Early Modern History for multiple ages

[EmmaNZ]

My children are age 12, 10, 9, 6 and 4. Last year the 12 year old did history with WTMA but he doesn't want to continue this. My 9 and 6 year olds did SOTW2 with me, occasionally my 6 year old joined in. My 4 year old ignored us :)

 

This year I think I will have everybody - my 4 year old is reading and writing sooner than the others and enjoys joining us for 'school'. I need everybody to be studying the same time period. I need something structured (I am not good at pulling things together myself). My 9 year old is a struggling writer - he needs the content, but needs much less written output. I would like to just do SOTW3, but both my 12 and 10 year olds are capable of a lot more depth - but I am exceedingly bad at adding the depth consistently.

 

What are my options here? I know I could just follow the directions in WTM for each of them at the appropriate level, but I wondered if there was something more streamlined for me to use?

[2_girls_mommy]

I found once we established the routine that the WTM was extremely simple to follow. Each week that we are doing history they all listen to the SOTW read aloud since you still have kids in the age range. For me, I have a different spine going. Then the logic stager has his steps written down and taped to the front of the notebook. I use the steps from the second edition of WTM for our logic stage history. They might be a bit different now. So for us the steps are then (after listening to the read aloud:) 

 

Read a spread in the KHE. 

Add dates to timeline

Make an outline from encyclopedia. 

Read a section of an additional book on one of the topics from the KHE or read aloud. 

Write a summary of that. Put in appropriate section of notebook. 

 

The only step in this process that includes me is often the outline. They need help getting the main point and supporting sentences often. But once that is going, the steps are pretty easy to follow. The summaries aren't long, just a long paragraph or two on someone or something from the time period. WTM says to pick something from the KHE spread to learn more about.

 

My kids do not do the full work every week. Some weeks we just do the read aloud, KHE reading and dates and call it good. I try to get at least one outline a month in and at least one summary. They often have a lot of writing in other subjects, so history writing has taken a backseat to it. 

 

I keep geography separate from history in the logic stage. So on geography days I will assign some map work from the Geography Coloring Book. It doesn't have clear lesson plans, so you do have to assign what you want from the child or if you want them to just work straight from the beginning. I had my first logic stager look each country up that we were reading about and read it in the GCB, and do the coloring instructions for that map.  The next time she encountered that same area or country, since it was already done in the Coloring Book I would have her switch to the physical map of the area and do the rivers and or mountains and be ready to tell me the major rivers and mountains in the area. The next time she hit that country I would have her do the flag in the back of the book for the current country. 

 

 

[EmmaNZ]

Thanks, this is really helpful.

[EmmaNZ]

What spine do you use, BTW?