comparing chronological histories

[Stacy in NJ]

I use spines and then add in literature, non-fiction and some geography to round out history.

 

We're doing Ancients this year. My 5th grader's spine is SOTW; my 7th grader's is A Little History of the World for the first half of the year and Augustus Ceasar's World for the second half. We're doing Mapping the World by Heart for geography. Each ds has an individual list for lit and extra reading. That's it. All of the laid out programs look draining and limiting to me.:D

[cbollin]

Julie,

 

I'm researching for next year's history. We'll do ancients with kids in grades 2,6, and 7.

 

If I use MFW with the youngest, I thought I'd use something like History Odyssey ancients or Beautiful Feet ancients or Sonlight with the older ones.

 

Is it possible, however, to use MFW with all of them? I want to begin the logic stage, and didn't think MFW would be enough.

 

Like Julie, I've used MFW for a long time. My oldest is in 8th grade and has done MFW since 2nd grade. (She repeated ECC last year and repeating CTG this year. She did ECC in 2nd and CTG in 3rd and doing it again 5 years later.) I do think MFW would be good with those age ranges because of the design of CTG. You have stuff for youngers to have fun, then using Streams of Civilization and the Bible with all. There's the study of the old testament feasts and doing them.

 

I think MFW offers plenty for logic stage even in Creation to the Greeks, if you do everything the manual says to do for jr. high kids that year with the reports in Streams of Civilization, and using book basket (or another set of history related readers if you don't like library use or MFW's selections. They have about 200 books on the CTG list for the whole year).

 

I personally opted to not do a report each month as suggested in the CTG manual for oldest students. Instead, since this is the last year before high school for her, we're doing more field trips (such as the Creation Museum in Kentucky, ande the Egyptian art exhibit at the local university, and other things like that). She's reading some history related fiction from book basket right now (and probably even more later in the year with greek times). But this year she has more opportunity to work on foreign language for credit, and reading books that she just wants to read, and doing more with church stuff too. and she does the Greek roots in CTG. Plus, she reads all of the chapters from the book that studies the OT feasts and helps set up for that.

 

So, I'm finding this year that I wanted a tiny less history focus (especially since next year she'll do MFW's high school year 1) but there is still plenty in the CTG program for her with art history and drawing, and notebooking, and books to read, and then more time to do all of the other things she has to do. But, if I still wanted history to have as much focus this year in CTG for her, I'd simply do the other stuff that is mentioned in MFW manual and use Streams of Civilization more than is scheduled and use World Book to let her look up more facts and write it all down. MFW does sell World Book on dvd/cdrom whichever it is in the 7th grade package of ECC, which we used last year.

 

But instead of that, so far we've done an IMAX program on pyramids and toured Egypt art at university museum and taken that route. So for logic stage -- she's getting plenty in Algebra I, Russian I (high school credit), lots of other social studies that otherwise we might not get to, personal devotions too, more notebooking than I require the 5th grader to do. Writing Strands level 6....plenty of reading too. This week she's doing a read a thon to raise money for Bible translations through MFW's mission fund. So, we're getting service projects too.

 

So I think the ingredients are there to be able to use even CTG and RTR when oldest is in jr. high. My daughter is an avid reader and read through the various progeny press books that MFW sells, she's enjoying various books in book basket.

 

-crystal

[ncmomo3]

Used SOTW, it was fantastic for younger yrs. Moved into TOG-best money I ever spent on curriculum.

[Julie in MN]

Thanks, Julie!

 

Do you have any advice about using Year 2 Creation to Greeks for grades 2,6,and 7?

 

(The following year, I would do Year 3 with grades 3,7, and 8. After that, my oldest would be ready for high school....probably with MFW.)

 

I'm glad Crystal chimed in. She's doing this right now!

 

To me, I'd enjoy learning about the Old Testament feasts and how pyramids stand up and other things that kids won't have time for in high school. I guess exactly what Crystal described! We did a lot of the Biblical part of CTG as a family with dad in the evenings, and it's a very special memory.

 

RTR is an excellent piece to do before high school, simply because most high school programs will not have much time to cover this very interesting segment of history. High schoolers typically have to cover all of "world history" in a year! There will be opportunity in RTR to delve into Rome, into Jesus life, church history, and of course knights and Shakespeare.

 

Enjoy,

Julie

[Melora in NC]

Tapestry of Grace.

[ElizabethB]

We're not doing TOG yet, but I plan to when my children are older. It seems to work well for families with large age spreads and multiple children.

 

You can download 3 weeks for free and try it out. I tried it out and think that it will be worth it for us in a few years, but not right now for just one school aged child. I think it actually fits your age spread better than MOH, I would check it out before you make a buying decision.