The Human Odyssey cost for used copy?

[quelques_fleur]

I am considering purchasing The Human Odyssey vol 1 for my son's upcoming 6th grade school year.  I was on Amazon and I saw that it was available used for under $10.  Am I misreading the listing?  Is this the actual text for this series??  It seems like such a huge difference from the new price.   Here is the link to it: https://www.amazon.com/Human-Odyssey-Vol-Prehistory-Through/dp/1931728534/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469411756&sr=8-1&keywords=the+human+odyssey

[fourisenough]

That's the one. I paid under $10 shipped for a copy in very good used condition, IIRC. Great text and a very good price!

[RootAnn]

Yep. I'm tracking two of the three K12 volumes and you can get decent copies for less than $10. One of my kids will be using the first volume next year.

 

(Total side note:  I've been a little disappointed in some of the content because there is nothing on the Americas, very little on the Persians, Phoenicians, and Assyrians that I can find. There is also very little on England before the Romans invaded and not even much on that! I've been very spoiled with SOTW.)

[quelques_fleur]

Thanks for the replies.  I wanted to be sure I was purchasing the right book!  We never went through SOTW as it wasn't a good fit for us in earlier grade.  The concern is that now I think it's too late as I need something meatier.  I was hoping this series would fill that gap for us, giving us a story type approach to history.  It sounds like it is not as good as SOTW?? 

[RootAnn]

It is good for middle grades. I was just hoping for the same wide coverage of the world that SOTW gave us in the elementary years. K12's book goes deeper in many places, so they had to choose what to cover.

 

For the price, it doesn't hurt to order the first book and see if you like it.

[Apple Bean Tripod School]

Keep in mind that it's a human history and doesn't include some major historical figures.  I don't remember all the ones I looked up, but Alfred the Great wasn't in them.  Which doesn't mean that the book isn't meaty, just that it's a different kind of textbook.  We used a history encyclopedia alongside and that worked great for us.

[quelques_fleur]

Keep in mind that it's a human history and doesn't include some major historical figures.  I don't remember all the ones I looked up, but Alfred the Great wasn't in them.  Which doesn't mean that the book isn't meaty, just that it's a different kind of textbook.  We used a history encyclopedia alongside and that worked great for us.

 

Thanks for pointing that out.  My son is also in a Classical Conversations program in my area and does learn about major historical figures there, so we may be okay with that combo.

 

I order it for $6.35.  What a deal!  I was thinking of listening to the audiobook of SOTW vol 1 as we take a 6 hour drive when we go on vacation in a couple of weeks. 

[happypamama]

Yeah, I paid less than $10 for each volume with shipping. My kids have both liked the HO books and have said they're very readable and interesting.

[StartingOver]

I purchased all three Human Odyssey books along with American Odyssey and World History Our Human Story  most in excellent condition on Amazon used for less than $40 total. The spine of World History isn't exactly tight, but will do just fine for us.

[quelques_fleur]

The book arrived and it seems like an interesting way to study history.  I was curious if there is some sort of student guide that complements this for my child to answer questions about what we read.  I don't see any questions to answer at the end of each chapter.

[RootAnn]

There are worksheets from K12 for the first two books. I never looked into them because I would rather not have my kids answer busy work questions at that level of their history education. They might use the book to summarize learn to outline, or use it as an overview to see what topics they want to delve into further at the library.

[redsquirrel]

The book arrived and it seems like an interesting way to study history.  I was curious if there is some sort of student guide that complements this for my child to answer questions about what we read.  I don't see any questions to answer at the end of each chapter.

 

There is a teacher and student book for Human Odyssey book 1 & 2, but not three. Except for the reading in the book, all of the third course is done online, so there is no need for a teacher or student book.

 

But you can find the books they are called 'Intermediate world History A" and "Intermediate World History B"

 

There are teacher guides and student pages for each.  I personally have bought the teacher pages and just used them for discussion.  The student pages have things to fill out etc, but honestly, what I have seen isn't particularly impressive.

 

The teacher guide will have things like 'The student will answer the following questions in the guide"  and it has the questions and the answers. I don't need my kid to write that out. We can do it orally just fine, and usually have a great discussion. It also has assignments in the teacher book.  You do have to really look through it to see what is in there. It isn't laid out all that well.

 

Here is the teacher book for the first book

https://smile.amazon.com/Intermediate-World-History-Teacher-Semesters/dp/B002AVQYSE/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1472790073&sr=1-2&keywords=intermediate+world++history+a

 

And for the second book

https://smile.amazon.com/Intermediate-World-History-Teacher-Guide-Semesters/dp/B003TQQK4W/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1472790354&sr=1-5&keywords=intermediate+world++history+b

 

Those prices look about average

[redsquirrel]

I went and looked again at the student pages for "intermediate world history A"  and once again, I was underwhelmed.  It is almost a reprinting of what is in the teacher's book, and I was looking at them side by side.  There are  assignments in addition to the readings but they are almost all online, as part of the K12 course.  The student books aren't visually any different from the teacher pages...I sometimes had difficultly telling the two apart. There are no maps or anything like that..I assume that is all online.

 

So, if you are looking for discussion questions for the K12 Human Odyssey books, you can get the teacher's guide, but really, you can skip the student pages. 

 

Now, there are not questions for every reading section, sometimes they simply refer to an online assessment and the answers are provided, I guess you could reverse engineer questions from that, if you like. But you don't need the student pages for that. There is the very occasional worksheet to fill out, but not a lot, and not with any regular pattern that I could determine. It felt really random and not useful for planning.

 

But you don't need either to use the book, and you really don't need the student pages.

 

And FWIW, if the student and teacher pages are anything to go by, the actual K12 class isn't really all that enthralling, lol. I am perfectly fine with my kid using the book but not getting the class.

[foxbridgeacademy]

Yep. I'm tracking two of the three K12 volumes and you can get decent copies for less than $10. One of my kids will be using the first volume next year.

 

(Total side note:  I've been a little disappointed in some of the content because there is nothing on the Americas, very little on the Persians, Phoenicians, and Assyrians that I can find. There is also very little on England before the Romans invaded and not even much on that! I've been very spoiled with SOTW.)

:iagree: I was also not happy with that aspect. But overall the books are great and you can't beat the used price.  After I was done with mine I ended up giving them away to a HSer from WTMForums that was on a tight budget.