Story of the World or Mystery of History

[bry's-gal]

Which do you like better and why?

 

I will have a 6 yr old and a 4 yr old. What works better for the younger but I can use as they get older?

 

How much teacher prep is there?

How much running around looking for books?

 

We are wanting to do a time-line with history. Does one lend itself better to a time-line?

 

Thanks!

[MamaAkins]

Personally, I would use SOTW with children as young as yours. When you cycle back through (assuming you are following a 4 year cycle for history), I would add in MOH (along with your SOTW).

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

I do SOTW for elementary (1-4) then MOH for middle (5-8) I love them both!!!!!

 

They both have the same amount of book hunting (do as much or as little as you choose) I find the G. Foster books are great as a supplement (doesnt have EVERYTHING but when you get the compatible time frames)

 

Timelines work well with both also!

[Mommee & Baba]

We are currently using MoH with my 5yr old and 7yr old and we LOVE it!!

 

Not only do we do the timeline but we also do the notebooking part of it and we also color maps and do the memory cards along with the activites.

 

 

How much teacher prep is there? Under 10min. Finding and copying the maps from the book, preparing the memory cards and the time line figures for every 3rd lesson and getting materials together for the appropriate activities per lesson.

How much running around looking for books? So far. 0! We don't add anything else into this. Personally I think it'd be too much for my elementary gals as we do just enough..not too little and not too overwhelming. Keeps it fun!

[Mrs Mungo]

Which do you like better and why?

 

I will have a 6 yr old and a 4 yr old. What works better for the younger but I can use as they get older?

 

How much teacher prep is there?

How much running around looking for books?

 

We are wanting to do a time-line with history. Does one lend itself better to a time-line?

 

Thanks!

 

I *love* Story of the World. The Activity Guide has map work and coloring sheets that they do every day (except for SOTW 4). There are a lot of other activities that you can choose from. How much prep there is going to be is going to depend upon how many of those you choose and what you choose.

 

You might make a paper mache Greek army helmet (eta: we use plaster cloth instead of paper mache, much cleaner and easier), cook like a Roman soldier, make a chicken (or apple) mummy or play a board game to help remember facts. You will need to gather craft supplies or have the game board blown up and copied onto cardstock, etc.

 

As far as books go, I went through and chose a bunch to order because our library is not all that great (at least not as far as books go).

 

eta: You could do a timeline with SOTW but SWB doesn't recommend doing a timeline with grammar stage kids.

Edited March 19, 2010 by Mrs Mungo

[HollyDay]

I like MOH 1 better than SOTW 1.

But, I like SOTW 2 better than MOH 2.

 

At the age of your dc, I would do SOTW.

[robsiew]

If I had to do it over again, I'd do SOTW for grammar stage and save MOH for logic...

 

I LOVE MOH and volume 1 was fine, but volume 2 is too much for my younger ones. I was going to switch everyone to SOTW, but my older two complained loudly!! So, now I'm doing SOTW with the younger two and MOH with the older two.

 

MOH is wonderful, just too much IMO for the younger kids...

 

Again, if I had to do it over again, I'd save the time line for logic stage... (we all do one right now), I don't think there's a lot of understanding there for my youngers, though they like it.

 

Also... we do not add any books in during our "history" time in either curriculum. I do have them read from the WTM lists though so most of their reading comes from history related topics.

Edited March 19, 2010 by robsiew

[Guest mrsjamiesouth]

My kids didn't like SOTW 1, the reading for us was dry. I like MOH 1 a lot, and am going to use it next year with 10 and 6 year olds.

[Lovedtodeath]

Well you left CHOW out of the comparison! SOTW is used over MOH by more companies as a spine for that age, so I would take that into consideration.

[blessedmom3]

We love MOH 1 . I also have SOTW book and CD's but we just love MOH . We do listen to SOTW cds in the car .

 

My kids are almost 7 , 5 and 4 .

 

We also do notebooking and coloring which they enjoyed .

 

Next year , I am plannig to use SOTW 2 as MOH 2 would be probably too advanced for my kids .

[siloam]

I think both would work fine, but I prefer MOH for the Biblical perspective, especially in volume 1. Less so for the rest, which is good because volume 2 takes a huge jump in content and length of lessons.

 

But the activities in MOH (and I have hands on learners) were great, nice and easy to get done, where SOTW had projects that were started and never quite got finished. Though that was probably due more to having so many little ones under foot.

 

Next time around I plan to do the same thing I did last time. I read MOH aloud and listen to SOTW on audio.

 

Heather

[HollyDay]

I would like to add that neither of my dc liked SOTW vol 1. They thought the fiction stories were silly and the general tone of the text dry. They did like MOH 1, but it was a bit much for the age. I had to supplement heavily, slow down, and explain a bunch.

 

Now, when we came to MOH 2, it was entirely too much. It was so heavy on church history as to be way too much for the ages. But, SOTW vol 2 was awesome. Again, I supplemented and it went very well.

[AngelBee]

Well you left CHOW out of the comparison!

We are using all three! :lol:

[AngelBee]

I just use what works for that age and skip the rest. I do not expect them to do all of the chapters. Using SOTW, MOH and various other sources would be too much if we did. We are choosing our own pace for now and will cover more in depth during future rotations. (For the record I am doing multiple 3 year rotations. We will be covering the cycle 6 times total in their 18 years. :D I am still planning it out but it Lower Primary (0-3), Upper Primary (4-6), Lower Grammer (7-9), Upper Grammer (10-12), Logic (13-15) and Rhetoric (16-18).

 

Due to that, I do not stress if we skip around or miss something on the passes. It will get covered at some point! :lol:

[phathui5]

What would you all do in our case?

 

I have a nine year old ds who is finishing SOTW 4. He starts back in the beginning of the cycle next year.

 

I have a six year old dd who has done most of her history through her American Girl book club this year and will be starting Ancients with ds next year.

[LibraryLover]

SOTW has the best bibliogrpahy for young children. I also have a trust in SWB's knowledge that I can't extend to many other authors/creators of hs curric.

Edited April 10, 2010 by LibraryLover

[Chris in VA]

What would you all do in our case?

 

I have a nine year old ds who is finishing SOTW 4. He starts back in the beginning of the cycle next year.

 

I have a six year old dd who has done most of her history through her American Girl book club this year and will be starting Ancients with ds next year.

 

MOH would be fine for both your kids, for Ancients, anyway, if you want heavy bible content. Will ds be turning 10 and in 5th grade, or in 4th grade? If 5th grade, you could add in outlining from Kingfisher or the other recommended encyclopedias (they've changed since the new WTM edition came out b/c technically, Kfr is out of print). Or you could redo SOTW 1 with older son, add in Kfr and do the activity guide with the younger one (maps, coloring pages) AND the older one (more involved projects).

 

You really can't lose, either way. I know my dd, who did SOTW in first grade, probably doesn't remember most of it, so we could do it again, but I want her to use MOH or K12 or HO to get another perspective/different writng style.

[siloam]

What would you all do in our case?

 

I have a nine year old ds who is finishing SOTW 4. He starts back in the beginning of the cycle next year.

 

I have a six year old dd who has done most of her history through her American Girl book club this year and will be starting Ancients with ds next year.

 

I would do MOH 1 with both, though next year with MOH 2 I would probably split them up, and have the oldest read on their own, and read SOTW to the younger (or buy the audios).

 

Heather

[phathui5]

I would do MOH 1 with both, though next year with MOH 2 I would probably split them up, and have the oldest read on their own, and read SOTW to the younger (or buy the audios).

 

Heather

 

That could work. I already own all the SOTW stuff, as we've used it the past four years.