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World History for 8th grade...what are my options


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Current 8th grader is reading A Little History of the World by Gombrich, doing some of Stanford's Reading Like a Historian scattered throughout the year, and currently reading Brunelleschi's Dome and The Daughter of Time as extra.  He read The Brendan Voyage earlier in the year and greatly enjoyed it (I made him orally narrate to me and do some map work as he read). He writes a few paragraphs after each Gombrich reading, and sometimes he researches and draws pictures/maps/diagrams of people/places/things mentioned in Gombrich.  He is also writing and drawing after each Brunelleschi chapter--he is my visually creative one, so this combo of writing and creating is good for him.   The Daughter of Time and the Reading Like a Historian bits make him think a little more and push him out of his comfort zone, which is also good. 

 

All this is without much input from me; I do the Reading Like a Historian bits with him, but that is only every other week or two.  I read his written narrations, and check his other output once a week.  Daughter of Time has required me to pre-read so that we can talk it over as he reads, but I've read it before, and find Josephine Tey enjoyable anyway. :)  I also had to pre-read Brendan Voyage, but that was enjoyable as well.  Really, it is about a chapter or two of reading per week for me.  Easy to knock off in an hour on a Sunday afternoon, and jot down a few notes on a post it for vocab or concepts he might need help with.  Not hard to do at all. 

 

Scheduling is easy.  There are forty-something chapters in Gombirch, so a chapter week, with sometimes two chapters, will finish it easily in 36 weeks.  One day for reading Gombrich and talking about it with me, next day for researching/writing about it.  That leaves two other days per week for something from Reading Like a Historian or another chapter in Gombrich (or random Nova documentaries :) or ___, ), and Friday is the day I slot for his extra book (Brendan Voyage, Burnelleschi, etc.). I'm thinking of throwing Longitude at him after he finishes Brunelleschi, but we'll see how much time is left by the end of year.

 

Putting all this together has cost me less than $25, since I bought the books used and just needed to print out the Reading Like a Historian papers.

 

Yes, this is less intense than some options out there.  BUT, my creative math lover still enjoys his history.  Mission accomplished.

 

 

Edited by Zoo Keeper
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We followed WTM's logic history- a copy of the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia for the spine and lots of library books. Very inexpensive. We created timeline books, did projects, and made the divided notebooks with the writings in them.  We did the Geography Coloring books (pretty dry, but a decent resource.) We did projects and presentations of our own making and lots of field trips.  We added in a Jackdaws portfolio ala WTM one year to add something different and we enjoyed that.  That was expensive, but a nice addition to the logic stage history. I will be able to use much of the materials again from it when we get to American History in high school, but I don't know if I will add another one in or not. I am learning more about how to find and use original sources without paying quite so much.

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The Classical Historian has some ideas from full curriculum to books on their own. It looks like it could be pretty independent. They also have online classes. You could do the complete curriculum (pricey) or just a book like World History Detective alongside library books.

 

http://www.classicalhistorian.com/curriculum.html

Edited by chiefcookandbottlewasher
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