SOTW: How do you possibly finish in a year?

[Jamee]

We have been going through SOTW 1 with DS since last January. We LOVE it, but I can't believe how long it's taking us to get through it. We work on it MWFs and do about a chapter a week, including a few of the extra reading as well (he's 5th grade now, so he needs more). We we only be on Chapter 26 by the end of this month and I REALLY want to get to the middle ages. (my favorite time period):D But, I'm also wondering what I'm going to have to change to get us through the book at a reasonable pace since he'll be doing even more reading as we continue.

 

So, how do you schedule SOTW? Do you do more than one chapter a week? Are you including any of the extra activities/readings as directed in the activity guides? I won't be skipping anything since he loves history so much and is enjoy the studies, I'm just really concerned that we don't get behind even further.

[MelissaMinNC]

I keep reminding myself that dd does not need to be a history expert this year. ;)

 

We started SOTW 2 in August, and we have 4 chapters left. We've been reading about 2 chapters a week most of the time, some extra library books but no projects. Notebook pages, maps and Book of Centuries (timeline notebook). One day we read one chapter and she does a notebook page - draw a picture and write a paragraph or so narration. The next history session, we read the next chapter and do a map and timeline. We add timeline info from both chapters. Sometimes we do the map the first day, just depending. I don't have the AG, so we're not doing any extra projects, and we're good with that at this moment. My current plan is to take a few weeks off after finishing Vol 2 and use our history time to read a Shakespeare play instead. Then start Vol 3 after Christmas and finish by end of year.

 

DD is a youngish 4th grader, and this was NOT my original plan; but this has been a bit of a strange year so far, and in thinking about what we want to do next year, I decided to speed things up a bit. We're doing some extra reading for depth as read-alouds or dd is doing independently.

 

:)

Melissa

[Jamee]

I keep reminding myself that dd does not need to be a history expert this year. ;)

 

We started SOTW 2 in August, and we have 4 chapters left. We've been reading about 2 chapters a week most of the time, some extra library books but no projects. Notebook pages, maps and Book of Centuries (timeline notebook). Melissa

 

Oh wow! That's fast. We have only done maybe 12 chapters so far this year, since August. Does she like history? Maybe that's part of our issue. We both like history so take our time and do a lot of extras. For example, with just the Egypt chapters alone in book 1, he's also read Tales of Ancient Egypt, the Landmark Pharaohs book and several others. I don't want to go so fast through the chapters that he's still finishing up other, past topics while moving along in the book. At the same time I need to pick up the pace too. Maybe come January, we'll move to doing history five days a week.

 

Thanks for responding. Looking forward to hearing more.

[HollyDay]

I've never finished any vol of SOTW in 1 year. It has always taken 2

[Hedgehogs4]

We get the audio CDs and listen in the car. We went through voumes 1-3 last year and are now re-listening to volume 2 and going more in-depth with additional reading in the house. when we get in the car they start chanting "story...of...the...world"

 

They have learned A LOT this way, and as i said, we choose books that will go along with where we are and read them during reading time at home, but it keeps us moving through the SOTW material.

[MaMa2005]

I scheduled ours at 2 chapters a week (M and TH) which has us finishing January 20, 2011. At that point we will pick up a geography course for the remainder of the year.

 

We have the CDs and review the questions as well as narration/map work/coloring page. For enrichment, I have been able to find things on Discovery Streaming that DS can watch on his own.

[sagira]

We do one chapter a week. Last year we started SOTW 1 in Sept. 2009 and finished the whole book, skipping only one chapter, in early August of 2010 (we had a two-week vacation in Aruba in July). Basically, we do light school starting in June and ending in early August to finish up SOTW. We do history 4 days a week.

 

To give you an idea about this year with SOTW 2, we started on Sept. 7 with our school year, and now we just completed Chapter 9. Ds is 7, and we have four short lessons each week. I do use the CDs as review.

Edited November 7, 2010 by sagira

[crl]

In order to finish one book a year, we follow the schedule listed here:

http://barefootmeandering.com/homeschool/planning/

[patchfire]

I do a lot of advance planning in order to find chapters that will work well to combine into one week. For instance, there weren't many history or literature titles available for either Assyria or Babylon, so we did those two chapters the same week. I think for this year (SOTW 1), we're doing two chapters a week six or seven times.

 

We do the review questions, either an oral or a written narration, the coloring page, and the mapwork. We read the corresponding pages in UBWH. We read additional literature or history books - usually one or two on the history, and two or three on the literature. This is for a kindergarten/first grade level. We do not tend to do many projects because I'm just not a crafty projecty sort of mom.

[NanceXToo]

*I* don't, but then I tend to do SOTW over the summer and just focus on Oak Meadow (which is out main curriculum) over the school year. It feels too stressful to try to do BOTH over the school year, so SOTW has been relegated to summers/more for fun.

 

And with how busy our summers are, we don't get extremely far over the summer with it, either!

 

So, the summer after third grade, we started SOTW, and worked on it that summer and last summer (the summer after fourth grade) and only made it through like 13 chapters of SOTW1 so far. I guess at this rate we'll probably finish SOTW1 when she graduates high school or something haha.

[imhim]

I skipped a couple of chapters. In SOTW 1 I skipped Confucius and some others like that. Did not see any benefit to for my first grader in that. We concentrated on the big civilizations. They remember the projects for those.

[Chris in VA]

I think you said something key, OP--that you don't want to move on to the next chapter until you've finished the extra reading from the previous chapter.

We find we just couldn't work it that way. We did projects, map work, some of the coloring pages, and one narration per chapter. I actually skipped three chapters in SOTW 1, but have gone thru all the other ones (through SOTW 3--haven't don't 4 yet).

I try to do 2 chapters in one week every now and then, and we did history 4 days a week (but at least one of those days was JUST a project or JUST a reading). I also don't have a read aloud or outside independent reading for every chapter--most of them, but not every one. Dd is a very fast reader, also, so she could handle a 250 page book of extra reading once a week, if I wanted to give her one. She no longer wants to be read to, and historical fiction isn't her very favorite, so I tried (4th grade, last year, btw) to just pick about 15-20 books for the year.

Oh, and we also go about 38 weeks for school, at least for history and math; grammar is usually finished early, we go to the next math book, and spelling gets done early, too, so our final 3-5 weeks are light.

[redsquirrel]

We always finished in a year. I start school in september and am finished by early to mid june. We do a chapter a week. Some chapters have two parts and each part gets it own day, but we do them the same week. Some weeks have short chapter and those we combine with the following week, if possilbe. We always do narration and mapwork. So, I do history at least twice a week with my grammar stage kid.

 

I don't do an activity every week, only if there is something that I know my kids would like. I don't always do the extra reading, again, only if I know my kids would like whatever is available and we have the time. Some weeks we do extra reading AND a project. It just depends on what is offered and available.

 

Now, logic stage kid does history at least three times a week but that is because there is more reading and writing. He also joins in for any projects.

[ChrissySC]

We do history twice a week. Even using HO with SOTW as the spine, we will not finish. It isn't the "expert" study. It is the exploration that will hold us back. However, I feel a good look at the country and culture of the time are something that we enjoy. We do lots of projects. I figure if it takes loonger that it isn't a big deal. She is learning. :)

[Mommyfaithe]

It took us 5 years to get through SOTW 1-3. We are about to start 4 as soon as I can get myself together enough to start school back up this year. I am figuring on 3 semesters for SOTW4. We took our time, the scenic route and really did tons of extras throughout the years. It has been a rich study and I am happy we stuck to it.

 

Faithe

[robsiew]

I think you just need to figure out what you want out of history. Some people, even when their kids are young want really in-depth. Some middle road and some just a survey....

 

Personally, this is our first time through world history. We are not going indepth. Most of my kids are young (the oldest just turned 10) and probably will not remember a lot anyway. We are just finishing SOTW2 and will begin SOTW3 in January. We've taken about a year in each period of history. I'm hoping to be done with SOTW3 by next fall (we school through summer) and then we'll likely start ancients again when ds is in 5th grade, skipping modern history this time around (possibly doing SOTW4 with my older one on audio). I plan to go a bit more indepth with my logic kids, then even more indepth with HS. I would rather save the slower pace for HS when they will be able to do analysis better.

 

My advice would be the younger your kids are the less to get bogged down. There will be plenty of time later to go in depth. Also... I think we need to keep in mind that our kids will not remember EVERYTHING about world history. If they have a basic grasp of a world timeline and an understanding of what drives the major cultures of the world as well as locating a majority of countries on a map I think we've done our children well. I would venture to guess a vast majority of adults and even fewer children can do those things. My opinion though and many don't hold to this! :D

[kalanamak]

We get the audio CDs and listen in the car.

 

They have learned A LOT this way, and as i said, we choose books that will go along with where we are and read them during reading time at home, but it keeps us moving through the SOTW material.

 

My son listens while he colors, and I know he learns because he'll suddenly say "X and Y! They fought at Z" when we come up on something in our read-alouds, and I don't even remember covering it.

 

If I"m behind, I skip a narration. We have done no projects at all (we are more testtube and chemicals people than lapbook people) except mummifying a fish. My son doesn't even color the maps, because he wants his coloring to be as perfect as the map on the wall. It isn't, so he hates to do it. We do spend time looking over the map, but we try to look at SOMEthing on the wall map every day.

 

I also read the book like a story book, clicking through as many chapters as we can before kiddo gets restless. When I pick it up again, we repeat the last 4 and continue on. Then, when I ask him to sit and pay attention, and ask him the questions or narration, he is listening to details because he already knows the general gist.

 

Have you considered doing the reading and questions and narrations on one day, putting a couple extra books in as bedtime read alouds, and any hands on projects to be done on the weekend if there is time.

HTH!

[ReidFamily]

We get the audio CDs and listen in the car. We went through voumes 1-3 last year and are now re-listening to volume 2 and going more in-depth with additional reading in the house. when we get in the car they start chanting "story...of...the...world"

 

They have learned A LOT this way, and as i said, we choose books that will go along with where we are and read them during reading time at home, but it keeps us moving through the SOTW material.

 

I am finding this result too!! We just started SOTW in September and it was moving very slow. We were still on chapter 4 last week. Then we picked up the CD's and we are on Chapter 26 on the audio version with only a week of possession. She loves them soooo much and always wants to listen to it even though we have other audio books available now. Sometimes we re-listen to chapters she found particularly interesting. My plan is that we will read through our book as well which will be like hearing it a 2nd and 3rd time after listening to it in the car and then she is all ready familiar with it.

 

I'm finding so far that my daughter is not interested much in all the extra's yet. But I think we'll get through all 4 books this year via CD and then revisit the books by reading them and pausing on chapters that we want to go deeper in. No matter how we do it she is getting way more history than I was ever exposed to so I'm not too worried.

[ReidFamily]

I've only been at this a very short while but this has been my take on this too.

 

I'm sure we spent months on many topics in public school in my elementary years but I only remember one. For me, I learned the most and retained the most in High School and College and all of it was so fascinating and "fun". But I'm disappointed looking back because it wasn't until we picked up SOTW that history makes much of any sense. Prior to that it was introduced to me in a very choppy, random manner.

 

I think you just need to figure out what you want out of history. Some people, even when their kids are young want really in-depth. Some middle road and some just a survey....

 

Personally, this is our first time through world history. We are not going indepth. Most of my kids are young (the oldest just turned 10) and probably will not remember a lot anyway. We are just finishing SOTW2 and will begin SOTW3 in January. We've taken about a year in each period of history. I'm hoping to be done with SOTW3 by next fall (we school through summer) and then we'll likely start ancients again when ds is in 5th grade, skipping modern history this time around (possibly doing SOTW4 with my older one on audio). I plan to go a bit more indepth with my logic kids, then even more indepth with HS. I would rather save the slower pace for HS when they will be able to do analysis better.

 

My advice would be the younger your kids are the less to get bogged down. There will be plenty of time later to go in depth. Also... I think we need to keep in mind that our kids will not remember EVERYTHING about world history. If they have a basic grasp of a world timeline and an understanding of what drives the major cultures of the world as well as locating a majority of countries on a map I think we've done our children well. I would venture to guess a vast majority of adults and even fewer children can do those things. My opinion though and many don't hold to this! :D

[Krista in LA]

I've never finished any vol of SOTW in 1 year. It has always taken 2

 

:iagree:

 

Us too. My ds is in 7th grade and we should finish SOTW4 this year. Some years we have done it all summer long to try to catch up some, but basically we keep chugging along until we finish a book and then just move on to the next one. We've been known to take a month or more on things like the Civil War too.

[5LittleMonkeys]

How do we finish in a year? We don't. Last year we did SOTW1 and I had to leave out a lot of chapters. There were so many activities and extra books that we wanted to experience. We ended up concentrating on the major civilizations. Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome. But I still felt stressed that we weren't getting to every chapter.:confused: This year(starting in July) I was determined to get through the whole book and scheduled accordingly. Well, we concentrate so heavily on our core subjects that there were many days that we were just tired and couldn't get to to the history...especially if it was a day that we were scheduled to do a project that would take 30 to 40 minutes. There were several subjects that the dc wanted to spend more time on but I kept pressing forward so we could "stay on schedule" We were moving through it so fast that my dc weren't enjoying it at all. We had gotten to the point that the curriculum and my schedule was controlling how we learned.

 

We are two weeks away from our 6 week winter break so when we start back in January we are switching to a interest\project based method. SOTW will play some role in my dc's learning but only as one of many tools to read about a subject of interest and the AG will become a point of reference for looking up other book recommendations or finding projects that tie to that interest. I know we will be using it in that capacity for a little while in Jan. becuase dd7 has expressed interest in learning about the Kings and Queens of England. SOTW will make a nice addition to the other resources we are gathering.

 

If my dc didn't have specific interests in history that they wanted to spend more time on I would just read through the book, doing coloring pages, maps and a project or two at an easy pace and finish when we finish...even if it took almost two years. I've learned my lesson in trying to mold my dc to a curriculum. It has to be the other way around for us. :D

[PenKase]

I too was wondering how long it would take us to finish each volume. This is our first year homeschooling and our first time doing world history. It's been a HUGE hit in our home. We are doing STOW-1 with dd6 (almost 7) and dd10. We're currently in chapter 12 and I'm quite happy to have decided to school year round because I just don't see how we would finish otherwise. It's great to see that some of you are taking longer to finish. See, I'd rather do lapbooks than testtubes!!!

[AngelBee]

This thread is freaking me out as we are trying to get through all 42 chaps of one book and an additional 14 chaps of the next book in one year. Granted, we school year round.....but still. Maybe that is unrealistic.

 

Hmm.....

[mcconnellboys]

Yes, we read more than one chapter in some weeks in order to finish in a 36 week year. We read loads and loads of extra books, too. In some years, my son has wanted to do the coloring work associated with the activity guide, but not often. If there's any sort of written activity, like a word search, etc. then we will generally do that. We always do the map work. But we've never really done the activities. I'm just not much of a hands-on person.....

 

For logic stage, I have my son reading SOTW on his own and outlining one section of the chapter each week. We're still doing map work and adding in more from other sources. And we're still reading loads of other books. He's reading more of these on his own now, too....

[Jamee]

Thanks so much for all the suggestions, encouragment and you-are-not-alones. I guess we'll just keep plugging away and double up where we can. I'm also going to check out the schedule that was posted too.

 

I really like how it's set up and as one with a history degree, love to see history emphasized so young. I really wish they had the new history texts outlined and scheduled out as well as SOTW.

[Jamee]

In order to finish one book a year, we follow the schedule listed here:

http://barefootmeandering.com/homeschool/planning/

 

 

THANK YOU!!!! I have not seen this planning schedule before and it looks fantastic.

[SweetMissMagnolia]

I don't think we'll be able to finish it in a year either.............so I can relate........

[cschnee]

I've never finished any vol of SOTW in 1 year. It has always taken 2

:iagree:We are on book 4 now and the others all took at least 2 years to do, with lots of extra books and activities. Looks like sotw 4 will take us 3 years the way I have it mapped out, to add Canadian geo and hist at the pertinent times. For sotw 4 we take 1 week to do each of the parts of each chapter, so 2 weeks per chapter, with the Cdn hist and geo added in, we will only get to chap 11 of sotw 4 this year...

[JenC3]

We will finish SOTW at the end of March and we started in the first of June. I can do it in 9 months, but we also go year round so Im not too stressed over it. We will do SOTW twice before HS. This go through is activities, listening to the CD's, maps coloring, lapbooks. We also read additional picture books, not the chapter books. We just have too many read alouds so the longer history RA's will be done the next go around by dd in 5-8th.

[elise1mds]

We do a book a year. I schedule it all out before the year starts so I can work out which chapters I want to cover together. First we review the old chapter(s) and do the narration for that to reinforce what we learned the week before. Then I read the current week's chapter(s) out loud and he answers the review questions. This is all in one day and usually takes us about half an hour. Then we have one or two more days of history during the week where we do coloring pages and/or projects and/or supplemental reading. He loves it and was able to instruct my husband the other day when he discovered DH didn't know who Charles Martel was. He saw my library book tonight - Caesar's Gallic Wars - and instantly knew who Caesar was and what the Gallic Wars were, so it must be sticking pretty well. Sometimes I feel that we're not going deep enough, but then I remember we'll hit it twice more, so I feel better and keep going. :)

[Tylianna]

In order to finish one book a year, we follow the schedule listed here:

http://barefootmeandering.com/homeschool/planning/

 

Bumping to see if anyone has a copy of this schedule? It won't load up for me! :glare:

 

PM me if you have it, please!