Ancients for 6th grader if we love SOTW

[jwoodbri]

I'm going to be using SOTW with activity guide for my 5 and 7 year olds as well as possibly my 9 year old. I'd ideally like something either to add on to that to beef it up or substitute something similar to SOTW for my 11 year old/6th grader. I've been eyeing Wayfarers which looks great but I'm a bit worried about not having a discussion guide or Biblioplan although I like living books rather than the text book they have although it does look good. (I think I have finally ruled out MOH and TOG for now.)

 

 

(In case this sounds familiar I do have a thread about history on the general curriculum forum just wondering if I would get different/other feedback here in the logic stage as I can't seem to settle on one. I wish I could try them all! Well, sort of... :)

[EKS]

I like K12's Human Odyssey series for the middle grades.  

[Miss Tick]

I, also, am using Human Odyssey. Another hive member shared an outline she made that aligned the Human Odyssey texts to SOTW, so I assign the text to my olders from that sheet, occasionally filling in with other reading or writing assignments. This way everyone (older and younger) is in the same era and geographical region, and read-alouds connect for everyone. The others don't have to listen to SOTW, but they often do, or I read it while they do something else. I wanted history to be low-key this year and so far I'm enjoying it.

[ScoutTN]

We too have enjoyed K12 Human Odyssey as a step up from SOTW. We add literature too, just as the AG has for SOTW, only a bit harder. My then 5th grader used this independently last year. I assigned writing as TWTM suggests and we discussed the text some of the lit reading. 

 

My younger still uses SOTW.

 

I tried syncing the two with the schedules I got from here, but since both K12HO and SOTW are written with a strong narrative style, we found the chopping and moving to be disconcerting. We just move through as they are written and if one child hears a story twice, it is fine. Still all in the same general time period.

[stlily]

Both the 3rd and 4th editions of TWTM give recommendations for what to do when you are doing history with several children.  You can find those recommendations on p. 278 of the 3rd edition and p. 373 of the 4th edition.  I'll quote some of what she says here:

 

"If you're doing history with several children, follow the same basic principle: do the same year of history with all of them, so that you're not trying to keep up with two or three historical periods simultaneously--a sure path to burnout. When each student reaches fifth grade, begin the logic-stage process of outlining and keeping a time line, no matter what period of history  you're in." (4th ed.). In the book, SWB also says, "If you are using the Story of the World series for younger children as well as educating older students, you can read the chapter from the The Story of the World with all of the children together. Then ask the older students to (1) read the pages from the more difficult core text that correspond to the topic in The Story of the World, and (2) complete the other work described below."

 

This is what I'm doing this year.  I have a 7th grade, 1st grade, and a Kindergarten student.  We read the SOTW together and while I do narration exercises and coloring pages with my youngest two, my seventh grader reads from the encyclopedia, takes notes, outlines, does additional reading, summaries, map work, etc over the three days that we do history. Hope this helps.

[HS Mom in NC]

The study packages from Greenleafpress include Greenleaf study guides along with updated texts of Famous Men of Rome/Greece/Middle Ages/etc. and other related books.  They can also be purchased separately if you already have some of them.

http://greenleafpress.com/study-pkgs/

[Heather in VA]

I love the Biblioplan Companion. I don't think it's too 'non-living'. The guide also schedules Story of the World so you could stay on the same topic with all the kids. 

[jwoodbri]

Thanks for all your feedback! I appreciate all the input. I ended up ordering way too many things I think but I decided I really needed to get my hands on the material. Ended up ordering Biblioplan and I'll probably get the Greenleaf books and I ordered Mystery of History even though I had previously talked myself out of it. lol. Sometimes I get way too overwhelmed by having so many good options available to us.

[Heather in VA]

That sounds great! If you want someone to talk you out of MOH, I'd be happy to help. You really don't need more than the Companion, especially for 6th grade as your oldest. 

[Janeway]

That sounds great! If you want someone to talk you out of MOH, I'd be happy to help. You really don't need more than the Companion, especially for 6th grade as your oldest. 

Please tell me about the MOH. I was considering ordering it. I was also looking at Notgrass and Oak Meadow and also, just using that textbook I found in the used bookstore, and also found online for free.

[hellen]

It's probably not what you're looking for, but you could look at Memorial Presses Great Men series. I pair it with the Oxford University Press books about the ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman world. I throw in a bit of extra fiction and nonfiction reading too.

 

If your library has the Oxford University Press books, they are worth checking out.

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0195173910/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=CR8R9NR3XMTJ63635BB0

[Heather in VA]

Please tell me about the MOH. I was considering ordering it. I was also looking at Notgrass and Oak Meadow and also, just using that textbook I found in the used bookstore, and also found online for free.

 

Well I meant she didn't need MOH in relation to Biblioplan. The Family Guide for Biblioplan schedules MOH as an option because a lot of people like it, but the Companion, which is the primary text for Biblioplan is plenty. 

[cintinative]

I'm using K12 HO with Oxford University Press' World in Ancient Times

[fourisenough]

My 6th grader is doing The Classical Historian's Ancient Civ class. The teacher is the author of Critical Thinking Company's World History Detective, which is used in the class. Prior to deciding on the online class, I was planning to use K12's HO Vol. 1. I think HO and Workd History Detective would make a good combo if you didn't want an online class.

[ScoutTN]

Love the OUP books.

[2_girls_mommy]

Both the 3rd and 4th editions of TWTM give recommendations for what to do when you are doing history with several children.  You can find those recommendations on p. 278 of the 3rd edition and p. 373 of the 4th edition.  I'll quote some of what she says here:

 

"If you're doing history with several children, follow the same basic principle: do the same year of history with all of them, so that you're not trying to keep up with two or three historical periods simultaneously--a sure path to burnout. When each student reaches fifth grade, begin the logic-stage process of outlining and keeping a time line, no matter what period of history  you're in." (4th ed.). In the book, SWB also says, "If you are using the Story of the World series for younger children as well as educating older students, you can read the chapter from the The Story of the World with all of the children together. Then ask the older students to (1) read the pages from the more difficult core text that correspond to the topic in The Story of the World, and (2) complete the other work described below."

 

This is what I'm doing this year.  I have a 7th grade, 1st grade, and a Kindergarten student.  We read the SOTW together and while I do narration exercises and coloring pages with my youngest two, my seventh grader reads from the encyclopedia, takes notes, outlines, does additional reading, summaries, map work, etc over the three days that we do history. Hope this helps.

This is exactly what I did. I read SOTW to both (all when I had babysitting kids.) Then logic stagers read the KHE, outlined it, did their timeline books and geography coloring books. Later, after additional reading, they wrote a summary for their notebooks. We did lots of reading aloud from library books along with SOTW, and I assigned literature from or about the time period for the logic stager's silent reading.

[Ali in OR]

When my now 11th grader was in logic stage, we used SOTW with Biblioplan just as we did for our first cycle (1st-4th grade). But she did the older readers--lots of great books. We were using our older version of Biblioplan, so we didn't have companions or cool history worksheets--just a schedule for SOTW plus readers (and I added map work with MapTrek) and we were very happy with it.

 

For my youngest, she's been through 2 history cycles with SOTW/Biblioplan, plus her last cycle is only 3 years (6th-8th). We switched to Human Odyssey (which is a 3-year world history cycle), mostly just reading the text but also adding in some read-alouds and readers as is our habit from Biblioplan, and this also has been great. The Human Odyssey book is more appealing for middle school I think. Just as well-done and compelling story-telling as SOTW, but with photos and more depth. Good stuff. HO has much less American history than we got with Biblioplan where we added in History of US. They do have an American Odyssey book, but it's a high school level text. We're using parts of it this year (8th grade) because HO 3 is a shorter book and we have a little room in the schedule to add some American history.

[goldenecho]

  I was considering using these free lessons (  http://www.marionbrady.com/WorldHistory.asp)as a suppliment to Story of the World, which I'm using with my 8 year old, when I thought my 11 year old would be joining us for homeschool (long story, but he's staying in public school this year, so I haven't gotten the chance to try this out).    It's not a complete history,  as it's main goal is not to teach history but to teach a form of critical thinking through looking at history.   However, the lessons themselves are excellent...really help students think deeply about the topic, and so I thought it would be a good supplement for my older student, since he'd already be getting an overview with Story of the World, since the topic covered go pretty well with the the Story of the World scope and sequence. The order does vary a little from SOTW, which is problematic because they do pull concepts from earlier chapters, so you can't switch them easily.  One of the early lessons does deal with evolution, I think, if that's an issue  (though they also have another lesson plan that deals just with the critical thinking process, which you could use to cover any of those concepts missed on any history lessons from the series you choose to skip, so they wouldn't be confused by terminology in subsequent lessons).

 

Another thing I wanted to use as a supplement was the Science of Ancient Egypt units through Dr. Dave's Science here:  https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Dr-Daves-Science/Category/Science-of-Ancient-Egypt-188989  

 

And, our kids love the Extra Credits History and Crash Course history (on youtube).   Crash Course is more of an overview, but does touch on some things not covered in SOTW, though it occasionally includes a slightly inappropriate joke, so preview.   Extra Credits is very random in the way they cover history...they tend to look at certain topics, often less well known but important ones, deeply,.  and as such are really good for a supplement.  They're humorous but cover the subjects well.  The three topics they've done during the period covered in SOTW Vol 1 are...

 

The Brothers Gracchi (2nd Century CS, so Chap 28 probably the best place)
Punic Wars (SOTW Chap 29)
Early Christian Schisms (SOTW Chap 39)

All their history videos are here: 

 

 

 

[HS Mom in NC]

On a related note, for those of you who like your science to run alongside your history when possible, Joy Hakim's Story of Science (there are 3 books in the series) move chronologically through the development of science.  Johns Hopkins University and  The National Science Teacher's Association developed a curriculum that goes with it (workbooks and teacher's guides with all kinds of additional activities) for middle school/Jr. high level kids.

 

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=story+of+science

[mommymonster]

We are using SOTW1, K12 HO and Joy Hakim's Story of Science 1 this year for DS10 and it going very well. I read SOTW for both kiddos. DS10 reads the other two books and we discuss them, do a timeline and make notes.

[cuckoomamma]

nm

 

 

Edited September 25, 2016 by cuckoomamma

[happypamama]

We used Hidtory Odyssey Level 2, with Kingfisher, k12's Human Odyssey book, and the literature included with History Odyssey and were very pleased.