Need a fill-in-the-gap, social studies unit

[geewhizsam]

This is sort of my first post.  We pulled my son out of his middle school last week (he has autism, was not thriving) and joined a new charter in my area.  The charter is amazing, allows me to choose the curriculum that I'd like to do, pays for it completely (so long as it is secular) and has great support.

BUT, getting the green light for funding it an issue. It will likely be 2 weeks before I am fully in the system and ready to order, and then it is usually a2 week wait between submitting an order and the order being placed)  We were given a huge list of free resources, but almost none of it is for middle grades.

In his previous school they were doing world history (they just finished units on Rome and early Islam) and I'd like to continue working on it.  My son really thrives on routine.  Right now we're using Khan Academy and Moby Max as a filler while we wait, but I'm struggling to find a social studies curriculum for his grade.   Moby max only goes up to 5th grade, and the World History at Khan Academy isn't really fitting my son's needs (one is too dry and has distracting background noise, the other talks way too fast for him to understand)

So i need a suggestion on what to work on, and it really only needs to last a month or so until we get the curriculum that we were planning on.  We can put a little bit of funds towards it after payday (friday) but don't want to invest a lot of money into it before our funding comes in.  Am I asking for the impossible?  Do you guys have any resources or suggestions for me?  Even documentaries that you like that would be appropriate for a "young for his age" 13 year old.

[freelylearned]

It sounds like your son is ready to move on to the history of the Middle Ages. History Odyssey has a very generous "try before you buy" sample for each of their curriculum. You could "try" the Middle Ages curriculum while you wait on funding, etc. I think that you would just need a copy of the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia to get started, and your library system probably has a copy. It is also a secular company, so if you like it, your charter will buy it for you.

 

You can also get a copy of the Well Trained Mind from your library and skip to the history section and start implementing some of the suggestions there.

 

Good luck!

[geewhizsam]

Those both sound like great ideas! I was able to request copies of the books online to be delivered to my local library this week. Thank you so much!