First year homeschooling 7th grader - need help with history plan

[FLMomRN]

I apologize in advance for the scatter-brained post but if it were organized in my head I probably wouldn't need your help so desperately. :)

 

I used the search feature and have read through countless discussions regarding 7th grade history but I'm still struggling a bit with my planning.

 

I had a lengthy conversation with DS (12) to figure out what they've covered in PS so far so I could determine where we need to start for our first year at home. The conversation was pretty eye-opening and truly solidified our need to homeschool. Not only did I not really know much about what he had been learning, but, despite his fairly decent grades, he really couldn't tell me much about it either. :(

 

I managed to drag out of him that he remembers doing states in elementary, possibly in 5th grade, and some stuff about Native Americans in the earlier years. For 6th grade they did World History. He remembers starting with when people learned to cook food and they ended this year right about at the dawn of Christianity. When I mentioned picking up at that point he told me they didn't really go in chronological order - they jumped around to various times and I have no clue what his gaps are.

 

I've read through TWTM once so far and I read the recommendations at this link: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/older-child/

I've also looked over the standard plan for middle and high school in our district.

 

I would love to do a complete walk-through of World History, SOTW-style but maybe with something geared more towards his age group. I don't want to bore him though since he just did World History in PS, albeit scrambled and not very exciting or memorable.

 

What I'm not quite clear on is where Civics/US Government and current Geography/world events fit in with classical education. Are those considered "history" and lumped in with the 4th year of the cycle as "modern" or addressed as separate subjects? (I feel like that sounds like the dumbest question on the planet right now and I probably shouldn't be posting when I'm tired).

 

Our PS district's recommended schedule looks like this:

6th: World

7th: Civics

8th: US History

9th: World

10th: none

11th: American History

12th: US Government

 

I definitely don't love their plan but I figured it would help give me an idea of what's expected at least. My loose plans so far would be one of these:

 

7th grade: Quick run-through of World History in one year, likely using "From Adam to Us." I couldn't find much for reviews on it but it gets it done in a year. He enjoys the Greek/Roman stuff so we'd probably spend a bit more time there as far as extra reading and projects go.

8th: US History

9th: World starting with Ancients

10th: Continue/finish World History

11th: Modern/US History

12th: Government/Civics?

 

That seems to be the best way I can think of to get 2 passes in.

 

My other option would be to start Ancients in 7th grade and do a complete 4-year cycle through 10th grade, and US History just once in 11th, then Government, etc. in 12th. My only concern with that is that it feels like a long time before starting US History.

 

My husband reminded me that since we'll be schooling year-round and our public schools tend to spend the last two months of each year on standardized testing and watching DVDs, we should theoretically be much more efficient at getting through all of this at home. My head really spins if I try to plan it out in any sort of accelerated fashion though. This is new to us so I don't really have a feel for how much time we'll really need for books designed as a one-year course.

 

Thank you for reading my lengthy post and thanks in advance for any suggestions! :)

Edited June 26, 2015 by FLMomRN

[AK_Mom4]

For DD14, we did Geography in 7th grade (using a ps Geography text) along with a few weeks of State History.   Then, in 8th, she did a full year of US History since we were going to D.C. for a week and she had a chance to see the monuments and sights that she was reading about.

 

We chose those because I wanted to start off the cycle again with Ancients/World in 9th grade this year (using SWB's History of the Ancient World).  That gives us:

9th Ancients

10th Middle Ages

11th US History and US Government (one semester each)

12th Modern History and Economics (one semester each)

 

For 7th grade geography, I was looking at using one of two different programs - Around the world in 180 days and Trail Guides..  We ended up going with the text book ( http://www.amazon.com/World-Geography-Student-Edition-2007/dp/0618689982) when life complications got in the way and I ran out of time to pull the others together.

[Aurelia]

You don't absolutely have to get multiple passes of US history before graduating high school. And most likely, he'll have to take US history again in college, too. Also, he's not likely to remember a whole lot if you cram 4000-6000 years of history into one year.

 

My recommendation:

7th: Ancients

8th: Middle Ages

9th: Early Modern

10th: Modern

11th: US history

12th: US government/economics

 

For comparison, the public schools here do:

7th: state history

8th: US history to 1865

9th: world geography

10th: world history

11th: US history

12th: economics and US government (1 semester each)

[mschickie]

Don't worry about what they did in ps and don't worry about having gaps.  You can do whatever you want for 7th and 8th grade and then just hit World History, American History, Government and Economics in high school.  I like doing 2 years of World History (9th and 10th) with a bit of geography and culture studies thrown in.

 

Since you are just starting out why don't you ask him what he wants to study and just do that this year and next.  That is one of the beauties of homeschooling, you are not tied to the traditional way of doing things.

[OneStepAtATime]

Don't worry about what they did in ps and don't worry about having gaps.  You can do whatever you want for 7th and 8th grade and then just hit World History, American History, Government and Economics in high school.  I like doing 2 years of World History (9th and 10th) with a bit of geography and culture studies thrown in.

 

Since you are just starting out why don't you ask him what he wants to study and just do that this year and next.  That is one of the beauties of homeschooling, you are not tied to the traditional way of doing things.

This.

 

History is fractal and never-ending.  We have a LOT of history.  There will always be more history to study.  

 

Aurelia's suggestion is a good one.  Mschickie's suggestion of asking what he wants to study is also excellent.  You could even do both.  Or if he has no preference, do Ancients but also do rabbit trails in anything that strikes his fancy.

 

Or you could easily do what AK_Mom4 suggested.  It's all good.  :)

[BusyMom5]

I started Ancients w/ my 6th grader HSing for the first time last year, I think ours will end up looking like this:

 

6th: Ancients

7th: Middle Ages

8th: Early Modern

9th: American Government interwoven w/ a focus on early America

10th: Modern History and Geography

11th; (if we still need more history for a HS credit)- wide sweep thru Ancients and MA- calling it World History -

12th:  something else interest based or a college course

 

We aren't going to get to go over it several times, since we started HSing late, but I'm trying not to go off the PS schedule and instead try to focus on the things I think are important in history.  Up thru 5th grade they hadn't done anything beyond basic American history- mainly pioneers and a handful of people.  Sad, really.  I was always so disappointed in the PS's history choices.  I made sure to include lots of historical reading outside of school to off-set that.  I am really liking Human Odyssey Textbooks from k12- 3 of them cover all of history.  We couldn't get all the way thru the first one this year, but if you focused on it I am sure you could do the 3-book set in 3 years.

[Kareni]

We came to homeschooling late and began in 7th grade.  We allowed my daughter the decision of whether or not to homeschool each year, so we took things on a year by year basis.  I'd describe our homeschooling as WTM inspired; however, I elected to do a three year run through world history.

In 7th grade, my daughter covered Pre-history to about AD500.

In 8th grade, my daughter studied the time period AD500 to about AD1700.

In 9th, she did an at home WTM inspired world history study of the time period from 1700 to 2000.  

In 10th, she took an out of the home AP US History class which used Bailey's American Pageant.

In 11th grade, my daughter had an out of the home AP Comparative Gov't and Politics class.

Her interests in high school led her to emphasize foreign languages at the expense of history; there were only so many hours in a day! Her high school record looked like this:

9th: World History from 1700 to 2000 (at home, the third year of her chronological sweep through history)
10th: AP US History (out of the home class)
11th: AP Comparative Politics and Government (out of the home class)

 

You might not classify it as history, but she also did

12th: Art History (quarter long class at the community college)

 

We had access to excellent AP teachers at a free homeschooling resource center, and that was part of what decided our history choices during the high school years.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[birchbark]

I would have him read through something like A Little History of the World, and then let him select two or three areas of interest to study in depth.

[mamakelly]

No matter what you decide to do, you could always get all 4 sets of Story of the World on cd and let him listen to it. My 13 year old loves those cd's she learned so much from them last year, it was crazy.