If you wanted to do a quick one-year run through world history......

[Chloe]

with a 7th or 8th grader, which would you do?

 

Sonlight Core Alt 7

 

or

 

SOTW volumes 1 - 4 reading about a chapter a day (and maybe some historical fiction from SL thrown in)

 

Thanks!

[Guest]

Well, I would do SOTW but that said, I would take 2 years as the maps and such are fun!

[meet me in paris]

Alt 7 uses CHOW, which is pretty good, but I like it better for the younger grades.

 

SOTW 1-4 would be a good choice, but again, it's kinda "young" - especially in books 1 & 2.

 

My choice would be to use Gombrich's A Little History of the World, which has 40 chapters. You could do about a chapter a week, outline if you're into that, and have plenty of time for historical fiction or other tie-ins. It's in narrative form like the other two choices, but it's at a little higher level and more interesting, I think, for middle to upper grades.

[Guest]

Oh, yeah! i forgot about Gombrich! And I have it on my shelf, too. Good thing other moms are here.

[Barb_]

If you want detailed and thorough and you have a strong reader...K12 Human Odyssey really fit the bill for us. Our girls have done all three books in 2 years. One year would be pushing it.

 

Barb

[Melanie]

We just did the quick, one-year run through, but my 8th grader used A Short History of the World by John Morris Roberts. I supplemented the American history sections with primary sources taken from Great Issues in American History and The American Reader: Words That Moved a Nation.

[Jilly]

Alt 7 uses CHOW, which is pretty good, but I like it better for the younger grades.

 

SOTW 1-4 would be a good choice, but again, it's kinda "young" - especially in books 1 & 2.

 

My choice would be to use Gombrich's A Little History of the World, which has 40 chapters. You could do about a chapter a week, outline if you're into that, and have plenty of time for historical fiction or other tie-ins. It's in narrative form like the other two choices, but it's at a little higher level and more interesting, I think, for middle to upper grades.

 

:iagree:A Little History of the World is a wonderful book. I think it is perfect for this age.

[LisaKinVA]

We are planning to do VP SOTW 1-4, with the VP cards/chants/songs (not all of the extra reading) starting next summer for my oldest son.

 

However, this next year will also be a bit of a "break-year" as we transition to Jr. High, so everything is changing. I want the history to be on the "light" side, enjoyable -- giving him more time to read books he hasn't had an opportunity to.

 

I will also be pairing it with a high-school level geography course, over a year instead of a semester.

 

Beginning in 7th, we'll start with VP Omnibus, using History Odyssey as a spine for 7-9 ,and planning on SWB's adult history books for 10-12 -- with Spiegelvol.

[AngieW in Texas]

I wouldn't use SL Core Alt7 because I really really don't like CHOW and that is the spine.

 

You could just read through SOTW1-4 and add in historical fiction selected from SL Cores 6 and 7.

 

You could get the Oak Meadow 6 and 7 syllabi (history is printed in the syllabus) and cram them into one year. You'd definitely have to cut down the writing but it would work.

 

You could read through Story of Mankind in one year and add in historical fiction.

[Guest Dulcimeramy]

SL used to use the Story of Mankind for alt 7.

[Mosaicmind]

I am going to use SOTW with my SL Alt 7 this year. It will be fairly easy to implement.

[BethInNH]

Another option would be TRISMS History Makers: http://trisms.com/HM/learnmore.html

[SailorMom]

:iagree:

We LOVED History Makers.

[meet me in paris]

Another option would be TRISMS History Makers: http://trisms.com/HM/learnmore.html

I forgot about that one! Great idea!

[Chloe]

Wow! Thanks for all the suggestions. I guess my main dilemma between using Core Alt 7 and SOTW is that Sonlight uses many of the Foster books along with CHOW for Alt 7. If we used SOTW volumes I-4 with some hf books, we wouldn't have time to add the Foster books. Are they really worth it?

 

Thanks for the suggestion of A Little History of the World. We actually have it on cd and have listened to half of it in the past. This particular child doesn't retain as much unless he reads the material himself. I will think about getting the book and using that instead.

[StephanieZ]

I would definitely choose an option that includes plenty of books other than just SOTW. I haven't seen Alt-7 (we did 6 last year and are doing 7 this year), but the SL book lists have some really wonderful options.

 

If you want to use SOTW 1-4 as your spine, that would be just fine, but I would definitely choose a subset of the SL 6/7/Alt-7 books to read as well. You could use the Alt-7 book lists as a great starting point for read-alouds and readers, as I would imagine that SL has done a decent job picking the best from 6 & 7 to use for Alt-7.

 

If you use the SOTW audio for SOTW, that makes it go much faster and requires no mom-time, so you can use the mom-time for the OTHER read-alouds you pick (say at least 8), and then the kid-reading-time for OTHER readers (say at least 8-12).

 

HTH