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Guesthollow History (Thank you, Jenn!)


Annabel Lee
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I was getting our next round of American History ready yesterday using the Guesthollow site & I can't say enough how thorough & well done it is. The name "Otter" was used by the author for her child, and I knew there was someone around here who does the same & found Jenn.

I just want to say a HUGE Thank You!!! for taking the time to organize & post all that online. My boys will have so much fun with this.

 

In looking for "Otter's mom" to say thanks, I came across a thread in which someone was corrected for saying GH is modeled after WP. I've made the same mistake in my own previous posts. I mistakenly thought I read that somewhere on the GH site - I was wrong. I need to give credit where it's due - Jenn was making her programs before WP came along.

 

OK, back to your regularly scheduled programming. :D

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Guest mrsjamiesouth

:iagree: We ended up using the American History this year after bombing with CATW from WP. It was so nice and easy, loved the book choices and activities.

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Yes, another thank you from me! I used your American History 1 last year and am looking forward to 2. I made some modifications, but sooo appreciate you doing all the hard work!

:iagree:Adding my Thank you, Jenn! I also used AH1 this past year and will be using AH2 next year, with my tweaks. What a great resource! I appreciate your sharing all your work.

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Not trying to take over this thread, but I wish you all could share how you use this site. It looks great, but I don't think our library would have half of the resources that is listed:confused:. If I purchased most of that, it would certainly not be a free or almost free program. Don't get me wrong, it looks very good! I would try it if I thought I could make it work, kwim?:bigear:

homemama

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Not trying to take over this thread, but I wish you all could share how you use this site. It looks great, but I don't think our library would have half of the resources that is listed:confused:. If I purchased most of that, it would certainly not be a free or almost free program. Don't get me wrong, it looks very good! I would try it if I thought I could make it work, kwim?:bigear:

homemama

 

 

Here's what I did to make it work. Any of the resources that were used through out the year, or for extended periods of time, I purchased, such as Story of the USA, American Adventures and Pioneer Sampler. But for the rest I used the library. If my library had it, I would use it. But if not, I didn't worry about it. I do have a pretty good library system, and I would check out additional books relating to the topic for a book basket. But I honestly think I could only find about 1/2 of the books. That was fine! Jenn suggests SO MANY that even if you use some, you still get full and complete coverage.

 

It was a wonderful resource for us! Thanks.

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Homemama,

Just to expand on what Julie said above, one of the reasons too much is scheduled into those programs is that there are recommendations for varying grade level groups. Some books are meant for jr/sr high school while some are meant as very easy readers for 2nd grade reluctant readers (just an example). Then there's books a child may be able to read but that have content inappropriate for their age/maturity/emotional level. It all depends on your child. So it doesn't really mean you can't use GH if your library doesn't have all the books.

 

Also, since you can see the year divided up into topics on GH, it would be easy to find substitute books from other booklists on the same topic. That might mess things up if there's correlating lapbooks/worksheets specific to a particular book - in which case I would just find other things to go w/ the sub. book. :D It all depends on which you have more of: time or money. Oh, and which you're willing to spend more of. Conveneince does have its' merits.

 

I've been making a list of all the books w/ authors (Does that already exist? Maybe I need to search the GH site more) & checking it against my library. I live in a very small town connected to a somewhat small borough, and I'm suprised at how many of the titles they have. This year my budget is tight so I'm determined to make it work. Since there's no way I could use all the listed resources in a year, I don't mind if my library doesn't have some. How is your library with putting things on hold from within the county/borough? Not ILL, but within local branches. It's worth finding out, imo.

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I love her work as well!

The way I used it was as an outline and schedule. I like the topics she covered every week and I love the Draw Write Now book that she uses and hadn't heard of it before her site. I am sure that my library will not have the majority of the suggested reading so I will check out others that cover the subject. But I am prone to think way to big and then need to scale back so the week by week outline was by far the most welcome area.

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Oh, thanks so much for explaining.:001_smile: I haven't looked at the site in quite awhile and that does make sense. I'm prone to get overwhelmed, so that was probably my reaction when I first visited her website.

 

I may go back there and try to make this work. Thanks!!!:001_smile:

 

homemama

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Not trying to take over this thread, but I wish you all could share how you use this site. It looks great, but I don't think our library would have half of the resources that is listed:confused:. If I purchased most of that, it would certainly not be a free or almost free program. Don't get me wrong, it looks very good! I would try it if I thought I could make it work, kwim?:bigear:

homemama

 

The plan is free, the resources aren't. It costs a lot of money to buy some of the other history programs with a schedule and resource list like that- and you still have to buy the books to make it work.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Wow, thanks for all the compliments. I just now saw this thread. :001_smile:

Thanks to all of you for making my day!!!

 

Not trying to take over this thread, but I wish you all could share how you use this site. It looks great, but I don't think our library would have half of the resources that is listed. If I purchased most of that, it would certainly not be a free or almost free program. Don't get me wrong, it looks very good! I would try it if I thought I could make it work, kwim?

 

What I would suggest is to just purchase the books that span a large spread that you are interested in and then, if you can't get some of the books that are used for a shorter period of time from your library, feel free to substitute with anything that looks good that fits the time frame or subject. I tried to design the entire program to be super flexible. Usually you can just pick one or two books for a main topic and you're good to go. :) The great and easy thing is just about any book(s) you like will work.

I also scheduled in way too many items....mainly because I like to have lots of options. Think of it as a buffet.

 

I'm a little scatterbrained tonight...so I hope this makes sense. PM me if you have any specific questions. :)

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We are using TOG Y2U3 this year but prior to that I was tweaking GH to work for us. Anyway, I still plan on using many of the Native American studies on GH and incorporating into our TOG stuff. It is definitely an awesome resource.

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For some reason this is new to me......I really wish I had found it LAST YEAR as we struggled though SL Core 3 with me adding in all sorts of activities for more hands on projects for my BOYS!

 

I wish we could access the World Geography and Cultures, but I understand. It is just too much of a tease for me now that I can SEE it on the website! :D

 

Thank you!,

 

Dawn

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Thank you so much for Guest Hollow! We're using SL Core 3 but with many many add-on hands-on information from Guest Hollow because my dd8 NEEDS these to enjoy history. I plan to do core 3 for 2 years because there are just too many great books to read from SL and Guest Hollow lists!

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