HeWillSoar Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 Did you also use a writing program? I've heard this has a lot of writing, and I'm curious what other people have done. I am pretty sure we are going to use HO but I'm not sure what we are going to do for writing yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEmama Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 We used it last year, and used IEW for writing. Admittedly we didn't do all of the writing in HO; DS would have burned out on the repetition of assignments. This year (7th) I am making up my own history program. It will include fewer but meatier writing assignments. We'll also be using an IEW theme book for structured writing practice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HomeAgain Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 Yes, but we tied it to the theme of the program and let HO dictate the content of the assignment for the most part. However, the History Pockets nearly killed us. The sheer amount of cutting, pasting, coloring for a middle schooler was ridiculous. We stopped using HO after one year. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom2hunangirls Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 Yes, but we tied it to the theme of the program and let HO dictate the content of the assignment for the most part. However, the History Pockets nearly killed us. The sheer amount of cutting, pasting, coloring for a middle schooler was ridiculous. We stopped using HO after one year. What did you switch to? This will be our first year and I was planning to do the history pockets (the revised edition removed them), but now I'm worried. I'm also worried about burnout with all the writing. Eeks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HomeAgain Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 We ended up with Creek Edge Press task cards. I wanted something flexible, secular, no workbooks/textbooks, and cheap. LOL There were about 10 activities per card that ranged from researching to making projects, or two a day/about 1-2 hours on history. My kid had had enough with the coloring by that point, so I had him do many of the tasks digitally: creating powerpoint presentations, digital artwork, videos..and we used WWS to do the writing portions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamaraby Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 Yes, but we tied it to the theme of the program and let HO dictate the content of the assignment for the most part. However, the History Pockets nearly killed us. The sheer amount of cutting, pasting, coloring for a middle schooler was ridiculous. We stopped using HO after one year. Did you use Level 1? Level 2 (the current edition) does not use History Pockets. HP are great for some students, but not all. My kids enjoyed them in level one, but there are kids who would not enjoy them even in level 1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mc26 Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 I modified the writing assignments for my writing-phobic child. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HomeAgain Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 We used level 2 Ancients. I just went back and saw they changed it, thank goodness. Some of the lessons were monotonous and overkill - making 3 pockets in a row and the like. But having had a second look, I found the other problem we had: lesson scheduling. "Read two chapters a day until it's finished" or creating an appropriate amount of daily/weekly work. Given that there's now 72 instead of the odd 87(from what I remember), it would stand to do 2 a week, unless one lesson had a lot of work and another had very little... I know there are people who use it and love it. I read rave reviews before we started with it. The first two weeks even went okay. It just didn't end up being our cuppa. I like simple. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeWillSoar Posted June 30, 2015 Author Share Posted June 30, 2015 I don't know if I'm getting the HP but we wouldn't use them. That's not my kids' thing at all. Last year was my first year homeschooling and I did my own thing, using SOTW as a jumping off point. Although I think we got a lot out of it, I wanted more ideas for written work and mapping. Hopefully HO will add that missing piece to pull it all together, while still adding in our own thing. I wasn't sure if I needed to add in a formal writing program. I have plenty of them to choose from now at my house so I can just see how it plays out. We can do Killgallon, do a five paragraph essay here and there, and then one of my kids is really good at creating his own really wild stories so I want to be sure to do some creative writing too. I guess it will all work itself out--I just like to have a plan! Homeagain, I just looked up the task cards and that looks interesting. Makes me want to get those too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happypamama Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 We have used HO for middle school, sixth and seventh, and we have used Writing With Skill 1 along with it. Yes, we do both. I really like the step by step stuff that WWS teaches; it has given DD a better understanding of how to do her HO assignments. That being said, I occasionally modify assignments from both programs. We skip some essays in WWS occasionally, or more often, we condense an essay or lengthy summary from HO into a paragraph or a couple of sentences. HO has a lot of really good stuff, but I do worry about some of the summaries and such becoming busywork. So condensing has worked well. No more than one full essay a week at this point. (We only school four days a week, and we do some days of The Creative Writer instead, so we don't always get a week of WWS done in a week.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reefgazer Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 We used a separate writing program for DD when while using History Odyssey. HO does have some writing, but I do not think it is extensive or enough to qualify as a writing "program". Did you also use a writing program? I've heard this has a lot of writing, and I'm curious what other people have done. I am pretty sure we are going to use HO but I'm not sure what we are going to do for writing yet. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fastweedpuller Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 We used HO Ancients 2 for 5th grade and I would say there was more outlining than writing-writing. I think the format is great for helping kids figure out the big ideas and minor threads of history and the outlining was a good way to do that. We did not do a separate, formal writing program for 5th grade because she was fairly loaded up with the rest of LA if we include HO in the mix (and we did: she read a lot of extra novels etc.). This year for writing--and points forward--we'll at least start with IEW-B, and do something similar to what happypamama said above with WWE-1: use a writing program's prompts to reinforce the history (n.b. we like HO a lot). It just seems to work better for my kid if subjects aren't distinct. Oh and History Pockets were part of the curriculum and we mostly skipped them. They're fine for younger kids though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Truscifi Posted July 4, 2015 Share Posted July 4, 2015 We did level 2 and did not do a separate writing program. My writing-anxiety laden child was stressed enough with what there was in HO. Also, we did not care for the Story of Mankind. At all. We are switching to Human Odyssey instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeWillSoar Posted July 4, 2015 Author Share Posted July 4, 2015 Are you going to use Human Odyssey with History Odyssey or are you using Human Odyssey on it's own? I bought some of the Human Odyssey books and might try to use those with History Odyssey, but we'll also be using SOTW and Kingfisher so it might make things too complicated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cottonwood Posted July 4, 2015 Share Posted July 4, 2015 Inside it explains that if fully done, in High School it could count for 1/2 credit towards Language Arts. DD was already using a very rigorous LA program that covered all the bases, so most (not all) of the time I had her skip the LA type material, or modified it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeWillSoar Posted July 23, 2015 Author Share Posted July 23, 2015 I have decided that we are going to do Wordsmith along with HO, since it's fairly light, and then on Fridays I will vary between freewrites, prompts, etc. I also got "Ignite Your Writing" to go along with that. It's probably a little young for my older boy but coming from public school, I think they need the basics. I'll adjust as needed. Thanks for helping me think this through! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.