrass for our spine. You said you didn't like MFW, so I don't know if the problem was the Notgrass text or other parts (I haven't used at MFW). I felt the Notgrass world history text & source documents were significantly easier than American history, FWIW. Most of our literature came from TQ guides.

 

Now in high school I am really loving the Clarence Carson books - A Basic History of the United States - for our spine. I had trouble finding high school literature that I really liked from TQ, so I'm getting ideas from both Veritas Press' Omnibus and Jeff Baldwin's TheGreatBooks.com. Omnibus is expensive and cumbersome, but I like all the help it provides. I'm just using it for about half of our literature. TheGreatBooks.com is completely free online. He does have some strange lit. choices, which I ignore, but what I really like about it is that he lists lit. selections for longer works that we would not normally read all the way through (ie. Origin of Species or Livy's Histories of Rome) and his study guides (purchase each separately) are really, REALLY good! Omnibus discussion guides get into lots of detail, Baldwin's all focus on the big picture.

 

One last suggestion. You might want to leave some room in your schedule for government & economics.

[Yapha]

We are doing a history intensive year. Resources include:

 

historyofphilosophy.net (have already used Sproul and others)

 

Old Western Culture: The Greeks (Roman Roads Media- includes literature)

 

Discovering Music (along with the podcasts and Annenberg vids)

 

Notgrass US History

 

PASS US History

 

Hippocampus AP US History

 

digitalhistory

 

GA Virtual Learning

 

Western Movies - Wesleyan University

 

Various "Great Books" and movies

 

Credits will include:

 

US History

Old Western Culture (also doing Greek and Latin)

Music and Art History

Literature and Film

 

 

Second semester - we will probably use BJU distance learning to make sure nothing was missed - doing US and World History, 2 days work each day.