SOTW and The History of US

[Nestof3]

I was reading some of The History of US, which I love. I used this with my oldest son, and though I know it's not perfect, I find it such enjoyable reading. I know my boys will enjoy it too.

 

We are in the beginning of SOTW 3 right now with Nathan and Ben finishing 4th and 3rd grades respectively. I'm thinking that SOTW 3 will take grades 5/4 and SOTW will take grades 6/5 (I combine the boys for this).

 

Has anyone ever stopped SOTW and taken up The History of US? How long did it take? I would be okay spending two year (Nathan's 7th and 8th) using it as a spine but adding literature and such like I did with Aaron. That would leave high school open.

 

This seems like the only way to do it.

 

Any input? Does Sonlight use History of US for two years or one?

[Ali in OR]

We have been using SOTW and History of US as part of Biblioplan, so I can share a little about how that has worked here. We also love History of US. Biblioplan did not use the first volume of History of US but scheduled volumes 2-5 I think over year 3 and 6-10 over year 4. Biblioplan year 3 ends at about 1850. With Biblioplan, some weeks focus on American history and some on world history. In year 3 I think it trades off in 4-6 week chunks. During an American history chunk, we might be reading 6-8 chapters of History of US in a week. We'll read the corresponding sections in SOTW too, but sometimes that is an incredibly small amount (like 1 section of 1 chapter on the civil war). History of US gave us a much deeper understanding of American history. When we were in a world history chunk, there would be no History of US reading, but there would be plenty to read in SOTW. And with Biblioplan there are also other readers and a family read-aloud as well. Occasionally there is a topic that is both American and world history, like WWII, and both resources are used.

 

Lots of great reading out there. The downside is that it does take a lot of time. Year 3 took us a full year to go through SOTW, History of US, and all of the Biblioplan readers. Year 4 isn't as bad. History is our favorite subject, so we don't mind the extra time, but if my kids complained about it, it would be tough to do. It IS a huge amount of material to go through.

[LunaLee]

If you were interested, Paula's archives has a list that coordinates SOTW 3 & 4 with A History of US.

 

http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/SOTWmenu.htm

 

If you were going to take 2 years for each SOTW anyways this could work.

 

I was in a similar situation and just decided to do SOTW 3 in 6th, SOTW 4 in 7th and spend all of 8th grade using the A History of US.

[Free Indeed]

Sonlight schedules core 100 which uses the History of US books in 1 year. We are about to start Biblioplan 3 which uses SOTW and US books.