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What's the current fave for middle school history these days?


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My middle schooler really likes History Odyssey 2 paired with Human Odyssey instead of TSOM.  He does it mostly independently, and likes that is it not an overwhelming amount each day.  We are doing Ancients this year and will start Middle Ages when he is finished.

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I have been browsing, neat stuff! Thanks, all, for the recommendations.

 

I have used Pandia science materials before, I honestly forgot they had other subjects, too. I almost gave myself a heart attack by looking at the Ancients Teacher Guide Level 3 by mistake, instead of the level 2!

 

Michelle/mc26, how many days each week do you do history? I love the way it is laid out for the student. I have a kid who loves to be independent in her work, but loves our read alouds together. This looks like it would lend itself to easily fitting both needs. 

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I have been browsing, neat stuff! Thanks, all, for the recommendations.

 

I have used Pandia science materials before, I honestly forgot they had other subjects, too. I almost gave myself a heart attack by looking at the Ancients Teacher Guide Level 3 by mistake, instead of the level 2!

 

Michelle/mc26, how many days each week do you do history? I love the way it is laid out for the student. I have a kid who loves to be independent in her work, but loves our read alouds together. This looks like it would lend itself to easily fitting both needs. 

 

He does 3-4 days a week.  Sometimes I might break one day's work into 2 to keep him from getting overwhelmed.  We didn't do much the recommended fiction reading for Ancients this year, but did do the History Pockets for Egypt and Greece, and added the Moving Beyond the Page lit unit on Greek Myths.   I am in the process of ordering some of the fiction for Middle Ages, and I think it will be better received.  And we will do them as read-alouds.  

 

Good luck!

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I would also add Thinking Like A Historian from Stanford University.

 

 

I found a youtube of Stanford's Reading Like a Historian - looks pretty neat! Actually, it reminded me a bit (so short was the video) of the Circe's Lost Tools of Writing exercises. We plan to progress into that curriculum after IEW and it seems like a similar method/process. 

 

However, it looks to be at a high school level? If you have a link or specific title for middle grade level studies, that would be helpful; I didn't find one. Looks great for the high school level - I heard "critical thinking" and "primary sources," both of which perked my ears! Thanks for the recommendation.

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I know some people only want secular history, but BJU 6th has been great. The Student Activities Manual has so many skill-building activities: outlining, summarizing, graphic organizers, essay writing, mapping, completing charts, etc.

 

BJU has Ancients in 6th, the rest of world history in 7th, and American in 8th.

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My middle schooler really likes History Odyssey 2 paired with Human Odyssey instead of TSOM. He does it mostly independently, and likes that is it not an overwhelming amount each day. We are doing Ancients this year and will start Middle Ages when he is finished.

This is what we are doing as well, History Odyssey Level 2, Early Modern (6th-7th grade) and Modern (7th-8th grade), using Kingfisher and Human Odyssey. I've been very pleased with the quality of DD's output so far; it doesn't seem like busywork.

 

My current 4th grader will start History Odyssey Level 2 Ancients next year in 5th and then will likely continue on to Middle Ages in 6th, and so on.

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Does History Odyssey specify use of Human Odyssey, or did y'all just add that yourself? (I'm away from my computer and can't pull up Pandia's site well on my phone today).

 

I did take a look at Human Odyssey yesterday and it looks very nice! I'm just wondering if Hist Od specified readings from it.

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We are TOG users and are sold on its value. We are also in the ancients this year and the literature selections for logic students are stupendous:

 

The eagle of the ninth

The story of the Romans

The story of the Greeks

Gilgamesh the hero

The cat of Bubastes

The golden goblet

 

To name a few...

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Does History Odyssey specify use of Human Odyssey, or did y'all just add that yourself? (I'm away from my computer and can't pull up Pandia's site well on my phone today).

 

I did take a look at Human Odyssey yesterday and it looks very nice! I'm just wondering if Hist Od specified readings from it.

It doesn't. It calls for Kingfisher and Story of Mankind and lists pages and chapters from those. But DD didn't care for SoM, and when I looked for a different spine for her, I found that lots of people liked Human Odyssey, so that's what I got. She says it is pretty good (and it's very cheap used on Amazon -- under $10 per volume, shipped).

 

It took me a little time to look through Human Odyssey and find the appropriate chapters, corresponding to SoM, but it wasn't terrible at all.

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It doesn't. It calls for Kingfisher and Story of Mankind and lists pages and chapters from those. But DD didn't care for SoM, and when I looked for a different spine for her, I found that lots of people liked Human Odyssey, so that's what I got. She says it is pretty good (and it's very cheap used on Amazon -- under $10 per volume, shipped).

 

It took me a little time to look through Human Odyssey and find the appropriate chapters, corresponding to SoM, but it wasn't terrible at all.

Thanks for this info! I will take a look at these and compare.

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