Does/Did you child do a year of in depth American History...

[Tree House Academy]

Or did/do you/do you plan to just do the states and capitals, briefly hit on settlers and Native Americans, and call it good?

 

If you do study it, what curriculum did you/do you/do you plan to use and what *grade* do you cover it?

[Truscifi]

We're working on 2nd grade now, so this is waaaaay far out for us. But my plan at this point is to do 2 rounds of history as laid out in TWTM - 1st-4th using SOTW, then 5th-8th using more in depth, as yet to be selected texts. Then in 9th-12th we will do a more typical high school history path so ds can take advantage of AP classes. Of course, that could all change at any time in the next 10 yrs. :tongue_smilie:

[usetoschool]

We do SOTW for 1st-4th and then a year or so (don't go by school year, just keeping doing the next thing) of in depth American history. Another, more in depth round of SOTW and then economics, government, special interest stuff for 11th-12th.

 

We do presidents and geography and history but not any single book or publisher. I think we use more books for the year of US history than for the other years combined. :tongue_smilie:

 

Some of the history books we use are A History of US, All American History, The Rainbow Book of American History, Evan-Moor History Pockets, and Great _______ Projects You Can Do (Nomad Press).

[Devotional Soul]

I've decided to focus on our state for history and earth science for K as and will do American history next year for 1st, then world geography for 2nd and the ancient history and on from there. It just makes sense to me to start out locally and get bigger (I'm in Hawaii where there is a lot of history and culture).

 

I want to do a one year American history for 1st and can't seem to find what I'm looking for, so I might just make it myself. I'm thinking a mix of ideas from MFW Adventures, Beautiful Feet books from the library (for history and geography), Bigger Hearts, and Christian Cottage, lol.

 

I'm really interested to hear ideas from others as well. I think it's really important to know the history of our state and country.

Edited August 14, 2009 by Devotional Soul

[King Alfred Academy]

We are starting American History this year (3rd and 1st). We are using the Times Travelers CD's from Homeschool In the Woods as our "spine" and adding in a few other projects and literature selections. We are starting out with the Colonies (I am adding "extra" stuff to concentrate on the Pilgrims and the Native Americans), moving onto the Revolutionary War, and then to the Early 19th Century.

 

My plan for the following year is to touch on the Civil War a bit and then do an in depth State and President Study. :001_smile:

[patchfire]

We're going to do our logic stage world history rotation in three years - fifth through seventh - and then do an in-depth year of American history in eighth, before doing high school history & lit WTM-style. That's the plan, anyway.

[linders]

After managing to spend 2 years on Ancients (too much good stuff) and then moving to the East Coast (birthplace of American History), we are taking a year off "the cycle" to do Am. Hist from Explorers through Civil War. I used Los Banos free American History plans as a starting point, then modified them a lot to 1) use chapters of SOTW 2 and 3 where appropriate and 2) roll in books we already have or that I like. In the end, it looks like I'm using less than half of the Los Banos suggestions, but it was still a great starting point.

 

We start in Monday with Migration to the Americas, then do 5 weeks on various Native American areas. The boys are excited!

[rafiki]

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[Chris in VA]

I think it's a misconception that American history is not covered in the 4 year rotation.

Just want to say that we did 20th Century history in high school, and by the time that century rolled around, the countries of the world were so tangled up it was almost impossible to talk about ANY history without mentioning the US--or talking about the US w/o other countries entering the conversation.

That said, we will do one year of focused Am history somewhere down the road, but for grammar and logic, we will stick to the rotation. I love setting American history in the world context--it makes all of our story so much easier to understand when you see how other countries affected ours, and how we affected others. After all, I can't imagine studying the Civil War without studying France and Britain, slavery without touching on Africa, WWII without...well, the world.

[urban mama]

I took time off from SL for this very reason, a desire to spend some time on US history/geography. We did MFW Adventures and it was a very good year and the kids learned tons, even my pre-k'er learned a lot!

[KrissiK]

We are doing American History 1-3rd grades using BJU Heritage studies. I'm then planning on doing a 4 year rotation using Mystery of History and then doing US Gov./Constitution in 8th grade. I've got both my boys in first grade now and we started school last week. So, we'll see how my plan goes.