Questions about scheduling SOTW, and about the recommended Kingfisher/Usborne books

[melissel]

I've been looking over my SOTW for next year, and I was wondering a few things.

 

If you're a planner, how did you schedule these? Is it feasible to do a chapter a week? There are 42 chapters in the book.

 

Also, how necessary are the go-along Kingfisher and Usborne books? I'm guessing they're key, but before I go hunting, I thought I should check. For example, there's the one that's OOP. Would that be worth the $30 or so I might have to pay for it?

 

The main reason I'm asking is because I've bought the strongly recommended go-alongs for few other things in the past and found that I almost never referred to them. I'm also paranoid about reading bits and pieces from several different books for each lesson after our experience with our WP curricula (DD hated the format :(). Of course, if the books are indispensable, I'll shell out for them :D But I'd love to hear others' experiences.

 

TIA!

[Soph the vet]

Hi Melissa,

Given the age of your dc, Usborne would be a good investment. We use it a lot with SOTW but Kingfisher is more detailed and much better for the logic stage (5th-8th grade). I schedule SOTW using something called Biblioplan (you can google it) which schedules 3 history sessions weekly for 36 weeks. It includes SOTW, Usborne, Kingfisher, other "spines" depending on the year of history you are doing, plus read alouds, individual reading by grade level, map and timeline suggestions plus writing suggestions.

Some weeks we are doing one chapter of SOTW, some we are doing 4 or 5. I usually have my kids color or draw while I read and they seem to really enjoy it. They are 9,7, and 5 and I am not expecting a great deal of retention this time around.

Soph

[Sunshine State Sue]

When I bought SOTW, I also bought an Usborne History Encyclopedia. I faithfully read the corresponding pages for the first two years because I had bought the book, but gave up on it after that because it was so incredibly disjointed. The format (short paragraph and pictures with captions) does nothing for me. I say that these books have snippets of information. I detest having to look through each picture and read each caption to get any useful information out of them. I believe anything I read out of them was quickly forgotten. :glare:

 

What was 100x more helpful for us was using the suggested supplemental reading for SOTW. I was able to obtain many of the books from the library. :D

 

We have graduated to logic stage now and are using the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia with History Odyssey. It is a major drawback, at least for me. :cursing:

 

On the other hand, a year or so ago, I found the Usborne book in a bookshelf and put it on my son's bedside table. I am surprised how often he spends (at bedtime) reading through it. :huh:

 

And just to muddy the waters more, I have a friend who's son really enjoys the format and pores over this type of book.

 

I guess my advice is that if you find the Usborne at a good price, pick it up. But, I would not consider it a necessity unless it's a format that your children would enjoy.

 

As for scheduling, we did different things different years. Our first year, we did 3 sections a week in order to fit it into a certain number of months. Our 2nd and 3rd year, we combined some chapters in a week to fit it into a certain number of months. Our 4th year, we did 1 chapter a week and went the whole 42 weeks (that was kind of long). I've heard some people just skip certain chapters.

 

Good luck! I loved SOTW.

[Aubrey]

Melissel,

 

Is this the Usb. hist. book you're looking for? It's $25, but not OP.

http://www.ubah.com/ecommerce/details.asp?sid=S2722&gid=38159959&number=209598&title=World+History+%28C%2FV%29&sqlwhere=+title+like+%27World+History+%28C%2FV%29%27

 

I'd say the same thing as Sue--when we were starting out, I tried to follow the guidelines in the old WTM, & I found myself banging my head against a wall. Partly, I was trying to get ds5 to find the "main idea" out of this book, which is really difficult. I should have just gone for "something interesting." Anyway, I ended up going for SOTW.

 

However, now that he's really reading on his own, he loves stuff like this. I've had this book in the closet, so I don't know about it in particular, but I'm going to put it in his hist basket now to see if he reads it. (Glad y'all reminded me about it!)

 

If there's something else you're looking for, let me know. Many of the older titles have simply been reformatted, & I can try to point you in the right direction!

[Aubrey]

I just realized nobody answered your scheduling question. I'd look at 2 things if I were you. First, the calendar. How many weeks of the year do you want to do school? A typical 9mo year is about 36 weeks. That would mean that you'd have to double up on some chapters (or skip some) to fit 42 chapters into one year.

 

The second thing to consider is the book itself. If you skim through the TOC, you'll find that *you* are fascinated by some chapters and less so by others. Sometimes you may want to spend more than a week on a ch.

 

Once you've decided these two things, you can map out a plan that will work for your family. It probably won't look exactly like any of ours. But be flexible, too. I get really stressed when I try to follow a schedule too rigidly. This year, I've given myself the freedom to do the projects *after* we've finished the ch, if we don't get to them in the "appropriate" week. That may sound obvious, but it's helped a lot. We stay on track w our reading & still get to do the fun stuff.

 

GL!

[Harriet Vane]

My children absolutely love being able to see what they are studying. The pictures are a wonderful enrichment. I read the Usborne and Kingfisher books to them, but they also pour over both books themselves, independently, all the time. We all like the text blocks next to the pictures. They have also been known to request pages from these books as bedtime reading.

 

In short, our experience has been the polar opposite of Sue's and Aubrey's. :001_huh:

 

We comfortably do a chapter a week. History and literature are our favorite subjects. We do it in four days:

 

Day one: Read SOTW chapter and narrate. Dd who is 11yo writes a summary of one section (kind of a pre-outlining skill builder). My ds is 6yo--he dictates his narration to me and draws something. We also do map work on this day. If they feel like doing a coloring page they can--my kids are not real into coloring, so I consider the coloring pages totally optional.

 

Day two and three: Read a few library books, do the Usborne/Kingfisher pages (just casually reading and discussing), do a few of the activities as time and interest allow.

 

Day four: Review chapter. Ds and I do this together, orally. Dd re-reads the chapter and she and I go over the review questions. Test.

 

Another thing I like about the Usborne and Kingfisher books is that they release me from library-book-guilt. In other words, if I don't make it to the library to get that unit's supplemental literature, we do always have the Usborne and Kingfisher to fall back on to provide some supplementation and rich visuals.

 

YMMV-HTH. :001_smile:

[Aubrey]

In short, our experience has been the polar opposite of Sue's and Aubrey's. :001_huh:

 

 

Wait a minute! I just meant that I didn't like following Usb & KF acc'd to the old WTM. You know, trying to do narrations off of the Book of World Hist was *hard.*

 

I haven't tried them as a supplement to SOTW yet. I've been meaning to, though, lol. It's encouraging to hear that yours enjoy them, because this thread has reminded me to get mine out. (Duh.:tongue_smilie: I mean, mine was practically packed up. Couldn't say why!:confused:)

[JFSinIL]

but mostly found we were using library books with lots of pictures/photos to "illustrate" what we were reading in SOTW. I just had to remember to peek ahead in SOTW and have appropriate library "picture books" checked out.

[Zelda]

I started the year doing 2 chapters a week with my oldest b/c I was trying to get her closer to working at "grade level". As topics started to get more interesting and the additional reading more involved I slowed us down to one chapter a week.

 

I purchased the Usborne World History and the Usborne Internet Linked History Encyclopedia AND the Kingfisher. I use the first two every week but the Kingfisher I'll save for the second go round . Its a bit more involved. Better for an older child.

[Chris in VA]

For me, the reason to have the encyclopedias is for the pictures. It's very handy to just keep it on our shelf and find a picture to illustrate the SOTW chapter. But necessary? Nah. We check out lots of library books, and also find websites for many of the chapters. If I need a snippet of info that may not be in SOTW, and I haven't been to the library (or don't own a book that fits), I can just reach over and use the Kingfisher (like it better), but I rarely do.

 

Now, when dd gets older, if we are homeschooling during logic years, I will use Kingfisher with other books. The purpose then will be to have it as a spine. But not now--SOTW is our spine.

 

As for scheduling, we just go at our own pace thru the books. I find it difficult to read more than one section of a chapter during a lesson. There's just a lot of information. We don't narrate each section, either--more like each chapter. Because we do supplemental reading and map work and activities for almost every chapter, we do history more than twice a week. You have to pare down if you want to stay on a fairly rigorous schedule--but for me, I want to linger and explore history, and show dd that it's interesting!

So, the schedule is whatever we do that week. I don't sweat much about homeschooling.

[Donna T.]

I'm using Biblioplan, so I can't help with the scheduling issue. With BP, the # of lessons per week varies depending on what else we are reading. As for the encyclopedias, I am really enjoying the Usborne Internet-Linked World History. I would not consider it essential but it does add some color and it's visually appealing. I like that the readings aren't too long, so I can fit it in on the same day as the SOTW chapter if I want to. I really detest the Usborne Book of World History - it's the one that is not internet linked and it has the cartoonish looking illustrations. I don't like it because it has alot of blood and gore in it and it's just ugly, in my opinion. The other Usborne encyclopedia isn't like that. The Kingfisher is good. The readings are longer. I plan to pick one of those up for in the future, but we get enough from the Usborne one for now. I have seen the OOP Kingfisher on the swap/sell board for ridiculously high amounts. Don't fall for that. It's not that great, but at the regular retail price it's not so bad.

 

If you decide to use one of the encyclopedias, it may not feel so chopped up as your WP experience felt. If you go ahead and read the encyclopedia section with the coordinated chapter in SOTW, it has a more cohesive feel to it. I've used WP, so I know what you mean... it was really a drag having to pull from so many different books in one day. But, for some reason, even though we are reading alot now, it doesn't feel so bothersome. Sometimes, I just give the encyclopedia to my oldest son to read for himself after I have read our other books.

[runningirl71]

Like so many others have said, I bought the Usborne and Kingfisher History Encyclopedias to supplement our SOTW study. I started in Ancients when my kids were in 4th and 2nd grade. I bought the Kingfisher for my 4th and the Usborne for my 2nd grader. We were faithful at first to use the Usborne and to look up the internet links and all. But as time progressed, it was the one source that got dropped, as my kids preferred the books in the reading list section of the AG. My older one, who is extremely visual, would pick up the Usborne and read through it in his free time. But, my dd never touched it, unless I made her read out of it. In 5th grade my son graduated to outlining the Kingfisher (which we prefer, and used when they were younger too) and we didn't use the Usborne much at all. In fact, I'm coming to realize, I don't like the Usborne books as much as I thought I did! I just sold my history encyclopedia on this forum a couple of weeks ago!

 

My suggestion would be, if you have a very visual learner, get one of the encyclopedias to skim through, but try and pick it up used. If you or your kids don't care, then I would say save the money. With my middle, who will be in 5th grade in the fall, I didn't really push the encyclopedias and have decided to wait until the Logic stage to work out of the Kingfisher with her. My son is in his 3rd year of outlining the Kingfisher and really enjoys it.

 

As for scheduling, there are quite a few chapters you could combine to fit them all in a 36 week schedule. Sometimes there aren't a lot of resources for a certain subject or chapter at our library, so we'll usually go through those chapters quicker. Since your kids are young, you could even skip a few chapters if there is no interest. But, this would be using "fly by the seat of your pants" planning. I've never drawn up a whole yearly detailed schedule. I've only gone through and seen what chapters would work for us to combine to fit it all in, but I end up changing it through the year according to interest!

[Melissa in Australia]

hi, I love history encyclopedias, I have 6 of them, my lest favorite is the usborne.

history at our house is SOTW on Wednesday, I read it aloud (we are doing book4), then we do the outlining, and time line pictures, then on Thursday I read all the relevant pages in all the history encyclopedias to the children, they write up about the information and then do the map work.

my children's ages are from 14 to 4.

I also try to keep all the children's reading books tying into the history period under study

MelissaL

[Mom2legomaniacs]

I have both the Usborne and the Kingfisher. Honestly, I haven't been using either of them very much in the past. However, my youngest is 6 and literally devours the Usborne book on a daily basis. When I suggest getting a book to take along to read while the other one has an appointment, he will bring that!

 

I will be assigning more from those to read along with the SOTW. I especially use them more when I have not been to the library for any extra reading. I think they are nice to have around. I anticipate their value here increasing as we approach the logic stage next year.

 

Are they necessary? Not really. But I am really glad we have them even if I don't use them as I initially intended.

[Veritaserum]

What was 100x more helpful for us was using the suggested supplemental reading for SOTW. I was able to obtain many of the books from the library. :D

 

:iagree: We have an Usborne encyclopedia that we got when we used Sonlight last year, but I haven't brought it out once after starting SOTW. I use SOTW and the SOTW guide plus library books (great recommendations in the guide, my library carries many of the titles). I posted about how we schedule here:

 

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showpost.php?p=287694&postcount=16

 

We actually did a history blitz last month because I wanted to finish up before I have our baby and then I want to start SOTW 2 in the fall. They actually did very well doing 2 or even 3 chapters per day 2-3 times a week. They even remember stuff we talked about. ;) Obviously, that's not ideal, but at 8 and 6 I think it's ok. We'll take more time this fall.

[Veritaserum]

Oh, we do have the Kingfisher, but I plan them using that when they are older.

[Trivium Academy]

I agree and this is our experience too. The encyclopedias provided the visuals, we didn't read them all the time but golly when you want a handy book to see what in the world something looks like- it's been invaluable. I have both the Kingfisher and Usborne History Encyclopedias (Internet-Linked).

 

I would check it out from the library and do a test run to see how you like it before you buy it.

[abreakfromlife]

I also don't like the Usborne books for reading, but my kids love looking through them. So I have them on the bookshelf for them to look through, but I don't really use them in my planning. I wouldn't buy them new, but there are so many of them out there, it's easy to find them used and cheap. I do really like the Kingfisher.....I just bought the OOP one and it is really nice. The library has the current one, and I like that one, too.....I haven't really used them with the kids as much yet. I think the OOP is better for when the kids get a little older and can read and outline the sections. But my kids like looking through that book, too, and 'reading' all the way through history in about 30 min :lol:

 

I don't do SOTW by chapters - I do it by topic. Next month we're spending 2 weeks on China and 2 weeks on India, and I'm combining the chapters in SOTW 1 and SOTW 2 for those two.....and right now we are in the middle of ancient rome. It has, I think 9 or so chapters in it, but we're doing it in 4 weeks.

 

For scheduling next year, I went through the chapter headings and skimmed the book and wrote down the topics and corresponding chapters, main people and terms I want to cover, and I did skim KHE and my college Western Civ. book to fill in with any more people or ideas I wanted to cover. I also loosely wrote down how much time I want to spend on each - that will get more accurate as I actually make my weekly and daily plans.

And then searched this place and the RR catalog looking for books and activities to fill in the topics. I didn't want to have to flip through a ton of books, reading pieces here and there. So I got a few 'single' books for the topics I wanted to spend more time on.

 

Someone gave me all of their Famous Men books, so I'm going to use those, and then for Britain/Celts, I bought a children's Beowulf from Yesterday's Classics. And I'm going to get the Beowulf coloring book from Dover. So I'm basically just going to read SOTW and Beowulf and maybe a few celtic myth stories from the library. For Islam, I'm getting a mideast activity book, and then reading some of Arabian Nights........I'm really excited. I think being more focused like this on just a few books and one or two aspects of a topic will help me to get more accomplished, and help the kids to really remember a few things about it.

[HFClassicalAcademy]

This will be our first year using SOTW. I went against the recommendations of purchasing the Usborne and Kingfisher books, mostly because their supplemental reading list looks like it would be more than enough.

 

As for scheduling. I had a hard time figuring this out as well. Luckily, my history lesson plans are included in our program (Angelicum Academy) and I like how they have divided them up.

 

I will be doing SOTW over a 36 week school year. I opted to do history 4 times a week for short periods of time as opposed to the more popular 2-3 times a week. Having history scheduled in this way is also going to give me some time to catch up or do extra projects.

 

The breakdown. If more than one chapter is being covered, the week goes like this....day 1 is first chapter, narration, and activity, day 2 is additional reading and activity. Day 3 is second chapter, narration, and activity. Day 4 is additional reading and activity.

 

If only one chapter is being done, then this is the week...readings split up on day 1 & 2 (narration on each day) and day 3 & 4 being for extra reading and craft days.

 

Week 1: Intro and Chp. 1

Day 1-Intro, narration, and activity

Day 2-Additional reading

Day 3- Chp. 1, narration, activity

Day4- Additional reading, activity

 

Week 2: Chp. 2

Day 1- Narration, map

Day 2- Narration, coloring page

Day 3- Additional reading, activity

Day4- Additional reading, activity

 

All chapters get a week, except for the following:

Intro and Chapter 1

Chapter 8 & 9

14 & 15

19 & 20

28 & 29

34 & 35

39 & 40

41 & 42

 

This gives me 35 weeks of lessons and 1 week to review, finish projects, or do additional reading.

 

Hope this schedule isn't too confusing!

 

Liz

[Closeacademy]

I had the Usborne book and sold it.

 

I found that it was just better to do a chapter a week in SOTW. I read a section a day and my dd colors the pictures or maps from the Activity Guide. We do try to check out books and videos from the library that go along with what we are reading about but most of the time we just read the folklore or tales that are about the people who are the focus at that period in time.

 

:001_smile:

[Pata]

We will be doing STOW 1 next year and I have purchased Usborne to go with it. I got it for $16 on Amazon, it wasn't OOP. Also I have put our STOW schedule on my website here. It's to go with SL Core 1, but you could easily do it without, at the very least it will give you an idea of what scheduling STOW in 36 weeks looks like. Hope it helps!