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WTM History for Logic Stage


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Maybe my search skills are rusty, but I can't find any good threads on history for the logic stage. Has anyone used the WTM recommendations for history and found them helpful?

 

Thus far, our history study has been reading SOTW, giving oral narrations, completing maps, and reading non-fiction resources from the library. Literature for ds10 has generally correlated with our history study. I have not included the encyclopedia readings as it seemed to be overkill combined with literature, SOTW, and non-fiction library books. Overall, I've been really pleased with the kids' retention and enjoyment of the subject.

 

The plan for next year is to read aloud SOTW1 for dd7, but ds10 will add-in the activities laid out in the WTM to round out his history study. I plan on having him outline topics in Kingfisher (already owned), study primary sources, write 1-2 narrations per week, fill out a timeline, and complete a map. Literature will also be loosely tied to our history study.

 

Was this too much? Sufficient? Where there any resources your child enjoyed more? Any guidance you can provide is appreciated!

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First, the WTM doesn't recommend any SOTW-like spine for Logic stage history, but rather relies on the Kingfisher encyclopedia with other reading supplements. The student outlines from Kingfisher, does extra reading, does some writing on topics chosen by the student/teacher.

 

Many people find that the encyclopedia approach is a bit tedious and search for a narrative-type spine. SWB's history books might be good for high-schoolers but not most middle-schoolers. One book used by many here (our family among them) is K12's Human Odyssey. To me, it is the most like SOTW-for-big-kids. Engaging, story-like narrative, sidebars used appropriately, good maps. Better than many other books at looking at non-Western history - Africa, the Far East. I also like the way it looks at cross-cultural themes as it develops history. Definitely secular - it addresses the development of the world's religions as historical events, and does a decent job (IMHO) of tying them to political and cultural history.

 

We add in extra reading (some primary sources from WTM and lots of historical fiction) and mapwork from various sources (History Odyssey, the Internet, etc.), and keep a simple timeline.

 

If you do a search for Human Odyssey, you can see more on these boards.

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I'm curious, too. We will soon switch from main-stream school to homeschooling, with kids going into 6th & 4th grades.

 

My plan is to start with SOTW and other WTM recommendations (though some are out of print and getting increasingly hard to find in decent shape and at an affordable price). I'd love to hear input from others. The first round of history for us will be a rather rapid go-over of ancient and medieval histories, ancient from June 2013 to Thanksgiving, then medieval from late Nov. 2013 through August 2014. This puts us on track for eldest to have full years to go over the more detailed modern histories (early and recent) and discuss current events, with a full 4-year cycle of ancients through recent modern in her high school years in which to delve deeper.

 

As for her other history series -- my impression is this is more for adults and older teens (perhaps high school). I have the first two books myself -- acquired for my own further edification. I've started the first but put it down for a while since I have too much on my hands and not enough time to focus on reading, and this is material I want to focus on. My plan is to start again when the summer starts and we start SOTW Ancients with the kids -- this way I am aligned with their materials, and learning some things that are more in depth. I can then summarize for the kids or look for other resources if I want them to learn something in the more advanced book.

 

One of the things I liked about SWB's approach was her demonstration of perspective when covering Egypt. The Nile runs from south to north, which to much of the world is "backwards". To much of our current world "upper" is in the north, and "lower" is in the south, but in Egypt it is opposite because that is how the land lies. So to help readers get more in the mind of the ancient Egyptians her line map has south at the top and north at the bottom. I was quite tickled when I first saw this, and pointed it out to the kids, explaining that not everyone sees things the same way. We will go over this again when we study the ancients, but they did get the point and started wondering about other maps that don't have north on top. This should lead into a wonderful cartography lesson down the line! We can even use the car's GPS as an example -- it has a mode in which it turns the map to always keep the direction the car is heading in at the top of the screen.

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One book used by many here (our family among them) is K12's Human Odyssey. To me, it is the most like SOTW-for-big-kids. Engaging, story-like narrative, sidebars used appropriately, good maps. Better than many other books at looking at non-Western history - Africa, the Far East. I also like the way it looks at cross-cultural themes as it develops history. Definitely secular - it addresses the development of the world's religions as historical events, and does a decent job (IMHO) of tying them to political and cultural history.

 

 

 

I checked K12 online to see how much it cost, and it's $99 for just volume 1. May I ask what the book is like, please, and do you feel it warrants this high price? For that amount of money I would expect large (not oversize), non-consumable hardcover text with very durable binding, and a lot of full-color pictures, tables, and graphics throughout (these are the features that typically drove up the price of college textbooks). Is this what the book is like?

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We had a really good recent thread on this within the last couple of months. I am not a good searcher either, but I will try to locate it. But anyway, yes there are a few of us that post that have done the WTM history as written and it works. This is only my 1st year of logic stage, but we did it as written in the 2nd edition of WTM. It has worked beautifully, much like your OP. I did print out CHOLL alongside for a literature guide for my dd to read alongside. And I have a younger still in SOTW in grammar stage as well, so my logic stage 10 yr old has listened in to those readings again and done some of the mapwork and projects alongside her too. DD10 did the Geography Coloring book from WTM and the notebook as well.

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Many people find that the encyclopedia approach is a bit tedious and search for a narrative-type spine. SWB's history books might be good for high-schoolers but not most middle-schoolers. One book used by many here (our family among them) is K12's Human Odyssey. To me, it is the most like SOTW-for-big-kids. Engaging, story-like narrative, sidebars used appropriately, good maps. Better than many other books at looking at non-Western history - Africa, the Far East. I also like the way it looks at cross-cultural themes as it develops history. Definitely secular - it addresses the development of the world's religions as historical events, and does a decent job (IMHO) of tying them to political and cultural history.

 

We add in extra reading (some primary sources from WTM and lots of historical fiction) and mapwork from various sources (History Odyssey, the Internet, etc.), and keep a simple timeline.

 

If you do a search for Human Odyssey, you can see more on these boards.

 

 

Since I'll be reading SOTW1 aloud to the younger student, do you tie HO readings to the SOTW topic? Or does the older child work through HO independently? Also, $100 for one volume seems pretty expensive. I have college textbooks cheaper than that.

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We are using SOTW with the encyclopedias and lots of literature this year I pulled from multiple book lists. It's been a good year. My kids didn't use SOTW in 1-4th grades so it's a fun, easy intro to the topic before they read/summarize the encyclopedias. We have the student pages as well. Dd loves them, Ds depends on the day. It helps for when I have a lot of read alouds to do. However, I spent way too much time on planning history this year! Next year for middle ages we are using SL Core G IG to help plan the literature part. It's 22 weeks of the guide we will use correlated to SOTW but we will slow it down to flesh out the year. In other words I am adding more lit to it lol, and doing it on SOTW timeframe and not the IG's time frame. It will add hours back to my life!

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Thank you, Linders! I found a thread with the discussion on using Human Odyssey.

 

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/242596-substituting-human-odyssey-in-ho-level-2-middle-ages/

 

I'm still not certain about paying that much for a history spine, but it sounds like most people who used it, liked it. Another book to add to my "pondering the purchase" list....

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You can sometimes find the HO books online (like used on Amazon where there is a Used-Very Good Vol 1 for $20+shipping & Vol 2 for higher $25-40) for MUCH less than $99. If you know you want to use them, keep an eye out because their availability & price differs greatly depending on the time of year & demand. Usually, a post on here makes availability go down and price go up.

 

I know a friend picked up a Like New copy of Vol 1 for only $15 including shipping. She's very happy with it.

 

On the OP's subject, my oldest is using History Odyssey's schedule (modified by me) and she has enjoyed some parts but it is not as "fun" as SOTW. You might want to consider adding some small writing assignments (say, perhaps, turning one of her outlines back into a narrative every other week). She is learning & retaining quite a bit, which is important to me.

 

We happen to already own 100 Wonders of the World & I added it into her HO schedule where appropriate. The pictures are great & the text has some interesting tidbits (some of which might not be well researched, I've read). I wouldn't necessarily buy it, but you could check if your library has it.

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One book used by many here (our family among them) is K12's Human Odyssey. To me, it is the most like SOTW-for-big-kids. Engaging, story-like narrative, sidebars used appropriately, good maps. Better than many other books at looking at non-Western history - Africa, the Far East. I also like the way it looks at cross-cultural themes as it develops history. Definitely secular - it addresses the development of the world's religions as historical events, and does a decent job (IMHO) of tying them to political and cultural history.

 

These are the reasons we love, and recommend, this book as well.

 

I checked K12 online to see how much it cost, and it's $99 for just volume 1. May I ask what the book is like, please, and do you feel it warrants this high price? For that amount of money I would expect large (not oversize), non-consumable hardcover text with very durable binding, and a lot of full-color pictures, tables, and graphics throughout (these are the features that typically drove up the price of college textbooks). Is this what the book is like?

 

Mine is hardcover. It is a large book, with great maps, color photos, informative sidebars, and good stories all built in. Go to Christianbook dot com, search for K12 Human Odyssey, and you can see the table of contents for each volume, as well as sample pages.

 

You can sometimes find the HO books online (like used on Amazon where there is a Used-Very Good Vol 1 for $20+shipping & Vol 2 for higher $25-40) for MUCH less than $99. If you know you want to use them, keep an eye out because their availability & price differs greatly depending on the time of year & demand. Usually, a post on here makes availability go down and price go up.

 

I know a friend picked up a Like New copy of Vol 1 for only $15 including shipping. She's very happy with it.

 

I got my copy, hardbound in very good condition, of K12's Human Odyssey vol.1 for $12 including shipping, so finding it cheaply is very doable. Try bookfinder dot com with the ISBN number.

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Guest karemakilah

We used TWTM suggestions for the logic stage as its written in the book for the most part. My 7th grade dd outlined from Kingfisher (she is a dyslexic learner so this was perfect for her). Next she made her timeline card for the event. Lastly, she had to find something further to research. It could've been the fashion of the time, the food of a culture or the music and write a one page report. Since I taught at our co op, I used TWTM logic stage history as the bases of our class. The students presented their outlines orally and their further research at the next co op day later that week.

 

I brought in primary resources like Jackdaws and YouTube videos about various topics. We also read through TWTM's literature list, studying the authors before each book. we memorized what SWB suggested during the time period and I'm asking each student to memorize their timelines. The only thing we didn't do as much of was geography. I'll incorporate CC's geo mapping of the world next year.

 

All in all, it was good. The students really like the independence of the TWTM's history for the logic stage.

karemakilah

Mom of half a dozen arrows from ages 2-14

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Hi, Linders again.

 

I purchased Vol 1 in excellent condition (supposedly used) at Amazon for $29. Hardcover, and a book that (according to DS12) we will keep "forever". Recently bought Vol 2 for $34, same thing. The only thing indicating either was "used" was a stamp in the back from a school. Perhaps an extra? Couldn't resist buying the Teacher guide for Vol 2 on Ebay - new - for $5.

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We actually found that all the outlining and the notebook with 87 different sections (maybe not quite 87, but it felt like it) really killed the joy of history. I dropped everything but the timeline, and once a week the kids do some history writing. We just felt that the WTM way of doing logic stage history was too much jumping around from this to that. My kids want a good, uninterrupted narrative.

 

Tara

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