Is there enough US History in the SOTW books or do you add to it?

[Quiver0f10]

If you add it in, what are you using? Thanks!

[scrapbabe]

I'm not using SOTW, but was looking into it for our US history studies. I decided against it because the civil war was covered in one chapter. If I used it I wouldn't definitely supplement.

 

Smiles,

Shalynn

[whitestavern]

When we get to important US history events, we slow wayyyy down and take our time. For the revolutionary war (also covered in one chapter) we spent about six weeks on it. We read lots more books, watched some movies, did some field trips, projects, etc. So I don't supplement with another program, but just spend a lot of time with additional resources that I pull together. We'll do the same for Lewis and Clark/westward expansion and Civil War. It could be a good time for a lapbook or unit study if you enjoy those types of projects.

[KarenNC]

We supplemented for 3rd and 4th grade. For both, I have used the Story of the USA workbook series, readers (fiction and nonfiction) on American history---Sonlight cores 3 and 4 are good for this, Winterpromise has some nice ones as well.

 

I don't have a list of what I used for SOTW 3. I know we did a lot of Liberty's Kids, Jean Fritz books, electronic field trip series to Colonial Williamsburg and visits to a number of Rev War and early American sites locally. She enjoyed playing a computer game called The Oregon Trail

 

Here's what I have planned for American history supplements to SOTW 4 (we may end up picking and choosing depending on time):

 

Story of the USA, books 3 and 4 (plus last bit of 2 to cover Civil War)

A slim two volume set called American Adventures---short stories about events in American history

State-specific material from a state history book I have

Appropriate Brainpop videos and Horrible Histories books/videos (these are very short): Wild West, Gold Rush, Causes of the Civil War, Civil War, Thomas Edison, Industrial Revolution, stock market, immigration, WWI, League of Nations, Harlem Renaissance, jazz, Scopes monkey trial, women's suffrage, causes of the Great Depression, Great Depression, New Deal, WWII causes, WWII, Holocaust, Anne Frank, United Nations, Korean War, Civil Rights, Jackie Robinson, Vietnam War, American Indians, feminism, 9-11, Airport security

 

books (may read some together or do as audiobooks in the car):

books by Jean Fritz---So You Want Women to Vote, Lizzie Stanton?

If You Traveled West in a Covered Wagon

If You Lived at the time of the Civil War

Tales From Gold Mountain

Shades of Gray

Captured by a Spy

Across America on an emmigrant train

Dragon's Gate (by Laurence Yep)

Either Chase by Haas or A Real American by Easton (PA coal mines)

Paperboy

Kaiulani: the people's princess (Royal Diaries)

You wouldn't want to be an American Pioneer

Riding with the mail, the story of the pony express

Grasshopper Summer by Ann Turner

Frontier Home by Raymond Bial

Wounded Knee (Cornerstones of Freedom)

If your name was changed at Ellis Island

January 1905 by Boling (textile mills)

Orphan of Ellis Island by Woodruff

All of a Kind Family

Tenement: immigrant life on the lower East Side by Bial

Exploring the Titanic or Deep Sea Explorer, not sure which one

The Well by Mildred Taylor

Fly High, the story of Bessie Coleman

Flight: the story of Charles Lindbergh

The Breadwinner by Arvella Whitmore

Song of Trees by Mildred Taylor

Smuggler's Island by Avi

Saving Grace by Cummings

Ida Early Comes Over the Mountain by Burch

Goodbye Vietnam by Gloria Whelan

Charlie Pippin

Little Cricket —Hmong family immigrates

Scorpia by Anthony Horowitz

Letters to a Soldier by David Falvey

 

 

These are on WWII, so there's some not just American history. We'll choose from:

Don’t You Know there’s a war on? By Avi

Who was that masked man anyway? By Avi

Across the Blue Pacific: a WWII story by Borden

Slap your sides (Quaker conscientious objector)

When my name was Keoko

Carrie’s War

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

Twenty and ten

The grand mosque of paris

Town of evening calm, country of cherry blossoms (manga)

 

various short biographies (video or from books) of prominent figures: Clara Barton, Robert E. Lee, Abraham Lincoln, Howard Lattimore, Rosa Parks, Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, Buffalo Bill, Louisa May Alcott, Frederick Douglass, Annie Oakley, Susan B. Anthony, George Washington Carver, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Plenty Coups, Jesse Owens, Emma Lazarus, Andrew Carnegie, Jane Addams, Charles Darwin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Neil Armstrong, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford

 

movies (there will likely be more as time goes on):

Charlie Chaplin's "Gold Rush"

Little Women

Meet Me in St. Louis

South Pacific

Music Man

Little House on the Prairie

 

Visit to a few local museums that have relevant exhibits, as well as Biltmore House (home of the Vanderbilts)

 

There are some noted figures that I haven't specifically listed as I think they either have adequate coverage in some other material or we've already read a lot about them. It's a fluid list, so I may end up dropping or adding things as we go along. This is my first time at laying out all the supplemental stuff ahead of time, so we'll see how it goes. I'm tying in geography with learning the state capitals, locations of the states, our specific state geography, etc.

[MIch elle]

That's what we used a few years back with SOTW 3 - I read it aloud with my oldest (own 2 copies - taking turns reading alt. pages) while younger ds listened. I may or may not do that again this year now that we're doing SOTW 3 again (just younger ds).

 

I have Geo. Washington World, BF Am. & World History guide and This Country of Ours but it's all TOO much!

 

I'm trying to keep history simple this year! We've been doing SOTW w/ AG maps & tests; KF History Encl. and Biblioplan Cool History worksheets.

 

IEW U.S History Based Writing Lesson V1 is helping us get a little more US history in with SOTW 3.

 

:D

[joannqn]

So, if you slowed way down for the US History components that weren't adequately covered, how did you finish the whole volume in just one year? We have a 36 week school year and it is already difficult to get all 42 chapters in. We generally do one chapter a week with reading/activities from the AG but that doesn't get the book finished. Some weeks I skip the AG so we have time to do two chapters in one week. I can't imagine having enough time to slow down and supplement.

[Ali in OR]

I think SOTW is too light on American History. We use Biblioplan which schedules SOTW as one of the spines. Biblioplan in years 3 and 4 covers maybe 4-6 weeks of American history at a time, then maybe 4-6 weeks of the same time period of world history. When the topic is American history, History of US is the spine that I use (they schedule both that and A Child's Story of America--or Child's History--can't remember exactly). When we were studying The Civil War this summer, I think Biblioplan scheduled 4 or 5 weeks (we actually stretched it out longer). As some one pointed out already, SOTW had just 1 chapter, and really only half of the chapter was the war itself. Not at all sufficient.

 

There are so many ways to add some American history. Many great ideas have been mentioned already. Biblioplan is easy for us--someone has already picked out great books to read. I will say that the only way we can fit in everything we want to study is to do history year round. We don't mind--we love history!

[whitestavern]

So, if you slowed way down for the US History components that weren't adequately covered, how did you finish the whole volume in just one year? We have a 36 week school year and it is already difficult to get all 42 chapters in. We generally do one chapter a week with reading/activities from the AG but that doesn't get the book finished. Some weeks I skip the AG so we have time to do two chapters in one week. I can't imagine having enough time to slow down and supplement.

 

 

We don't finish in one year. It takes about a year and a half per edition, which works well for me because I didn't want to go into SOTW 4 too early (my kids are 9 and 7 and we'll be finishing up SOTW 3 in December.)

 

Ali in OR mentioned Biblioplan, and we have purchased that for SOTW 4, but more for the reading selections since my kids are on the younger end of the age spectrum for SOTW 4. I haven't started it yet, so can't speak for how well it will work, but it looks promising from what I've seen.

[Karen in CO]

What grades are you looking at? And Yes, I add to everything.

I think that the way I like history for the younger set is a two-strand history. We are reading SOTW. We also do mini-unit studies on other topics to go into more depth. Right now, we are studying Lewis and Clark completely out of order to tie-in with a trip we took to the Washington coast which crisscrossed the Lewis and Clark trail. Next month, we will spend a whole month on pilgrims and early colonists because it is fall and I have a great book on pilgrim food. Meanwhile in SOTW, Elizabeth rules. I've found that when doing it like this, the kids have no trouble picking up the threads when we encounter them again. They also have tangible hooks to hang their history on. The get really excited when we read about something that they already know something about. I think its also good to get the information in different contexts.

[Heather in WI]

If you add it in, what are you using? Thanks!

 

We add to it in a very simple way. We do our chapter a week & activities just as written in SOTW IV. But, for our history reading (which is separate from history class and is silent reading by themselves), I have the boys read American History books. We've really enjoyed many of the Landmark History books. This year we're reading through the ones that are Civil War-present.

 

 

I've found that when doing it like this, the kids have no trouble picking up the threads when we encounter them again. They also have tangible hooks to hang their history on. The get really excited when we read about something that they already know something about. I think its also good to get the information in different contexts.

 

:iagree:

[Quiver0f10]

Thank you all!

[KarenNC]

So, if you slowed way down for the US History components that weren't adequately covered, how did you finish the whole volume in just one year? We have a 36 week school year and it is already difficult to get all 42 chapters in. We generally do one chapter a week with reading/activities from the AG but that doesn't get the book finished. Some weeks I skip the AG so we have time to do two chapters in one week. I can't imagine having enough time to slow down and supplement.

 

Well, we go year round, I only have one child who is a very good and quick reader, and we usually do history 4 days a week as it's our favorite subject. I am using a lot of the readers as our literature and for required free reading. Some of the things may be ones we do for fun outside of "school," particularly the movies, and some we may do as audiobooks in the car if we run short on time (we are always listening to audiobooks as we drive various places). She will happily read historical fiction and nonfiction as her fun reading by choice. A number of the supplements I listed are quite short---Brainpop videos are only a few minutes, some of the bios are one to two page things in books containing many famous people. The Story of the USA chapters are one page of text with a page or so of questions.

 

We have the AG, but I don't do a lot of the hands-on projects unless I feel they will be particularly helpful to us or ones she will really enjoy (we do all the mapwork, outlining, review questions). I do some of the supplemental reading for some of the chapters, none for others, because the books recommended aren't readily available, don't appeal or it's not a section of history that I feel a need to emphasize as much as some others. She enjoys drawing much more than building, so I may substitute a drawing project rather than something like cut-out and build the Crystal Palace.

 

As I said, this is the first year I've laid out the extras ahead of time, so it remains to be seen whether we get through in time or not. I have things divided up into 97 lessons, so even though we just added in the SOTW tests, I think we'll have enough time. Mine is also a fluid plan, subject to change if we find something more interesting, or need to drop some things. Currently we are finishing up the Civil War, but that was one that I slowed way down on. In truth, I use SOTW 3 and 4 almost as a supplement to American history, really, given our choice of chapters to emphasize.

[Laura W.]

Biblioplan is easy for us--someone has already picked out great books to read.

 

:iagree:

 

We use Biblioplan also. We love SOTW, but I want to make sure we cover American history as well as world history when we study those years. That's one reason we chose Biblioplan - it has great books that cover American history, plus it schedules SOTW.

 

Blessings,

 

Laura