SOTW and American History

[ele325]

We are using SOTW and we are finishing Ancients by Christmas and moving into Middle Ages. I am concerned that we will not cover enough American History. Any good recommendations out there? Would you cover some American history parrallel to SOTW or is there a logical place to put American history?

 

Thanks

Eleanor

[VaKim]

I covered American as a separate subject for that very reason. Now that we are up to the period where world history and american intersect, we dropped the separate american.

[*Jessica*]

We're doing them as separate subjects. I have a history lover who begged to do history five days a week, so we do world history three times per week and American history twice per week. He is in first grade, and my plans for the year are on the website I set up to keep track of what we're doing. This is only our first week of doing them both as separate subjects, though, so I don't have lots of experience to pass on. I think what we will do is learn about government in-depth during the same year we do SOTW4, so we can quickly review what we've already learned about the chapters that deal with American history but still have a full year of study. Does that make sense?

 

Mind-Fires Academy First Grade American History Plans

[HollyDay]

I supplemented with Beautiful Feet and Joy Hakim's History of the US

[Pam L in Mid Tenn]

You can read aloud the Landmark History of the American People. :)

[Whereneverever]

We're doing them as separate subjects. I have a history lover who begged to do history five days a week, so we do world history three times per week and American history twice per week. He is in first grade, and my plans for the year are on the website I set up to keep track of what we're doing. This is only our first week of doing them both as separate subjects, though, so I don't have lots of experience to pass on. I think what we will do is learn about government in-depth during the same year we do SOTW4, so we can quickly review what we've already learned about the chapters that deal with American history but still have a full year of study. Does that make sense?

 

Mind-Fires Academy First Grade American History Plans

Wow, thanks for linking this!

[*Jessica*]

Wow, thanks for linking this!

You're welcome! I love to share in the hopes that it will save other homeschoolers some time and effort. I love the searching and compiling, but to do it for only myself seems like such a waste.

[Guest Alte Veste Academy]

You're welcome! I love to share in the hopes that it will save other homeschoolers some time and effort. I love the searching and compiling, but to do it for only myself seems like such a waste.

 

Thanks from me too! I'm wondering how you access the Core Knowledge pdfs? I would love to see more of these.

 

ETA: Never mind. Found them! :)

Edited September 9, 2010 by Alte Veste Academy

[Laura Corin]

We added in extra American and British history whenever SOTW touched on it. We used This Country of Ours and Our Island Story. If you are using these texts, you will need to be prepared to either edit as you go along, or have a lot of discussions about how social attitudes have changed since they were written. They are good, engaging texts, however.

 

Laura

[ele325]

We're doing them as separate subjects. I have a history lover who begged to do history five days a week, so we do world history three times per week and American history twice per week. He is in first grade, and my plans for the year are on the website I set up to keep track of what we're doing. This is only our first week of doing them both as separate subjects, though, so I don't have lots of experience to pass on. I think what we will do is learn about government in-depth during the same year we do SOTW4, so we can quickly review what we've already learned about the chapters that deal with American history but still have a full year of study. Does that make sense?

 

Mind-Fires Academy First Grade American History Plans

 

 

Wow! Thanks this looks awesome.

[*Jessica*]

Thanks from me too! I'm wondering how you access the Core Knowledge pdfs? I would love to see more of these.

 

ETA: Never mind. Found them! :)

 

Wow! Thanks this looks awesome.

You're welcome!

[Chris in VA]

I covered basics of patriotic holidays and geography in 1st and 2nd grades, just through the natural course of living.

When we got to SOTW 3, I added in a few Sonlight titles and had dd memorize The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, and we went to Jamestown. We live near Mt. Vernon and go to George Washington's church, so that early stuff is a no-brainer here. She adores the Little House books, and has read or been read them about 8 or 9 times--so she's got a lot of knowledge that way.

 

I just keep it natural and lit based for the time being.

[Farrar]

We're doing SOTW 2 this year and plan to do US history as a separate subject next year... but why do so many of the books and plans I see only cover up to the Civil War? I would want to go through at least up to before WWI, when the US really entered the world stage as a major player and could be integrated into world history more easily.

[Nestof3]

I add in a little more, but we will break for Joy Hakim's History of US with lots of read alouds for 7th and 8th (Nathan's -- it will be Ben's 6th and 7th). We are taking our time through SOTW, finishing V3 this year and doing 4 next year. We will not do a lot of extras for SOTW 4 because we will spend two years focusing on American History. We will then return to the cycle for high school.

[sncstraub]

I add in a little more, but we will break for Joy Hakim's History of US with lots of read alouds for 7th and 8th (Nathan's -- it will be Ben's 6th and 7th).

 

Oh, I like this idea. We started our world history cycle this year while ds7 is in 2nd grade. We're using EasyClassical's schedule which combines VP history with SOTW. So that would put us at the end of the first cycle when he finishes 6th grade. I've been wondering what we'd do then as I'm not sure we'll continue on to Omnibus but with only 6 yrs left and not enough time to do 2 more history cycles. It would be great to do 2 yrs of American history for 7th and 8th.

 

Now what I'll do for his younger brother who is 4.5 and doing pre-K/K is another question...

[KarenNC]

For the first go round, I supplemented SOTW heavily with a variety of materials related to US history.

 

K--did an overview of modern world geography and cultures as well as US holidays, major figures, patriotic symbols, etc just to give her some familiarity.

 

1st-2nd--SOTW and activity guide

 

3-4th---added in material relevant to the US at appropriate points. I used The Story of the USA workbook series that Sonlight sells as a a spine (books 1-2 in 3rd, 3-4 in 4th roughly). Lots of read-alouds (Sonlight has good suggestions in level 3 and 4), videos, movies (I used old movies and musicals to add color when I could), Colonial Williamsburg electronic field trips, games (the Oregon Trail one on cd was very popular), field trips to local sites (Rev War, Civil War, etc). In order to do this, I did scant a bit on some of the areas of world history SOTW covered. We read all of it, but did not necessarily do many of the activities from the activity guide for those chapters.

 

This time around (logic), I'm using k12's Human Odyssey as a world spine and Joy Hakim's The Story of the US as my American spine. I'll combine them in much the same way.