Help me plan history sequence

[lulalu]

I am already thinking of next year 🙃

 

Ds will be 6.5 start of next school year so 1st grade.

 

I like SOTW and I like VP (doing it all ourselves)

 

SOTW pulls me because of ease. I like just do the next thing stuff.

 

I am leaning towards VP since it has a good long time on Greek and Roman history. And I like the timeline cards with songs.

 

Anyways here is where I need some advice on what you would do. VP is written for 2nd-6th grades. Has anyone done it in 1st lightly? I would like to start ancient egypt one starting when ds turns 6. I would like to study Greek and Roman history while we are near ancient ruins so we can do field trips to the ruins. I think it would be fun to learn about Troy and then play in the recreated horse! We don't know if we will be back to this area of the world after that.

 

But I don't want to push to far and fast with history. And we could do a trip to Rome in the future too.

 

So anyone have thoughts on doing VP in first? Or would it be best to use SOTW as that is geared towards younger kids and just beef up with Greek and Roman books? Or should I just hold off and start VP in second and not worry about learning matching the ruins we see?

Edited December 9, 2017 by lolo

[HomeAgain]

We ended up doing a unit study method in 1st, collecting resources and going through each major civilization period (pre-history, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, India) on its own, but using SOTW as a jumping off point.  I read the chapters out of order and then we listened to the whole book at the end of the year on CD. 

 

It worked out very well this way because we were able to spend more time on his favorites - Greece and Egypt - and move everything without feeling behind or trying to keep to a schedule.

[AdventuresinHomeschooling]

I think either approach is good. Get the activity book for SOTW if you go that route. She includes several extra optional books for each chapter. We often rabbit trail for a couple weeks on a topic of particular interest, and she encourages it. I like the flexibility of SOTW. If you want, I think it would be fine to go through VP in first with the cards, etc., but just adjust your expectations of writing,o etc. What a rich place to be as you study this!

 

I used to live near all of our colonial history landmarks when we studied medieval history, and we moved the next year when we got to the colonial history portion. I wish I had known to take better advantage of those places!

[nixpix5]

We ended up doing a unit study method in 1st, collecting resources and going through each major civilization period (pre-history, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, India) on its own, but using SOTW as a jumping off point. I read the chapters out of order and then we listened to the whole book at the end of the year on CD.

 

It worked out very well this way because we were able to spend more time on his favorites - Greece and Egypt - and move everything without feeling behind or trying to keep to a schedule.

We did something similar. We used the BP schedule and SOTW 1 last year but I threw in all of my own resources, projects, field trips, books for each major time period/event. It worked splendidly with my then k and 1st. We too wanted alot of extra time on Egypt and Greece :)

 

They liked Ancient so much that we decided to do Veritas Press Ancient this year as an extra history (we are doing Adventures in America) but it is the online self study. My 1st graders are doing it and having no problem at all. I think if you use VP a 1st grader would be fine. Again, this is the online version but they are retaining and know the majority of the timeline song.

Edited December 3, 2017 by nixpix5

[beka87]

If I lived in Turkey and could visit ruins, I'd just plan my history around that and worry about starting a chronological program later.

[2_girls_mommy]

I would read through SOTW in order, but do all of your field trips and extra readings and projects around all of those amazing places you can visit! 

[lulalu]

If I lived in Turkey and could visit ruins, I'd just plan my history around that and worry about starting a chronological program later.

So how would I do that?

 

Is there a lost of books from somewhere that has age appropriate books for Greek and Roman history? When I search online all I find is complete history courses with book lists for the course.

[Pistachio mom]

Child's Geography of the World Explore the Classical World might be a good place to start. This is a read aloud ancient  history / geography course that is easy to use as a spine. The writer writes as if she is visiting these places. Lots of ideas for hands on activities such as cooking meals like these cultures. 

https://knowledgequestmaps.com/geography-resources/a-childs-geography/

 

 

I have used the VP self paced OT/Ancient Egypt. In my opinion, I would not use that for a first grader because the games require reading skills. (unscrambling longer names of pharoahs...) VP tends to be accelerated in their reading levels for all the grade levels. If you or an older sibling is able to sit with him, the VP course is great!  We loved it, but my child needed help in the activity sections.

 

Another good VP option is to do their Bible OT with a first grader. This is a little bit more gentle in using language arts skills in a history type of course. I do love the OT/ancient history, but if you use  it  - expect to enjoy it with him.  The reading list they give to go with the course is wonderful.   Our family really enjoyed it.

 

 

 

 

[Hobbes]

We also used SOTW a bit out of order in ancients. I clumped the Greek chapters and we ended our study with a "Greek week", full of activities and a special dinner. I'd be inclined to use SOTW and pick what you most want to use. You can skip chapters and clump chapters. And I would totally take advantage of the opportunity to explore that area of the world!

[PeterPan]

I did VP with my dd starting in 1st. She was an advanced reader and a history lover, worked great for us. I agree with you that being there means it makes a lot of sense to study the history and do field trips, yes!

 

How has he been with CHOW? Does he engage and enjoy it? 

 

Your challenge here is that you're wanting to cover Egypt, Greece, and Rome but VP spreads them over two years by integrating in so much Bible. I think what you might do is let the chronology slide a bit, correlate the list of topics with the places you could visit, let your weekly field trips drive the schedule, and then fill in the cracks with the topical readings. So you could still use the VP cards if you wanted, learning the entirety of the memory songs, but only work through the cards that connect to things you're going to visit. You can go back and get a larger picture when you hit this again in 4th or whenever.

 

I think especially with a boy this could be really good! You'll have so much boyish stuff he'll connect with. He's likely to engage with the weapons, the wars, etc. You never know. I would put your energy into the dressing up, making the weapons, whatever he's really into, and not worry so much about the memorization, etc. etc. You have a lot of years for all those dots to come together. 

 

Your other way to do it, just being devil's advocate here, would be to do something totally different for your formal history (like survey american or do geography or something) but still take your weekly field trips. Like just let the field trips be on that fun/pleasure level and don't try too hard. If he's into it, play about what you learned. Read just one book a week before you go to the thing you're going to visit that week. You could leave that at the fun/play level and let your other history (100 Stories of Americans, a state study, whatever) be your more schooly thing with narrations and whatnot. It might get around this hurdle of trying to make something free-form have the components you want for school.

 

Btw, there are really cool playmobil sets, plastic soldiers, etc. for a lot of the time periods. I think they're doing the Egypt Playmobil set again. Might be something to collect for Christmas. Even just the figures would be fun (masked robbers and camels). Then you could act out the stories. 

[SilverMoon]

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Edited September 5, 2023 by SilverMoon