CathyCDK Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 If you were to (or already have) create your own American History Curriculum, either one year or two years, for 9 and 7 year old girls, what books and resources would you include? Would the Dear America or American Girl series provide enough of a launch pad, or are they a better supplement to another series or textbook spine? What about the Prairie Primer? Our school year starts in January, and we are now finishing up Sonlight's Core 2. I'm looking for Core 3 used, but I just don't know if we can swing it this year, even a used core. I'm aware of Guest Hollow's free American History curriculum....how does it compare to a literature based curriculum? Thank you for your suggestions! Blessings, Cathy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karen in CO Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 Some books I would definitely include for girls - I'm doing early American history this year with my girls. Eating the Plates - A Pilgrims Book of Food and Manners, Cheryl Harness has many great books on this period at different levels, and Jane Yolen has three books that are framed as mysteries which my older dd likes. I am planning to cover this period primarily through activities and biographies for now. We also read SOTW for chronological flow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABQmom Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 Oooo, that age is so fun to do with American history! When we did it, I read lots of good books that I got from the Sonlight catalog. I did not buy their curriculum. I just borrowed their suggested books from core 3 and 4, and read them to the kids or had the kids read them. In addition to Sonlight picks, my dd read lots of the "I Can Read" books that center on American history the year she turned 7, and my 9 year old dd that year read through the American Girl series in the order that we were studying history. They learned a ton, and it was a very good two years for them. I also used the Draw Write Now books to guide us through year 2 of American history making some notebook pages that turned out really nice and creative. Draw Write Now even had some good book suggestions for additional reading on certain topics. Oh, and DWN also had us drawing maps of the US as it grew and states were added. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linders Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 For "spines" of a sort, we are using 3 Maestro books (Discovery of the Americas, Exploration and Conquest, and New Americans) plus Story of the USA volumes 1 and 2. Then I have a bunch of other books to add in - a lot of the D'Aulaire biographies (Leif Erickson, Columbus, Ben Franklin, Washington, Lincoln), Eyewitness Explorer, and many other fiction and non-fiction books. My sons are particulary fond of the "You Wouldn't Want to Be..." series and the "If You Lived in the Time of..." series, so we use a lot of those for all our history. They help give depth to the spines. And lots of read-alouds, like Birchbark House, Witch of Balckbird Pond, etc. I think the American Girl books are great, but would fall more into the category of "giving depth." Maybe you could choose some sort of book(s) (like the Maestro books) to give the big picture, then use the American Girl books for depth? Have fun! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swellmomma Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 I am not doing one on my own jsut adapting several. We are starting off with Explorers since that was not covered enough in any curric from what I could see. Followed by studying the Natives, and then into american history. For that we are using a combo of sonlight core 3, core 100 and WP AS1. Wrapped within all of that is Canadian history which I am putting together as I go since there is no Canadian history program like sonlight or WP. Key things we are using to perk up our studies. THe time travelers CD's to give lots of hands on stuff, Explorers of North America pockets, Native American pockets. For spines we are using a combo of landmark and hakim history books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twoxcell Posted August 21, 2013 Share Posted August 21, 2013 Some ideas: D'Aulaire Biographies. Jean Fritz books. If you books A First Book In American History Stories of Great Americans The Little House on the Prairie Series American Girl books Holling C Holling Geo books. Draw Write Now books 2,3, and 5. Stories of the Pilgrims American Pioneers and Patriots Liberty's Kids DVDs The Story of the Wright Brothers and their sister Childhood of Famous Americans Series Young patriots Series North American Indians Look at Sonlights core D and E for ideas. Also Heart of Dakota's book shop for literature ideas, as well as Beyond and Bigger. There is tons of children's lit and early readers pertaining to this topic. The An I can Read series and Step Into Reading series have lots of US history topics. HTH :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twoxcell Posted August 22, 2013 Share Posted August 22, 2013 Just realized how old this thread is and that is was brought up by someone who is pushing some new curriculum.. in all 3 of their 3 whopping posts on the board. :glare: Things like that frustrate me. I totally missed that too so don't feel too bad. :leaving: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kristi26 Posted August 22, 2013 Share Posted August 22, 2013 The person pushing that curriculum also posted the exact same post in another thread for American Girls. I would be willing to bet that the third post is also the same thing. Seems a little spammy to me! :glare: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edeemarie Posted August 22, 2013 Share Posted August 22, 2013 I wanted to share with everyone a wonderful curriculum that I found the middle of last year when I was thinking about making my own unit study about all the American Girls that my daughter just loves, she is 8 years old and in 3rd grade. My daughter loves anything that has to do with American Girl it really doesn't matter what it is. We use SOTW as our History as well as Girls of American History. When I came across Girls of American History I had never seen her more excited to do school. Girls of American History is a curriculum that is done by a wonderful lady who has put everything you need to go through the historical figures that each American Girl represents. She has the first 9 girls done. You can buy each unit by its self or you can buy it as a group. We bought it as a group and I got the first 8 girls in that group. We have now completed 3 of them and my daughter can not get enough of it. She has learned so much from this curriculum. It has everything from project ideas to day by day directions, I like that the most because it takes the guessing work out of it. It also has link that will take you to extra resources if you would like to get more in-depth with it. I hope you go and check out her website and see what a wonderful curriculum it is if you are looking for an American Girl unit studies. http://girlsofamericanhistory.com We are just getting ready to start the Caroline study and my daughter is SO excited!!! I will post a review on our blog when we finish it (probably in October). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fourcatmom Posted October 3, 2013 Share Posted October 3, 2013 Yes, all 3 posts are exactly the same thing, all in threads that questioned using American Girl books for history. And all within 20 minutes of each other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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