Story of the World

[Pata]

Hey all! I am planning on using SOTW for Ancient Times along with the activity book for next year with my dd who will be 6yo. What I am wondering is how do you schedule this week to week? Also, do you use the tests? TIA

[AudreyTN]

I started out using SOTW last year with a 6,5 &3 yo. We usually did one chapter per week. One section a day with corresponding coloring/activities.

 

I never used the tests. The review questions in the AG and the activities were plenty.

 

[Elinor Everywhere]

We used SOTW and the AG for 1st grade, and it was wonderful. I didn't test, although I did do one narration a week (I just chose one of the sections).

 

Here's our schedule:

Monday - read section 1, and do map work as applicable

Tuesday - read section 2, & do map work (narrate either Monday or Tuesday)

Wednesday - Read library books (extras that are listed in the AG)

Thursday - Project out of AG

 

We only schooled 4 days a week in the early days. HTH!

[Susie in CA]

You will have a lot of fun. We just did a chapter a week (sometimes more, sometimes less). Get lots of books from the library to read along with it, do map work, coloring page, and a fun activity. Be flexible with it! You don't have to do all of that every week. :)

[Verena]

We're using SOTW 1 currently with AG. We do 1 chapter/week (on 2 days). We don't do any tests.

The book has 42 chapters, so we won't be done by school years' end, but we'll just continue into the summer.

 

We do history 2x/week.

First day: I read the chapter, dss color, oral narration

Second day: review, map, timeline, extra reading (actually the extra reading is done through out the week, our history books are always lying around).

Sometimes we watch a video to go with our studies, but not every week.

 

HTH,

Verena

[Tess in the Burbs]

We are starting SOTW Ancient in the fall as well with a 6.5 and 5 y/o. I was advised to do it three days straight and use the other two days of the week for science. So we plan to read some, listen to the CDs some and do some activities.

 

hope this helps!

[Cynful]

You might like this site for resources also:

 

http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/SOTWmenu.htm

 

HTH,

[Trivium Academy]

In first grade we bought the test but didn't use them, doing oral narrations were enough and the skill we were working on.

 

As for a weekly schedule:

 

Monday- read SOTW chapter first section, do corresponding coloring pages if any, oral narration, supplement books if any

Tuesday- same as Monday but with second section

Wednesday- same as Monday but if there is third section, mapwork for chapter

Thursday- project

 

Friday - we found it best to have a 4 day week for the younger years so Friday is just an extra day to finish anything we didn't during the week

 

Other helps, we used Veritas Press' History cards and songs for memory work after struggling to use the review cards in SOTW. And after using SOTW 1 and SOTW 2, I would suggest keeping the supplemental books to a minimum and focus on reading SOTW and drawing all you can out of it for this age. We read tons of books in first grade, esp. supplement books and if I had to do it over again (I will with my younger son) we'd limit the amount of extra reading and keep the reading short with picture books. There are fabulous picture books out available (some mentioned in the SOTW AG booklist and some not) that will draw your child in even more. Reading picture books at this age will make history come more alive for your child than reading from encyclopedia type books, I do suggest having Usborne's Internet Linked Encyclopedia of World History for visual reference and further exploration.

 

Check to see if you can get UnitedStreaming.com free in your state, some states it is free for homeschoolers and it has wonderful video supplements for the younger crowd including Animated Heroes series. Even if it's not free, it is well-worth the cost of subscription b/c you can use it for every subject.

 

One more tip: the Treasure Box Chests- Ancient Egypt, Ancient China and others for this time period are fabulous and also worth the investment. They provide fabulous maps, activities and little non-fiction books in them, my dd LOVES them and you can use them again if you save some of the activities for another run through the period.

 

 

 

Have Fun!

[Closeacademy]

We took 3 semesters to do SOTW I. We spent a semester in the first 1/3 of the book doing a chapter a week.

 

The next semester we just did the Greeks. We read a chapter every other week and filled in with Uborne's Book of Greek Myths for Young Children and did science on the other weeks. This was probably the best semester ever. We even learned the Greek Alphabet for fun.

 

Then we finished off with the last 1/3 of the book and did a chapter a week.

 

We didn't use the tests and I had my girls do the coloring pages and the maps while I read. We did some projects but not a lot.

[txchick]

We are using "Story of the World " on audio and the AG along side "Before America" (a catholic history text). I dont plan on using tests. Its mostly so he can just become familiar with history at this stage. Our focus this year is language Arts and Math. Probably not what you asked..but Im not into grading as much so the tests aren't needed here.

 

Donna;)

[Peek a Boo]

for a 6yo, try not to do *everything* lol. My guys didn't care for the coloring pages, so we skipped those. They colored the map while i read.

I was co-oping w/ a friend so we planned out the year to try to finish in 36 weeks. We skipped over the "Christian" chapters since our guys already knew those backwards and forwards :-) A couple chapters are naturally short simply because the information and/or projects section isn't lengthy.

 

We did end up spening a LOT more time on the Egyptian stuff!!! You might want to just plan a full *year* to cover it and have fun.

 

good luck!

[momtolgd]

I'm using SOTW 1 now with my 7 and 5 year olds...we sometimes plan it over 2 days.

 

Day 1: Read section 1, map work or coloring page as applicable, narration, read library books if we were able to get some

Day 2: Read section 2, narration, finish anything else from the AG, and do a project

 

Sometimes though we will do it all in one day...my kids really enjoy SOTW. We are only on Chapter 4 so far, but we are managing well with either 1 or 2 days each week to cover a chapter.

[Zelda]

I'm doing a chapter a week with my 5yo. No test. No activities except for an occasional coloring page. He's just not into crafts right now but he loves the story and the mapwork.

 

I've been doing 2 chapters a week with my 8yo trying to get her working closer to the rotation schedule but we're slowing down now that we're doing Greece and Rome because there's a lot of great supplemental reading and the subject really interests her. She does do the quizzes.

[Mama Lynx]

For us, SOTW works best when i am very casual about it. If I do a lot of scheduling we invariably get off track, I get stressed, and I get more concerned with "getting through the book" than about learning. Those are my issues, though, and you might not have them :)

 

We do a chapter a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. Some weeks all we do is read the chapter and maybe color a map. Some weeks I have extra books and we do activities. Sometimes we will stop for a couple of weeks on one topic. For instance, it can take months for us to get through the SOTW 2 section on Vikings/Norman Invasion/Knight and Castles. Then we just spend some weeks catching up by doing 2-3 chapters a week of the topics that are less interesting to us.

 

We don't use the tests. We do do the narrations. At the grammar stage I go for familiarity and fun. I don't expect them to be able to test well on the material.

[OH Lori]

When mine were little (the first cycle around), we did a story (within a chapter) every other day unless we had a big project associated with the unit. (One year we built a Viking longhouse out of mud and sticks, for instance.) Then we just stuck with it until I was ready to move on.

 

Now we basically do the same thing, although with a lot more outside reading for the big people.

[ArwenA]

Our SOTW schedule has stayed almost the same over the years, we've just added more stuff and made our lessons longer. We've always done one chapter per week (occasionally two) and do history Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In 1st we only spent about 1/2 and hour on history.

[Karen in CO]

We listened to it on CD several times a week. My dd listened to the SOTW on her ipod at night. She would listen to the block of chapters we were on - enough to be about 30 minutes of stories at a time. She really enjoyed it this way. We broke it up into three major divisions - Egypt, Greece, and Rome and spend a lot of time on each. We used lots of picture books suggested in the AG to go with each and we did lots of hands-on activities. She loved the Usborne Time Traveler history books also.

 

For Ancient Greece, the Mary Pope Osborne set of chapter books about the Odyssey were excellent for this age. We also found that Baldwin's 50 Famous Stories had some very good stories to go along with Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. We used the VP history cards instead of the ones in the AG. We also did narrations instead of tests.

[jedbel]

My son loves SOTW. I ask him to narrate instead of using tests. My only advice is to relax don't feel like you have to rush to get everything done in one year. We slowed down to read more books and he retained so much. We had lots of fun and I hope ya'll will to.

[mcconnellboys]

No! Not for one that young. I would think that would just kill all the fun! Enjoy your reading and any activities or extra picture books you choose. All you're doing the first time around is hanging pegs that will allow better memory to attachments when you go back over the same time period during logic stage. Instill a love of reading great history this time!

 

Have fun!

 

Regena

[AngieW in Texas]

I wouldn't use the tests with anybody under 3rd grade. The tests for SOTW4 are much more difficult than for the lower levels. I wouldn't use those tests until at least 4th grade and preferably 5th grade.

[Pata]

Thanks guys, so many great ideas. I'm glad to know that noone uses the tests with the younger, I kinda suspected it was too much.