Can we talk about long term history plans?

[Guest aquiverfull]

Ahhhh.. history is always driving me crazy!!!! Here I am thinking of going with a program (actually trying to decide between a few) and before I even have them, I'm already tweaking this book out and that one in. :glare: That's my track record, buying a program and tweaking it too much that it no longer looks like the program I bought.

 

I don't know why I make history so difficult. Anyways, I'm trying to think about the long term here. So my question is:

 

What are you planning on using for High School History?

[bethben]

We're using TOG. We'll have done through the program almost twice so I know where we're going and will already have learned the material on a different level. It really has great discussions for you and your child WITH the answers! Yay for someone like me who never really understood the "hidden" messages in literature.

 

Beth

[Guest aquiverfull]

Thank you Beth. Yes, TOG is something that I keep being drawn to. It will be expensive for me because my library is not so great. It would mean purchasing a lot of books. I will have 4 kids to school at the same time eventually, so I know TOG would help with that. So I haven't completely ruled out TOG. I'm also drawn to it for self-education purposes. :)

 

I just don't know. I thought about SL, WP,and Biblioplan. I've heard that SL isn't enough for High school. WP and biblioplan just have supplements for high school so far, so I don't think I'd go there. I guess I'm trying to figure out what else is out there, and what's rigorous for high school. I suppose I'm looking for both history and literature really.

[Another Lynn]

Hi! I also have 5dc and my oldest is 11. I understand how you feel. We have mostly used AmblesideOnline for history and lit. and sometimes throw in SOTW (especially for modern times). I'm considering Diana Waring for next year, with AmblesideOnline readings from Yr 2 for my youngers. As for High School.... I will probably take another look at TOG (I have Year 1 on my shelf and so far it hasn't jived with my poor brain, LOL). Other thoughts for high school: MFW or blending WTM and AO recommendations, or something else?

 

Like you, I like to have an idea where we are headed, but I think there's still a lot of time and a lot of unknowns between now and then (i.e. what my dc interests will be by then? do we want a heavy history program or light? will they be obviously math focused by then? and other things as well)

 

gotta run....

[mama25angels]

I am looking at MFW too

[Guest aquiverfull]

Thanks Lynn and Christina.

 

Lynn, I totally hear ya. :) There are many unknowns, and really I'm not sure if we want heavy history or light history either for high school. In my mind, I want rigorous, but then I think about the past. In the past, our homeschool felt too history heavy. It left too little time to do the really important things like Math and LA's.

So in reality, I guess I want depth but with all subjects balanced.

 

Christina, I did try MFW ECC at the beginning of this year. I didn't like the way MFW was laid out. We were only using it for the geo/culture part so I felt like buying the whole thing was a waste. We have sinced dropped it. I haven't really looked at their high school stuff. Haven't you used a good bit of MFW? It your reasoning above why you won't do it for high school?

[EKS]

We will be doing a TRISMS style approach, though we won't be using TRISMS itself (not secular enough). We will do three years of world history and one year of US history, each with corresponding literature. We will be using Ways of the World and A History of World Societies as spines. I haven't chosen a spine for US history yet, but two that are in the running are Nation of Nations and The American Promise.

[elegantlion]

My current plan is to do a Great books study with Fran Rutherford's Questions for the Thinker series. I would add Speilvogel's Human Odyssey or SWB's HoAW & HoMA to round out the history portion. The Rutherford guides could be used for history, lit, relgion, & philosophy.

[Kfamily]

This is my tentative plan...but I'm a planner and overthinker so this is always subject to change!:lol:

 

We use a combination of WTM, Ambleside Online and other resources that we like.

This is 7th: The Story of England (1/2 this year), The Story of the Middle Ages, The Story of France (1/2 this year) for World History and This Country of Ours, George Washington's World and our notebook for American History

 

8th: The Story of England (finish this year), Renaissance and Reformation (Dorothy Mills)and The Story of France (finish this year) for World History and TCOO, Abe Lincoln's World and our notebook for Amerian History

 

9th: I have Spielvogel's Western Civilization but we will probably use it as a resource book mainly, but I do have it if we need it. Our main books for World History will be Ancient Greece (Dorothy Mills) and for Am. History we will use America: A Narrative History (vol. 1). I may add SWB's Ancient book to this. I will add Fran Rutherford's guide Ancient Greece

 

10th: Ancient Rome (Dorothy Mills) for W. History and America: A Narrative History (vol. 2) for Am. History. I will add Fran Rutherford's guide Ancient Rome

 

11th: Middle Ages (Dorothy Mills) and Birth of Britain (Churchill) and part of The New World (Churchill) for World History. I may add SWB's Medieval book to this as well. We will also use Fran Rutherford's guide: Old World Europe.

 

12th: Finish The New World and read Age of Revolution and The Great Democracies (Churchill) along with Democracy in America. I hope to use Fran Rutherford's guide: (still in the works-a guide for American and Russian History and Literature).

 

I will also be adding Great Books to these years (some that go along with Classical Writing) which is considered part of her history reading such as, Ecc. History of English (Bede), Histories (Herodotus), etc

[Nicole M]

My current plan is to do a Great books study with Fran Rutherford's Questions for the Thinker series. I would add Speilvogel's Human Odyssey or SWB's HoAW & HoMA to round out the history portion. The Rutherford guides could be used for history, lit, relgion, & philosophy.

 

Have you seen the Rutherford books yet, up close and personal? I am very attracted to them, and would love to hear more about it.

 

To answer the OP, my current thinking is Human Odyssey along with Rutherford as well, but also several teaching company series lectures, which my older son has loved.

[elegantlion]

Have you seen the Rutherford books yet, up close and personal? I am very attracted to them, and would love to hear more about it.

 

To answer the OP, my current thinking is Human Odyssey along with Rutherford as well, but also several teaching company series lectures, which my older son has loved.

 

No I have not. I've reviewed samples and read reviews I could find here or on the internet. They are also listed as an option in LCC, which is our educational model. I like what I have seen so far. I plan to order the Greek teacher's guide soon to get a better feel.

 

I like that the teacher text is a copy of the student book with answers. I also like the idea of having all of the Great book material in one book. Not only is it something that ds could refer to in college if necessary, it is cost effective. By the time you add just buying lit guides for the individual books it could add up to well more than the cost of the Rutherford books.

[mama25angels]

No I have not. I've reviewed samples and read reviews I could find here or on the internet. They are also listed as an option in LCC, which is our educational model. I like what I have seen so far. I plan to order the Greek teacher's guide soon to get a better feel.

 

I like that the teacher text is a copy of the student book with answers. I also like the idea of having all of the Great book material in one book. Not only is it something that ds could refer to in college if necessary, it is cost effective. By the time you add just buying lit guides for the individual books it could add up to well more than the cost of the Rutherford books.

 

 

 

oooh, that looks so interesting, i'm putting it in my favorites to check on again in a few weeks. Thanks for posting about it.

[Heather in VA]

We are using Omnibus for high school.

 

Heather

[Kfamily]

I have the Fran Rutherford guide for Old World Europe.

 

Old World Europe covers these books:

 

Unit 1: Epic Poetry

The Divine Comedy

Paradise Lost

Beowulf

Unit 2: History

Rule of St. Benedict

Life of Charlegmagne

 

Unit 3: Philosophy

The Prince

 

Unit 4: Poetry

The Song of Roland

Selections from The Canterbury Tales

 

Unit 5: Novel

Don Quixote

 

Each section has A Little About the Author, summary of the work, questions for each section of the work and after each section are Questions for Further Thought.

After Questions for Further Thought are sections for Words to Know where the student can write in the definitions and there are also some notes added where needed to further explain symbolism or some background info. to better understand a part of the reading. I think the Questions for Further Thought could easily be used for written work. I intend to use some for essay ideas. In some sections she has Research Topics.

[Guest aquiverfull]

Thanks for all who have answered and discussed various things in this thread.

 

:bigear: I'm still listening and would love to hear from others as well.

[coffeegal]

We're using History Odyssey level 2 and loving it. I WAS going to continue with it through high school, but I found out last night they've discontinued developing the level 3 series for an indefinite amount of time. Now, I haven't the slightest. :confused:

[Guest aquiverfull]

Oh that's too bad about HO. Sorry to hear that. I guess it just goes to show you that things can definitely come up that can change these future plans.

[mom31257]

:bigear: High school is just a year and a half from now. I will have a 3rd grader as well. We will be able to begin the history cycle over.

[lovemykids]

:lurk5:

 

This is a very good thread, anyone else?

:D

[lovemykids]

I have thought about trying Spielvogel’s books, Susan’s books, or a few others as well. But I like some of these suggestions in this thread. I do not love AO’s choices for US History, so I am keeping my eyes open. For Middle Ages, a book I adore is by John Riddle, but it doesn’t seem to be a terribly popular choice.

Part of me just wants to buy TOG and call it a day…

:tongue_smilie:

[Guest aquiverfull]

I have thought about trying Spielvogel’s books, Susan’s books, or a few others as well. But I like some of these suggestions in this thread. I do not love AO’s choices for US History, so I am keeping my eyes open. For Middle Ages, a book I adore is by John Riddle, but it doesn’t seem to be a terribly popular choice.

 

Part of me just wants to buy TOG and call it a day…

:tongue_smilie:

 

Thanks so much for your input lovemykids. :)

 

I so know what you mean about TOG! I feel the exact same way. :D

[Ummto4]

My oldest is still 8 years and is currently using 1st Step Elementary History and we enjoy it. It's easy to teach as well.

 

Hence, I'm planning to continue the history course from the same writer - Upper Level of Connect The Thoughts. We may use select great books as well, but the spine is Connect the Thoughts. At least, that's what we are planning to do.

[Chris in VA]

Here's what we used (Ds is now at college--yes, he got in...lol. He started homeschooling in 9th grade, fwiw.)

 

9th--Omnibus 1, with Spielvogel and a little Barron's World History The Easy Way. I would recommend reading more in Spielvogel than just the snippets Omnibus has scheduled, if your child does not have a very strong backround in history. We did not do the secondary reading (Narnia, mostly). We added in about 5 other, non-Great books, like Ben Hur and Quo Vadis.

 

10th--Omnibus 2 with tweaking--left off some of the books on theology and added in our own.

 

11th--Sonlight 300, with LOTS of tweaking. We added in Spark Notes/Cliffs Notes for more commentary, left off some books that we felt were fluff, and added in a British author's year by year history book for 1900-1930. We also added about 3 books--some I wanted him to pick up that were late 1800's--Scarlet Letter, for one.

 

12th--Ds did a semester of school in the summer before his Sr. year, then did fall semester and then graduated in Dec. He did a Government course and some history readings in Early Modern b/c we had kind of skipped that portion. For lit (we tied it to history each year) he read about 40 Short Stories from around the world, did a unit on Poetry from Progeny Press (in the summer) and then read a good 8 books or so from the EM period (fall semester).

 

I found Spielvogel West. Civ. to be a wonderful book, but felt it was weak in 20th Century.

[Caia]

No I have not. I've reviewed samples and read reviews I could find here or on the internet.

 

Where can samples be found for Fran Rutherford's guides online. Thanks.

[Kfamily]

http://home.earthlink.net/~mothershouse/books/gc/gc-index.html

 

This is a sample of the Ancient Greece book.

[HollyDay]

With my oldest, I'm using BF US and World. We are required to have a civic/econ course which BF does not offer. I have not made a decision on that, but I am looking at BJU. BF feels that their program, as it is now, only rates 2 high school credits. I'm adding geography and writing to the program. Also, I am adding more "social studies" in the form of cultural studies. With the addition of several more literature and resource books, I think I have fleshed this out enough to stretch it into a 3 credit course. (I still need to tally up hours to be sure). The civic/econ will give the additional credit.

 

My youngest has a totally different learning style and I am not sure a literature approach will work. She tends to like text books better (gasp!). Right now, I have no idea what I will land on for that dc. I'm looking at Omnibus or BJU. Someone recently mentioned Abeka had a good high school history program. But, I have not looked into it.

[robsiew]

Why not just use the WTM suggestions? It looks like 1/2 the week is history study (out of suggested books, or of course, substitute your own spine) and half of the week is Great Books study. She then has suggestions for how to respond to the readings. Sounds pretty simple and do-able to me....

[SilverMoon]

.

Edited July 12, 2022 by SilverMoon

[Guest aquiverfull]

Why not just use the WTM suggestions? It looks like 1/2 the week is history study (out of suggested books, or of course, substitute your own spine) and half of the week is Great Books study. She then has suggestions for how to respond to the readings. Sounds pretty simple and do-able to me....

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I must admit that I'm guilty of not having the WTM book.:blush: I'm planning on purchasing the newest one soon. I have borrowed the old one from my library in the past. I think a lot of my stressing over history/and questions could be solved by re-reading the book. So I appreciate the reminder.

[prairiegirl]

The problem with long-term plans is that they usually do not come to fruition, so I post my plans with a caveat that this might not even become a reality. But it looks good in my head. :D

 

I think I am going to piece highschool history together on my own with a myriad of resources. I really, really want to try the booklist suggestions in the back of Norms and Nobility by David Hicks. I will be adding in some of AO book suggestions, as well as using Teaching Company's lecture sets and WTM suggestions as to how to pull this altogether.

[Rhondabee]

My 9th grader started history & lit ala the new WTM recs, but we crashed and burned fairly quickly. We needed more structure.

 

Now we're using TruthQuest for history. (well..after dabbling in Beautiful Feet, and we'll go back to BF while reading Augustus Caesar's World for a few weeks). My 6th grader is still doing history with various history encyclopedias, extra reading from the library, and SOTW. I like it this way because my 9th grader gets to really delve deeply into Western Civ, while my younger one gets the whole-world view.

 

We will probably keep using TQ next year, simply because it is so flexible, yet it offers a bit of hand-holding as well.

 

(ETA: To say "we use TQ" makes it sound much more cut-and-dried than it actually is. In reality, I pull from many different sources from OOP recommendations gathered over the years to Spielvogel to Teaching Company videos to whatever's at the library or sitting on the shelf unused from his logic-stage years - LOL! But, I do find TQ to be very good at helping me to limit my direction, and I like that I can weave in our own writing assignments.)

Edited February 4, 2010 by Rhondabee

[Jeanine in TX]

9th gr

SWB's History of Ancient World

Oxford Atlas of World History

great books with Teaching Company lectures

 

10th gr

SWB's History of Medieval World

Oxford Atlas of World History

great books with Teaching Company lectures

 

I am stil trying to decide what to use for 11th and 12th grade. Hopefully, SWB will finish her history series by the time we need it. (My oldest has 2 years until high school.)

 

In the meantime, we have already started reading some of the Great Books from ancient literature. I thought that it would be too much trying to read everything in 9th grade.

6th gr: Iliad

7th gr: Odyssey

8th gr: Aeneid and Greek tragedies (planned)