Help for a homeschooling newbie - thanks!

[Guest MamaNeedsCoffee]

Hi all, and thanks for any wisdom you can share!

 

We're new to the idea of homeschooling. We have three children - a boy who's two years older than his twin sisters.

 

I understand that reading, math, etc. should all be taught at grade level, but I'm wondering if history can be taught to all three kids at the same time? If so, how would you do that (assuming you're following the WTM curriculum generally, and the "History of the World" books specifically)? Would you wait to start your older one for a year (say, at seven instead of six), then start the twins a year early (at five instead of six)?

 

Any help would be much appreciated!

[JudoMom]

Hi all, and thanks for any wisdom you can share!

 

We're new to the idea of homeschooling. We have three children - a boy who's two years older than his twin sisters.

 

I understand that reading, math, etc. should all be taught at grade level, but I'm wondering if history can be taught to all three kids at the same time? If so, how would you do that (assuming you're following the WTM curriculum generally, and the "History of the World" books specifically)? Would you wait to start your older one for a year (say, at seven instead of six), then start the twins a year early (at five instead of six)?

 

Any help would be much appreciated!

 

All my boys do History (& Science when we do it) together. We use Story of the World. I started my older 2 at 6 & 5, but you won't lose anything if you start yours at 7 & 5 (or even 8 & 6). I would recommend waiting until you get in a routine with your core subjects (math, reading, whatever else you decide makes us your core) before adding in History, though, because it takes time to figure out how the homeschooling-thing will work in "real life".

 

Welcome, and I hope you enjoy it here :D!

[Karenciavo]

 

I suggest all joint subjects are made with the older student in mind, and with history in particular, that you begin at the beginning. That said, if you delayed formal history until a child is 7 I say it's no big deal, next year you can study general topics, maybe focusing more on geography or whatever suits you.

 

Karen

[Kelli in TN]

The pace is always set by the oldest student. Wherever the oldest is, is where we all are. People who are close enough in age get grouped together, but even if someone is not "in the group" we are all studying the same thing.

 

Right now I have an 11th grader, a 7th grader, a 4th grader and a 1st grader.

 

Let's take the 1st grader out of the story for a minute.

He has some pretty serious learning challenges and so we have not started content area subjects with him yet, he is only working on skill subjects right now.

 

Everything is decided by what my 11th grader needs. This year my 11th grader needs year 3 of the cycle. So we are all on year 3 of the cycle. The 4th grader and 7th grader do some history together and I keep them paced at exactly the same place, but they each work at their level with much more expected from the 7th grader than the 4th grader. The 11th grader is working at a different pace, but for the year we are all working on roughly the same stuff. Right now, as of the close of the school week yesterday, my 7th and 4th grader were beginning the Revolutionary war. My 11th grader has pretty much finished the Revolutionary war and is parked there as she writes a research paper comparing the American revolution with the French revolution. So they are not all together all the time, but for this time period my brain only has to think about this time period in the world.

 

Next year my 12th grader will need modernity and so we will all do it. And we will fold our 1st grader in, but he will not do all the lessons because I don't think the Holocaust is an appropriate topic for a 1st grader with normal learning abilities, it certainly is not appropriate for a special needs child who can be a little obssessed over things that are sad or scary.

 

And if you survived my long rambling tome this far, I leave you with a link to an article written by SWB that was tremendously helpful to me.

Classical schooling with multiple ages by SWB

[Storm Bay]

I'd start history by doing them together. You can start with the level of his grade, but we just started at the beginning rather than the grade because my dd was 8. Okay, we waited as another poster suggested, until we had a routine.

 

In our case, our kids ended up doing history separately because one likes to spend a lot more time on each chapter and really do a lot of extra reading (I encourage extra work in this case!), but this is also our fifth year now and they read it themselves (9 & 12) or read it to my ds. We do SOTW as a spine in the earlier grades. This wasn't around when we started. My kids will read the chapter as well as additional suggestions in the activity book, and, for my dd who loves it, anything else we find in our library, etc, that looks good.