dauphin Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 I'm specifically thinking of the continent boxes but any other opinions or suggestions on the use of Montessori-related materials would be helpful! We come from a Montessori background (as students) but implementation often eludes me. Wish I had the time for teacher training....but I don't. And I want to cycle through SOTW with my 2nd grader now that I've pulled her home from her Montessori school (that was a tough choice). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAttachedMama Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 That would be really easy to do! What book of SOTW are you on? I am assuming book 1? The start of book 1 focuses a lot on Egypt. SO---for a culture study, you could do a continent book on Africa. OR, if you want to look at Egyptian culture only, you could put together a box on that. (Country box?) Google continent boxes and you will find a TON of ideas. Afterwards the book move east to the Indus Valley Civilization (India) and Ancient Asia. Then the book focuses to life around the Mediterranean. Also, check out the book suggestions in the Simply Charlotte Mason geography packs. They are really great for learning about other cultures. You could also do a biome study of each location you study in history. This would tie geography, science, and history together! Our geography studies are not specifically tied to SOTW. We use Visualize World Geography. (We just have hte book, not the really expensive program.) My friend also uses this program, and she put together a really cute homemade montessori inspired flag pin map. They use this to review the political map and flags. My geography doesn't EXACTLY follow SOTW, but this is my general schedule: SOTW 1: Africa and start Asia SOTW 2: Finish Asia and Europe SOTW 3: North America and 50 state study SOTW 4: South America, Oceania, and rest of the world. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dauphin Posted August 1, 2015 Author Share Posted August 1, 2015 Actually, we are going to do Early Modern since I'm going to go ahead and loop with older DD's history cycle. I actually have a few hand-me-down continent boxes I got from another mama who was downsizing. So I already have them but they seem to have a lot of contemporary stuff (brochures, coins) that doesn't sync as well with -history- (especially ancient to early modern), so I'm sitting here looking at it, going, hm....how do I -integrate- this into the SOTW history which also appears to contain brief country overviews and map work. IDK that I'm looking to ADD something else otherwise (although the SCM looks really really well laid out and I probably would buy it if I were looking to do so!). It might even be that I'm asking the general sort of "how do you use continent boxes" question more than how do you do continent/geography study in SOTW. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiara.I Posted August 1, 2015 Share Posted August 1, 2015 You could also do a biome study of each location you study in history. This would tie geography, science, and history together! This is AMAZING! Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CadenceSophia Posted August 1, 2015 Share Posted August 1, 2015 Montessori map work is great. The basic concept involves maps, flags and labels. There is a small site that has made the of map work available to print to save you effort in learning all the details and color coding. You really don't need to match it up to SOTW because you can simply make it all available. You might just also want to make maps of specific time periods to match (from the maps in the SOTW activity book) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAttachedMama Posted August 2, 2015 Share Posted August 2, 2015 Actually, we are going to do Early Modern since I'm going to go ahead and loop with older DD's history cycle. I actually have a few hand-me-down continent boxes I got from another mama who was downsizing. So I already have them but they seem to have a lot of contemporary stuff (brochures, coins) that doesn't sync as well with -history- (especially ancient to early modern), so I'm sitting here looking at it, going, hm....how do I -integrate- this into the SOTW history which also appears to contain brief country overviews and map work. IDK that I'm looking to ADD something else otherwise (although the SCM looks really really well laid out and I probably would buy it if I were looking to do so!). It might even be that I'm asking the general sort of "how do you use continent boxes" question more than how do you do continent/geography study in SOTW. ;) I really like the montessori method in general....but I don't like continent boxes. Especially when it comes to homeschooling. So I am a bad person to ask. I am a very practical person, so I have many personal objections against a continent box. After you look at the stuff in the continent boxes a few times---then what? You are sort of left with a box of clutter you have to store at your house. How many times do you really need to look at the stuff to get it? Continent boxes aren't like pin-maps or puzzles that you might want to practice over and over again...at least in my mind. Continent boxes just seem like they take a lot of resources (time to put together, space to store, expense of stuff, etc.) for very little educational payoff. I can see where they might be useful in a classroom setting....but at home....I find that I can personally teach the same cultural information through living books, field trips, etc.. We did continent boxes when my kids were younger, and I quickly decided they weren't for me. ;) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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