Thank you for all of your thoughtful replies!! I can't even tell you how helpful this has been! I appreciate hearing that Story of the World may be better suited for a younger age group or for someone who has yet to cover history. I would hate to realize that only after we had committed to using it. We only went through Vol. 1 and that was several years ago. I love the idea of doing a free-write! That is a great idea for showing work product as well as teaching note-taking and improving retention. I will definitely be incorporating that starting this next school year! Zoo Keeper, you are an answer to prayer! We have been using BookShark for history up until now, but I had no idea that they used Story of the World! This means I can have our standards met through BookShark for at least 7th and 8th grade. I feel so much more confident now that I can figure out how to supplement for 6th grade next year, while continuing with the BookShark / Sonlight program! Thank you for sharing your homeschooling expertise with me!

This charter does not meet up in a classroom setting, so I still get to do homeschooling independently. The benefit is access to resources and an educational stipend for the year. However, they require particular standards and subjects to be covered. I think they require a project every 4 weeks as well as daily written work product to show that we're covering material. As long as we can show that we've touched on something, the standards are considered met, so it's not as rigid as it sounds. I just wanted to make sure that it is actually feasible to combine both volumes. If I'm biting off more than my poor 8th grader can handle in a school year, then I'd rather switch before committing.

My oldest will be going into 6th grade next year, so I am trying to plan out his middle school curriculum. We are currently part of a charter which has its benefits and disadvantages. One of the most aggravating issues is that we are required to comply with state standards, some of which I don't agree with. For now, the benefits seem to outweigh the down-sides, so I'm doing my best to navigate these problems. In California, middle schoolers cover history as follows: 6th grade - Ancient Times 7th grade - Medieval Times 8th grade - Modern Times The blessing is that I can use Story of the World to meet these standards, and this is already a curriculum I enjoy using! However, I would have to combine Volumes 3 & 4 in 8th grade in order to "cover" all the standards. Has anyone ever combined the volumes? I suppose I could go through them and pick and choose the most pivotal events to cover and do a very basic overview in order to finish it within a year. I would love to hear if anyone else has had to do something similar!