History....

[Tiffani]

So another History question. (sorry!)

 

How many of you choose a "spine" (SOTW, MOH, TQ--any) and then pick your books and go?? As opposed to SL, WP etc....

 

Why/why not!!

 

Thanks!

[Chris in VA]

I chose SOTW as our spine, and we use the AG. It's just so much less expensive, and if we don't like a book we choose from the literature or nonfiction list in the AG, we just set it aside--I don't have to force dd to read something unappealing just b/c we bought it. I can usually find what I want at the library or thru interlibrary loan.

I did buy WP AS 1 and got several of the books, from paperbackbookswap, from Amazon, etc. But we aren't schooling at home next year, so it's for sale. It's a nice idea, imo, to have everything there, but I don't really want all those books--I'd rather have hardbacks in pretty editions for the books we want "forever."

[Chloe]

We're using CHOW (only about a chapter a week) and supplementing with other books plus listening to SOTW on cd. It's very low-key, a written narration about once every-other week, but that's about it. I may step things up a bit next year and do Ambleside Online. I love the books they use.

[Nestof3]

Same as Chris in VA.

 

I always search my library's online catalog to see if they have books the activity guide does not recommend. I also search for videos.

[Musical Belle]

We have used SOTW as our spine since first grade (this year we added Biblioplan to give us some additional resources) and supplemented with library books. We can almost always find the books we need, and we can take them back when we're done :001_smile:. Sometimes in our reading we will come across "keepers" (like D'Aulaires Greek Myths), which we know we will read over and over if we want to buy them.

[Donna T.]

I've done it both ways. I'm now using Biblioplan. It's a nice "in-between" approach. I am really enjoying it. It schedules a spine (you can use SOTW or MOH or both) and then coordinates books around that spine. It's not nearly as elaborate as SL or WP (I have used both of those) but for me, it's more convenient than just picking up the spine and going from there. I like that it gives me more structure and offers lots of options in a scheduled format, but it's manageable in the amount of reading that is recommended. It is light enough that I still have the energy to search for books from the SOTW AG and the MOH list. But, if I can't get around to that, it's o.k. because I have a few really good resources already at hand.

[MomOfOneFunOne]

We're in third and for all these years we have always just read our way through history choosing books from various lists, the library catalogue, and recommendations. For 4th (and 5th) we'll be studying US History. I really want to cover this thoroughly so I chose a spine for the first time. We will use the spine in a text-y sort of way but we will continue to read our way through, as well. As the text covers topics, we'll also be reading our "living books." For example, when the text covers Viking discoverers of America, we'll be reading d'Aulaire's Leif Erikson and another book I saw at our library about viking settlements. More books as well but the list is only begining!

 

We have had EXCELLENT luck finking superior reading recommendations!!! I hope and pray that this blessing holds!

 

Oh, we also just make up our own projects, get some from the books we read, rabbit trail into one, or search the internet. It's my favorite subject!

 

Our spine for next year is Our Pioneers and Patriots.

[ArwenA]

We use SOTW as our spine and add on extra books. I like doing this because of the flexibility and it makes it easy when I have kids of different ages, I just get the books and don't have to by five different curricula.

[Chris in VA]

How do you fink a recommendation?

 

lol

[Jenny in Atl]

I use SL and still pick more of our own bks. Oldest dd12 reads on a college level and reads a lot, so many of the SL titles either bore her or she finishes them in a couple days. I have to heavily supplement. This year we used HO, SL and LL. Here it is March, and she has all but finished the bks from all three (some were overlap). Next year I'm most likely doing Trisms HM, readers from SL 7, 200 & 300 as well as LL 7. If only she was as excited about math and science too. :tongue_smilie:

[ABQmom]

For about three years, I just chose books in the time period we were studying and listed them in order that I wanted to do them. Basically, that was our history. It was easy. I just looked at my list, went to the library, checked out a few books, read them to the children, and moved on to the next book. When my dc were young, this approach helped them to develop a love for history. I'm using Biblioplan this year because my dc were ready to do a little more. We learned a lot in those years, and the kids still talk about the books we read and the times we learned about. It was fun!

 

The website that I used to help me was www.abookintime.com Good books are divided up in time periods and listed in chronological order. The list gives summaries and appropriate grade levels to help you choose.

[Tiffani]

I'm seeing a lot of Biblioplan.

 

I'll have to look at this!

 

Thanks everyone!!!

[Donna T.]

http://www.biblioplan.net

 

I downloaded the e-book and started it the same day! Do keep in mind that the books that are listed on the site as required and recommended are just a fraction of all the books listed in the TM. There are alot of books listed, but you make your own choices.

[Leila]

We use SOTW and the AG and we just get books from the library for extra reading. I also used this link

http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/chowsotw.htm . So I can combine CHOW with SOTW. Both are great books.

 

Leila

ds8,ds3,ds2

[Carol in Cal.]

During year 1 I added a lot of Bible, and myths, and some living books/fiction reflecting the times.

 

During year 2 I went back to work, so I stopped using the library and started buying a lot of AG books. I wished that I could have found a better book on the Renaissance artists, but other than that I think that we had an outstanding year.

 

During year 3 I tried pairing AAH with SOTW, but didn't like AAH as much as I thought I would. So I bought a lot of "World of" books from Beautiful Feet and some American history unit study outlines from Steward Ship and started to use those, while simultaneously continuing with SOTW3. Around this time DD started to 'listen ahead' to the SOTW3 CDs, over and over, and I decided that continuing to have her read and summarize them was not really advancing her history knowlege or her writing skills, so I started assigning other history writing and focussing on the American history while she has continued to basically almost memorize the SOTW3 material.

 

For year 4 I have so many books and stories and activities about WW1, WW2, child labor, women's sufferage, and the 50's and 60's that I think we are going to take the same approach. She will listen to the CD's, read the book, and we will study major topics in chunks. I have thought a lot about 20th century history, and am very confident that I could teach most of it without a book. Plus we have read so many great children's books from the late 19th through mid-20th century already, like "Cheaper by the Dozen", "An Old Fashioned Girl", "Half Magic", the Shoes books, "The Red Velvet Room", "The Egypt Game", etc. that DD has a great sense of those times. This year we attended "12th Night" set in 60s San Francisco. It's not as if we haven't been talking through post-Civil War reform and also the 20th century for years anyway.

 

I really love SOTW, but DD is already 11 and we need more American history than we get in SOTW. Although it is great as well.

 

I considered just continuing with SOTW and then catching up the American history using Sonlight 100 in 8th grade, but it blows through it so fast and we have so many great living books to read and savor. So that's why I'm doing it this way.

 

It is SO MUCH FUN!

[mcconnellboys]

That's me, to a T! Why? Because I love, love, love to read from a great variety of books/authors on the subject of history (science, too, for that matter). I think one gets a better perspective, raises the issue of differences in interpretation, sees how "facts" can vary from one writing to another, etc., when one reads for different authors. All authors have a bias, it can not be helped. Reading from more than one author allows one to get a more balanced view of the complete picture. And some authors bring out facts that others don't mention at all, so reading from different sources also helps to give one a more complete picture of the subject or person at hand.

 

I've looked at Sonlight for years, but I just don't like the books they tell me to read. Oh sure, I do read many of those same books, anyway, but I want to read a lot of others that they don't include, too, so I do my own lists. With my oldest son, I took their fifth year program idea of looking at non-evangelized areas of the world and pulled together my own study of lesser known areas of the world not covered well in most history texts. I wasn't looking to do this from the point of view of evangelism, however, but from the point of view of learning the history of these little known cultures, such as the peoples who came into the peninsular area that would later become Vietnam, Cambodia, etc.; peoples of Southeast Asia; peoples of Tibet, peoples of some of the Middle Eastern countries, etc., etc. None of those countries are well-covered in any history texts. I was, at the time, studiously avoiding the study of modern history, which I always thought I hated (however, this year, I've learned so much with SOTW IV and have really enjoyed it more than I ever thought I would, LOL!)

 

Regena

[Jenny in Florida]

This year, for example, my son has several reference-type books of which he is reading bits and pieces during the year, but no one of them is really the backbone of his history studies. Instead, I chose lots of good books, some historical fiction and some non-fiction, then just put them all in chronological order and assigned him to read through them. The excerpts from various encyclopedias and reference books are folded in as he goes, based on when he reaches that period or person or event in his reading.

 

From what I can tell, it's most like Sonlight in approach, except that we're secular types and are following the four-year history rotation.

 

--Jenny

[TracyR]

We use CHOW as our spine and just get books as we go . It seems to work really well this way for us .

[Malenki]

We use TruthQuest as our "spine" if you will. We aren't currently using a narrative like This Country of Ours because we just didn't click with any we tried. There tend to be some good overview books that cover a time period that gives us the framework to fit all the more specific books.

 

DS *adores* history. He would have us read about it for hours a day. We pick our own books from the list and always search for others if needed. Some topics covered in the guide we skip and others we camp on for a while. We don't do a lot of hands-on but we are doing a little summary page on different people as we go along.

 

I always wanted to use Sonlight but it wasn't a good fit for us when it came right down to it. I'm not sure we'll continue with TQ after we make it through the first three guides, but for now we're sticking with it. It's not as hard as it seemed at first; I let go of lining up everything perfectly and if a book comes in a little late, we read it anyway and enjoy.