If you use History Odyssey...

[SparklyUnicorn]

Do you use ALL of it?  Looking at it, seems like too much.  What parts can easily be left out?

 

 

[happypamama]

We skip some/a lot of the writing. Kind of depends on what else is going on that week and what outside research is required and what the kids are writing for other subjects.

[PeachyDoodle]

We skip some things too, especially the writing and in some cases the historical fiction. My dd doesn't really care for it, and so we focus on primary sources instead.

 

HO can be overkill in the amount of outlining and summarizing. We do some of that but tend to focus on historical analysis essays (either questions from HO or ones I make up). This year we're doing Early Modern, and it seems like it had a TON of biography writing! I've left those open to sub reading a biography or just skip altogether, depending on interest/time. For one, we just don't have the time to properly research and write multiple biographies; even a short one takes at least two weeks between reading/research and actually writing. For another, she practices biographies and lots of other forms using WWS so I don't feel the need to repeat it in HO. In places where we can overlap history and writing, we may.

[KrissiK]

We use it, sort of. We're using the Middle Ages this year. I took some stuff out and threw in some "Famous Men of the Middle Ages", and some videos from the History Channel on-line, and I happened to have Great Courses "History of European Art" DVDs, so I'm throwing in some of those for the Renaissance. I think the curriculum is a great spine, but it's really inconsistent with the daily workload. Some days it just have them do a little outlining and some map work, and then some assignments there's a ton of writing and reading. For example: they have the kids read Charles and Mary Lamb's Shakespeare for Kids and write 3-4 page summaries for each story. Some assignments they have them read 3-4 "plays" (The Lambs took the plays and reworked them into narrative stories in modern English) and then they have to write the summaries. Well, some of those I assignments I split up, and I also put it down to a 1 page summary.

 

Basically, I bought the PDF version and cut and pasted the whole thing. Then I added what I wanted to add (for the Famous Men stuff, I added discussion questions and then she has to write a good paragraph or two of the person, I also found Primary Source stuff on the Net and added that, too. Yesterday she read "Dinner with Attilla the Hun") and cut out the stuff I wanted cut out and reworked a lot, too. It was a huge job, but I think I am happy with what I ended up with.

Edited August 19, 2017 by KrissiK

[Heathermomster]

We never completed HO as written. It has been 5 years, but I removed the outlining and DS practiced that skill elsewhere. My DS was never a historical fiction fan, so we dropped that too. I supplemented with documentaries, and he mindmapped about the material.

Edited August 19, 2017 by Heathermomster

[RootAnn]

I have an older version of HO Ancients Level 2 in PDF. It had some resources that the current version doesn't have. I removed the stuff that I thought was a time suck (including the History Pocket thing) or I didn't want to use (Van Loon) & added other things. I basically used the structure of it & completely reworked it using the White Kingfisher & Winer's Life in the Ancient World.

 

You can absolutely pick & choose what to do with HO. It is a feast or maybe a buffet?

[Homebody2]

You can absolutely pick & choose what to do with HO. It is a feast or maybe a buffet?

I like this take on it. I'm planning on using it more as a loose outline for our history. Then I'll pick and choose and add to it as needed.