Thank you everyone for your posts. We are currently looking through the SOTW4 and figuring out if we can pick and choose things that would be good for K/1st OR to just do unit type studies of American History. Our co-op does separate out in different classrooms so each grade is their own classroom of 8 students and a teacher. We do 1 hour of history and 30 min geography related to history. Students read or listen to 1-2 chapters ahead of class and classtime is spent on read alouds, notetaking (as age appropriate), an activity and then the geography time is for the maps. So for us getting read alouds and activities for the younger age is hard since the activity guide isn't geared towards the youngers for Vol 4. It was ideal for us to cycle through K-5th SOTW and 6th-8th switch to Mystery of History but covering the same time periods so when we are in SOTW 1 we are in MOH 1, so they point is if they are in co-op K-8th grade they will cycle through the time periods more than once. Since I have kids spanning K-6th, I'm trying to help make it so we are all covering the same things for my own sanity.

I'm part of an once a week academic homeschool co-op that cycles through SOTW for K-5th graders. Next year we are doing SOTW4 and the steering committee is trying to figure out the best way to do this for the younger classes like K and 1st grade since it's geared towards the older students. We like all the grades doing the same time period/cycle because it's easier for families at home to all be reading/listening to the same book. Any suggestions on how to best gear the SOTW4 to the younger elementary ages?

We will be new to homeschooling and have picked Saxon Math. I noticed that much of the beginning of Saxon 1 is going to be real slow and boring for my daughter who has finished Kindergarten already. Can i skip the first few chapters and move on to what she doesn't know, or do I really need to follow the curriculum daily as suggested in the teaching manual?