If you don't start a history cycle in grade 1, what do you do?

[plain jane]

I'd love to hear what those of you who wait to start history studies do.

 

I'm contemplating a year of world geography but I'm not sure.

 

What's worked or is currently working for you?

[Homemama2]

We did American History (used Beautiful Feet Early American History) for 1st grade, for 2nd we did a year of world geography (used Galloping the Globe) and started Ancients this year in 3rd. We chose to do this because my younger son is in 1st this year so then I can keep them together. But I loved how it worked out!!!!! The world geography was alot of fun (crafts, recipes, making a passport, etc). My kids didn't retain a whole lot of it....but I made the mistake of not doing much review during the year, so that's probably my fault.

[mommyagain]

We're doing a combo of Five in a Row and Galloping the Globe this year. I have a K and 1st grader. Depending on how things go this year, next year we'll either continue with FIAR or start American History.

[Tracy]

We're doing a combo of Five in a Row and Galloping the Globe this year. I have a K and 1st grader. Depending on how things go this year, next year we'll either continue with FIAR or start American History.

 

We also did FIAR and geography for K last year, which would work just as well for 1st grade. I didn't know about Galloping the Globe at the time, so dd and I put together our own geography curriculum using living books. (Dd picked the country, and I found the books.) I posted my book list on my blog. It was a lot of fun, and after we had a few countries under our belt, we started playing the "Think of a Country" game. I think of a country and provide clues while dd tries to guess which one it is. She still insists on playing it all the time.

[Aloha2U]

In a nut shell:

 

K4

World History overview

World Geography

 

K5

U.S. History overview

World/U.S. Geography

 

G1

World History overview (read aloud CHOW & History Lives series)

World Geography (A Child's Geography, Volumes 1 & 2)

Classical Conversations, Cycle 2 (memory work includes Veritas Press Timeline, History Sentences, European and World Geography)

 

 

Next year:

 

G2

VP History (OTAE/NTGR combined)

 

 

HTH!

 

:001_smile: Melissa

[Heidi]

We are reading 50 Famous stories (some of the stories, not all), Viking Stories, and a few Dulaires books : Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Buffalo Bill via Ambleside online year 1. I'm dropping An Island Story and I'm going to start this rotation next year with history.

[Guest]

In K-1 we read Children Like Me and its companion book about holidays around the world. We took dd to japanese, French, and Italian restaurants; we had our own Chinese New Year celebration with readings and a paper dragon and red bags of coins; we made altars (for the dogs of my childhood) for Day of the Dead and went to look at altars in our local Hispanic heritage center. Sometimes we would read fairy tales or myths from the country whose food or activities we were trying out. Dh brought a child's kimono from a trip to Japan and we acted out a (very inaccurate tea) ceremony. We looked at lots of coins and paper money from other countries. Dd made a museum display at one point of toys she had been given from various places when people we knew traveled: Russian nesting dolls, a stuffed moose from Alaska, chopsticks and porcelain plates from Japan, etc.

 

We also read lots of books about maps -- dd was a map-obsessed little kid -- and made a 3-D model, quite large, of our street with all the houses, dogs, little matchbox cars, the park. This was the centerpiece at a neighborhood block party that year and everyone had their pictures taken next to it. Dd loved the book Scrambled States of America; she would act out the states' tea party with the wooden pieces of a US map puzzle.

 

We had a big laminated map of the world on the wall from early days and would stick pins with yarn threads leading to pictures or labels: where kids lived in various books we read, where Dh was traveling, where relatives lived, etc.