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American History Books K-3


Dramorellis
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I'm looking for a SOTW type book for  American History. I have lots of supplemental reading, projects and literature but I'm looking for something basic to tie it all together, give it context. I was going to order Story of the USA vol. 1-2 but was wondering if there were any other options that people really enjoyed. I think SOTW vol. 3 is too much of a leap and I want to keep the excitement and momentum going. It's mainly for the 8 year old but the 5 year old listens in and joins us on many things.

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Elemental History looks like it would be fun for my daughter but not quite enough for the 3rd grader. Thanks!

You could also add in Veritas Press's timeline cards, some Story of Us by Joy Hakim, other readers and biographies, and memory work (states and capitals, presidents, etc) to have a very robust history year for a 3rd grader.

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I think it's a dilemma depending on your perspective... there are several vintage things out there with some great language and a style very similar to SOTW. But every one of them that I have seen is deeply problematic in terms of bigoted statements - not only about Native Americans and blacks but also often huge anti-Catholic biases - and outright lies such as George Washington's cherry tree told as an absolutely true bit of history.

 

Other options...

 

We found Joy Hakim's History of US to be too much at that age (it was perfect a couple of years later though) - but other people really like it.

 

We ended up using the Maestro series (here's the first book) as our main spine. Unfortunately these only go up to about the 1830's, IIRC. However, they're great.

 

We also really loved the Brown Paper Schoolbag USKids History books. They're OOP, but had a lot of "regular kid" sort of stories. Another useful extra resource was The American Story by Armstrong - short vignette stories about US history.

 

Also useful were the Jean Fritz and David Adler biographies, both of which we read a million of.

 

In the end, there wasn't one great US history book like SOTW, but there were so many more individual books that covered it better that we really got a huge amount out of our US history year.

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You could also add in Veritas Press's timeline cards, some Story of Us by Joy Hakim, other readers and biographies, and memory work (states and capitals, presidents, etc) to have a very robust history year for a 3rd grader.

 

I was looking at The Story of US. We do have lots of other readers, a state study swap and presidents covered. I was looking for something to bridge the gap so I think that might be it!

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I think it's a dilemma depending on your perspective... there are several vintage things out there with some great language and a style very similar to SOTW. But every one of them that I have seen is deeply problematic in terms of bigoted statements - not only about Native Americans and blacks but also often huge anti-Catholic biases - and outright lies such as George Washington's cherry tree told as an absolutely true bit of history.

 

Other options...

 

We found Joy Hakim's History of US to be too much at that age (it was perfect a couple of years later though) - but other people really like it.

 

We ended up using the Maestro series (here's the first book) as our main spine. Unfortunately these only go up to about the 1830's, IIRC. However, they're great.

 

We also really loved the Brown Paper Schoolbag USKids History books. They're OOP, but had a lot of "regular kid" sort of stories. Another useful extra resource was The American Story by Armstrong - short vignette stories about US history.

 

Also useful were the Jean Fritz and David Adler biographies, both of which we read a million of.

 

In the end, there wasn't one great US history book like SOTW, but there were so many more individual books that covered it better that we really got a huge amount out of our US history year.

Sorry for all the replies, don't know how to multiquote. We just finished reading Story of Science (first one) and it was meaty but he did get a lot out of it so I think I will check that out of the library. Some stuff for sure went over his head though. We have or I have book marked the biographies and Maestro books. Oh I found some Brown Paper Schoolbag books used! Those look awesome.

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Haven't used this but looking at it - Living History of Our World America's Story

 

I tried it: ordered it, read through it, sent it back. I found it extremely patronizing and way too "cutesy." Even my daughter, who was 7 at the time, hated it. She said something to the effect of "You're not going to make me use THAT for school, are you? That's a baby book. I'm not a baby."

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Some people use the Abeka 4 text as a spine.  It's surprisingly good.  We used the VP cards along with TQ and SL books.  American history with that age is nice to bust out and do a bit hands-on.  So if, instead of thinking in terms of ONE spine, maybe use something to divide it up into time periods (indians, explorers, pilgrims, jamestown, colonial, blah blah) and then pick a resource that pulls THAT together at least.  

 

As an alternative to Story of the USA, you could look at Child's Story of America.

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Some people use the Abeka 4 text as a spine.  It's surprisingly good.  We used the VP cards along with TQ and SL books.  American history with that age is nice to bust out and do a bit hands-on.  So if, instead of thinking in terms of ONE spine, maybe use something to divide it up into time periods (indians, explorers, pilgrims, jamestown, colonial, blah blah) and then pick a resource that pulls THAT together at least.  

 

As an alternative to Story of the USA, you could look at Child's Story of America.

 

I hadn't considered Abeka but I will take a look. We are breaking it up into time periods and I have lots of resources within each period. I was looking for something that would provide a link and context for how we got from one period to the next and maybe what was going on in the word at large that may have influenced what we are studying. A general timeline with a bit of information and some context. Does that make sense? Thanks everyone!

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There is a book by H.E. Marshall called This Country of Ours.  It is available free in the Public Domain as an e book, you can get a free copy at the kindle store or you can buy a hard copy from Amazon or someplace similar.  Different copies have different illustrations, so if that is important to you, you should pay extra attention.  I have a copy, but I haven't read it yet.  It seems to be American History in story form so I am thinking that some parts are fictionalized.  Even if you don't use it, it is free to look at :).

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