Story of the World Pre-K?

[Guest savvie]

I really like what I've read about Story of the World. Does anyone know if 4 years old is too young to get started?

[Rosie_0801]

It depends what plan to do with it and what you expect your 4yo to get out of it.

If the answer to the bolded is nothing much, it's as good a thing to read as anything. A lot of people like to do geography with 4 and 5 year olds so they (theoretically) have some idea where the historical events you're talking about took place.

[craftyerin]

I have used SOTW in the classroom (classical Christian school) before I got married and had kids, so I have experience with volumes 1-2.  I'm saving it for my own kids until at least 2nd grade, maybe 3rd.  I preferred for PK and K to do social studies and geography within the format of FIAR, and next year for 1st, we're going to do a year of early American history using picture books (DIY, not a set curriculum).  I don't' think there's anything wrong with SOTW for little ones, but I don't think they'll get as much out of it as they will if you wait a couple of years. 

[MiMi 4under3]

SOTW is great read aloud for a 4 year old, IMO.

[RootAnn]

For a "tag along," I don't see any problem with SOTW for a 4 yr old. If that is your oldest or your only, I wouldn't. The content ramps up every volume & it is all worth waiting a year or two on.

 

So, you certainly can use it at 4. But I wouldn't.

[Jackie]

Another possible option is taking longer than one year per volume. A lot of people say they can't complete one volume with rabbit trails per year and are rushing to cram it in. My current plan is a year of prehistory (Big Bang to early man) with my four year old, then planning 1.5 years per volume of SOTW starting at age 5. This will keep the ramping up to a later age while still having the fun of diving into Ancients early!

[prairiewindmomma]

I have had a few four year olds tag along through it. If your 4yo is your oldest, I'd wait...and maybe do some light continent studies instead. My 4yos have loved the book Children Just Like Me, its companion books, and books set in various countries.

[Desert Strawberry]

My 8yo started tagging along with volume 1 at 2.5. He enjoyed it enormously. He doesn't remember anything before last year. 

 

We are now in volume 3 (we move slowly). My almost 5yo has no interest at all. None. At all. 

 

We will be starting over with volume 1 in a year or two. My then 9-10 year old will be learning it all over again. His timeline will be like this : 

Medieval

Early modern

US

Ancient

Medieval

Early Modern

US

Modern

 

All of my other kids will have a normal time line. 

 

Short answer: there's no benefit to starting early.

 

[coffeegal]

I found my 6 year olds got more out of Story of the World than younger children. They were able to answer the questions, do the mapwork, and read some of the books. That being said, my youngest 2 children will be just-turned 5 and turning 4 in September. They will be tagging along since the family will be studying the ancients. We'll have fun, do some projects, and save the serious studies for the next time around. ;)

[Ad astra]

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[wendyroo]

I have chosen to wait to start SOTW 1 until my oldest two are 6 and 4.  This year we are studying prehistory starting with the Big Bang and ending where SOTW 1 starts.  I am also doing beginning map reading / geography with my eldest.

 

Next year (12 to 18 months from now) we will start SOTW 1.  It will be primarily a read aloud for my then 4 year old, though he will be welcome to fool around with the coloring pages and map activities if he chooses.

 

Wendy

[MommytoFour]

Do you mind sharing what you are using for prehistory?  I'm planning on doing prehistory and a little American History before SOTW, but don't have a solid plan for prehistory yet.

 

I have chosen to wait to start SOTW 1 until my oldest two are 6 and 4.  This year we are studying prehistory starting with the Big Bang and ending where SOTW 1 starts.  I am also doing beginning map reading / geography with my eldest.

 

Next year (12 to 18 months from now) we will start SOTW 1.  It will be primarily a read aloud for my then 4 year old, though he will be welcome to fool around with the coloring pages and map activities if he chooses.

 

Wendy

 

 

[wendyroo]

Do you mind sharing what you are using for prehistory?  I'm planning on doing prehistory and a little American History before SOTW, but don't have a solid plan for prehistory yet.

 

Sure.  We are using Older Than the Stars and The Usborne Internet-Linked Prehistoric World as spines.  Older Than the Stars is a short picture book that focuses on the beginning of the universe, so we will start there for a couple weeks.  The Usborne book mentions the big bang and the formation of the planet, but mostly focuses on how life evolved from single cells all the way up through early humans.  

 

My plan is for us to loosely "notebook" our way through one or two page spreads a week.  The boys will draw pictures of something that interested them from the reading and I will help them narrate a caption for their picture.  We will also explore any of the internet links that strike our fancy.  Since I am hoping to include the 3 year old I am keeping this very short and sweet.  I figure one day a week we will read the pages and explore the internet links (I'll put shortcuts to the best links on the boys' computer so they can continue to visit them) and another day we will re-read the pages and draw the pictures.

 

Wendy

[73349]

We did geography for K, will do prehistory over the summer (some Pins here), and will start SOTW 1 with first grade (age 6.5). I would only read SOTW to a younger kid who has shown good comprehension with other complex read-alouds... and then I'd consider whether I was going to go at full speed, reaching SOTW 4 at age 8.

[Crimson Wife]

As a read-aloud it's great, but you might want to jump ship after Vol. 2 to do a year or two of purely U.S. history. Modern world history just gets so dark and I personally did not feel comfortable doing that with an early elementary student.

[PeterPan]

As an alternative, get a bunch of Jim Weiss cds where he tells stories from the Greeks, etc. etc.  So you're getting some history but in a way they'll engage with and remember.  There's really no point doing a sequential history text this early except with an unusually precocious dc.  Jim Weiss, the D'Aulaire books, these kind of things are terrific at 4.

[HappyClassical]

With my 4yo and dd in kinder last year... We listened to SOTW vol 1 on the way to places and looked in the Usborne Encyclopedias we had and took a casual approach. This coming year (pk5er and 1st grade), we are doing SOTW1 with AG and additional supplements. My younger one will not be doing the writing exercises.

 

They really enjoyed the audiobook.

[Coco_Clark]

My 4/5 yr old enjoyed listening in to me read and coloring the occasional picture from the AG. He was unable to do the narrations though, and I don't think he grasped everything. I wouldn't have done it for his sake if he were an only or my oldest.

 

I think a year of geography would be fun. I wish we had done that before starting our history cycle. We spent a year "studying" dinosaurs before my oldest started Sotw and that was fun too.

 

We plan on:

 

(K) Dinosaurs/prehistory

(1) (k5) SOTW 1- Ancients

(2) (k6) SOTW 2- (just through chapter 30ish) Medieval times

(3) (1) SOTW 2 and 3- (chapters 31-42, 1-20) Renaissance

(4) (2) (k5) SOTW 3- (chapters 21-42) with extra focus on American history

(5) (3) (k6)- SOTW 4- Modern

 

Repeat with another 6 yr cycle, or switch it up to a 3,4, or 5 yr one ;)

 

Explanation- I've got two kids that hit legal age for kinder right after the cut-off (5 by sept 1st here). So I start them at home barely before 5 and then we officially claim k the year their birthday dictates :).

[mathnerd]

I did SOTW 1 with my DS when he was 4 and 5. He is the sensitive, emotinal kind of kid with hardly any exposure to TV or any violence - some of the contents in SOTW started giving him nightmares - war, bloodshed, people killing others etc were too hard for him to take. So, I stopped SOTW. I loved it very much and read the rest of it by myself. I will pick it up again when he is in the 3rd grade.

[Tanikit]

I did SOTW with my DD(now 6) when she was 4.5 and we took a year and a half over it. She had great fun with colouring pages and especially with basic hands on activities. Her retention is not great, but then I suspect her retention of SOTW 2 that we are doing now will also not be great and that is fine - she has been introduced to it and she enjoyed it. I did no narrations at that age, only starting them in Grade 1 with SOTW2 - we just did hands on projects and reading and I took out a few easy picture books that I read to her. 

[AdventuresinHomeschooling]

Veritas Press has a really cute little couple of books for K and 1 called Bede's History of Me and Bede's History of US.  Bede is a ball of yarn representing a timeline and discusses time and gives a great introduction to history.  We plan to use these for K before starting the four year history cycle.  

[La Condessa]

I did some SOTW with my daughter as an older 4-year-old, as well as a tag along 3 year old, and we really enjoyed it. (Haven't gotten back to it yet since having the baby). We didn't try to keep to a schedule and just enjoyed ourselves. She was able to do the narrations with some prompting. That was Jan through March, and while she doesn't remember every detail, she does remember Sargon the Great, and that his people made clay seals, what nomads are and what the Fertile Crescent is, cuneiform vs. papyrus and almost everything we covered on Egypt, which was her favorite. My girls will still occasionally play "Narmer and Armer"(the name they made up when I couldn't tell them the name of Narmer's opponent), and cried when they discovered I hadn't brought Cluckmose (our chicken mummy) with us when we moved. (We had buried him in the backyard together two months before the move! They actually thought I should have dug him up to bring along!) My daughter told me she wants to have an Ancient History party for her next birthday, and they can all dress up from different ancient civilizations, and she wants me to make a pyramid cake.

[MamaAmy]

I plan to use the audiobook for volume 1 with my kindergartener this year. I want it to be our car book. It's encouraging to hear that others did this and found it worked well for their kiddos. We did just read aloud a short biography on Pocahontas, and my dd LOVED it. She really is very interested in historical figures, so maybe I'll look for similar biographies to further round out this year. So many good books to read. :)