Need some help

[ILhsMOM]

Hi, I'm new :) to this board, classical ed, and to homeschooling. Hoping for some help. I am teaching my k and have a first grader next year. We are doing the Ancient History book of Story of the World. My question is what do we do in the fourth grade when we start back at Ancient History again? Sounds silly, I guess, but I am thinking: Do we read it again and do the harder crafts, activities, etc and memorize different lists from the back of Kingfisher book?

I'm a bit of a planner and just want to know what happens later. Help?

Thanks,

IL homeschooling Mom

[usetoschool]

We take a break and do American history for a year, but then when we go back to the SOTW schedule we read the harder books and do more in depth study of things that interest us. We skip the coloring pages and do more detailed geography studies as well. There is no way we could do everything in one round. We kind of got sidetracked a couple of years ago and ended up spending nearly 3 months on Egypt :D We had to really scramble to get caught back up.

[Kate in Arabia]

Well, first of all you may find it's a moot point depending on how fast you go. It took us two years to go through volume 1. Actually, it is taking us two years pretty much for each volume -- my oldest will be in 7th grade next year and we'll be starting vol 4 (we started vol 1 when my oldest was in 1st grade).

 

Second, I can't recall offhand what is recommended in the Well Trained Mind, but I know there are recommendations for different programs/books to use in later grades. Maybe someone else can chime in with that. I personally would choose a different curriculum, because I think it is valuable to read history from different viewpoints; but it's not something I really need to think about until we make a decision on highschool.

 

Hth, and welcome!

[Sue G in PA]

First, welcome! I'm thinking back to when I first read the WTM and all the lists I had and the schedules and the plans and... :tongue_smilie: I'm a planner, too. IF you continue to follow the WTM way of doing history and don't fall prey to the plethora of "other" really great programs you will no doubt read all about on this board at some point and trash the plans that you have so carefully made...:tongue_smilie: (Okay, all joking aside...I'm in an odd mood tonight). Okay, if you do stick with SOTW and do the cycle 2x...the first cycle will likely just be giving your dc some great "pegs" on which to hang later information. By the time the second cycle comes around, they will have memory of "some" of the key people, dates, places, events, etc. Now they can begin reading more advance literature to accompany each time period, do more challenging activities, read more outside books to go with each time period, write more detailed narrations, etc. Does that make sense? I think that SWB gives some more detailed ideas on what to do the second time around. But anyway...welcome!

[5LittleMonkeys]

You are right. You will go over the same information but in much more depth. This year I have 1 dc doing the first level of Ancients and 2 dc doing the 2nd level of Ancients. My younger listens to the passages from the book, does narration and review questions, coloring pages, maps and the easier activities. I choose additional books based on her comprehension level. The two older dc can either listen to the passages or read them on their own and write summaries on them, do outlining from the KFH, read additional history and literature based on their levels. We do discussions on the literature and I sometimes have them do outlines on the smaller informational books they read. My artsy dd likes to do some of the more involved projects. We usually try to find documentaries to support what we are learning too. Oh, and timelines.

 

If you look at it from the three stages of learning you are basically giving the basic facts and just enjoying the story of history the first time, teaching the how's and why's and creating a sense of the big picture the second time and having the student being able to form his own ideas and opinions about the events in history the third time. This is of coarse an oversimplified description of the process.

 

Hope that helps and Welcome.:D

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

There are other good books to go on to that follow the cycle, MOH, History Odyssey, Bibloplan, and many many others. They get deeper into it and by then your dc comprehension will be better also :)

[ILhsMOM]

Thanks! this did help.

 

I know there is no wrong way to do it or right way, exactly. I appreciate the input!

[Wildwood]

I had a similar question some time back and thought it worth sharing with you.

 

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=130360

 

(PS Not implying that your post/question was "dumb" as *I* mentioned in my post title from my past thread!)