working in american history

[Supertechmom]

HI All!

 

I thought someone may have done this all ready. I'm starting our history over (year 3) next week and am going to take the rest of this year, the summer and the next school year to complete year 3. I intend to work in all of Amy pak's homeschool in the woods American history lap books thru the civil war (we've all ready done explorers but will review them with another program) as we work thru SOTW. My 7th grader will follow along with the Kingfisher encyclopedia and Critical thinking books recommended while the 3rd grader works thru SOTW. Has anyone all ready done this and can tell me when it worked out best to use the extra materials (before or after SOTW chapters) and if there were other supplements for American history? We have never studied it and I wanted to get a really strong foundation in how America was founded, what parts were founded by whom, the explorations/travels/discoveries of early America, just how the politics of Europe played into it's settling, early colony life, colony politics, revelution and it's effects, and wrap up with the civil war. We have a great civil war resource room where they will get to reenact many of the civil war battles.

 

Thanks for any advice.

[TundraAcademy]

We are doing year 4 of our history rotation and are about at the Civil War. I am using SOTW, Usborne Encyclopedia, History Odyssey Modern and Guesthollow.com's free Am History schedule. I love the Am. History portion. We have had such great discussions and my boys have really gotten into the pretend play with the Alamo and Civil War. Our library is full of great resources and I use History Odyssey and Guesthollow's recommendations for supplements.

 

I am just going chronologically through World and American History and have a loose schedule. I try to read an overview of the topic each week (from SOTW, Usborne, Child's Story of America - CLP, or History of Our US - Abeka) and then we follow up with a good read-alouds, short biographies and picture books. We don't do a lot of writing or lapbooks (my boys can't sit still for them!) with our history but they are learning a ton. Hope this helps some!