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Marsha
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We have been following the SL rotation, which is a little different. It groups Ancient/Middle Ages and then early modern/modern. Then you spend a year on just US history. This is repeated again once more, ending with core 100. The the upper cores are then a mix (church history, 20th Century in depth, British Lit, and US Civics). We plan to follow this through core 100, then if dd12 does stay home for high school, I will be doing each time period on it's own (to sure what we will use) and add in US civics/history in 11th and 12th.

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I am doing tanglewoodeducation.com which pretty much follows the 4 year rotation, but has 1 year for ancient, then 1.5 years on England, then starts in with American while still following England. I plan to use Sonlight starting with American (core 3+4) 5th grade after we are done with Tanglewood up to that point in history.

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No. We started it and then stopped and then picked it up again where we left and now we're skipping Early Modern history and going straight to Modern. Older DS wants to study the wars so we're going to go with more Modern history (from Civil War to present).

 

Younger ds hasn't done anything formal except listen to SOTW 1 CDs. We're skipping Middle Ages and going right to Early Modern for him next year, Modern then the next, then we'll start Ancients for him in 5th.

 

I'm thinking of not going with the 4 yr cycles in high school but doing a more "traditional" study like ps does....1 yr world, 1 yr Am, 1 yr civics/pol. science, and something else.

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Up until now we've been using the 4 year rotation, but next year we'll deviate. We're due for SOTW, Volume 4 and my oldest will be in 4th grade. Since the topics are mature for the younger ages, I've decided to go back to the ancients. This will coincide nicely with the boys first year study of Latin. We'll be using an integrated approach using Memoria Press materials.

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Does everyone do the 4 year history rotation?

 

What do you do?

 

We do the 4 year cycle right now [middle school] but looks like in high school we might have to mix it up a bit. We'll do ancient in 9th, world in 10th, US in 11th and Gov/econ in 12th to get all the requirements in.

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Sort of. With my oldest I have done the 4-year rotation but spread out a little bit. We spent 1 and 1/2 years on SOTW 1, we may spend the same amount of time on SOTW 2 because we took a little break and I have done some American history alongside the ancient history.

 

For my youngest, I am thinking of following the Waldorf cycle which goes 1st grade is fairy tales, 2nd grade is fables and saints, 3rd grade is old testament, 4th grade is norse, 5th grade is ancient Egypt and Greece, 6th grade is Rome and middle ages, and finish up in 8th with modern times. But we will see. :001_smile:

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When we decided to transition to TWTM and the four-year rotation, my daughter and I had already planned most of the reading list for a year-long study of American history focusing on social justice issues. We just plain weren't willing to give up that plan. So, that became her first year of rhetoric-level history. And, in order to keep them in the same era, I had my then-grammar-stage son do American history that year, too.

 

The following year, both started over with the ancients, but I realized that I no longer had four years left with my daughter to do a full rotation. So, we decided to compress it into three years. The plan was to just stretch the dates forward just a teeny bit for years 1 and 2 (taking us through 1700), then do modern world history, focusing on countries other than the U.S. (since we had covered the same period from the American point of view previously).

 

Well, that's clear as mud, huh?

 

Anyway, as it turned out, my daughter ended up jumping ship a year earlier than I had anticipated. and never got that modern world history course. It doesn't seem to be a big problem, though, since she's done quite well in her Western Civ classes this year and says she has yet to encounter something she didn't study at home.

 

My son and I decided to follow through with the plan, though, which will put him in position to start over with the ancients next year. I hope we'll be able to get through at least one full rotation before he, too, decides it's time to move on!

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We use the 4-year cycle; two daughters, two years apart. Right now we are finishing up our second trip through the middle ages. When dd#1 starts her final high school cycle, dd#2 will break away and do her own thing (to be determined) for 7th and 8th grades before starting her final high school cycle.

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we are fitting the 4 year cycle into 3 years and doing that 3 times through, so we will be done with that in 9 years instead of 12. And then the 10th year will be spent on whatever else I think they need to work on, whatever high school stuff they should do, and then their last 2 years can be spent working, apprenticing, foreign exchange, going to public school as a missionary, etc....

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Our family has done the four year cycle--mostly. We are on our third or so rotation and what I like about doing this is that it limits my choices each year. I don't have to "choose" what time period we are doing, I just simply do the next rotation. It makes going to conventions a lot easier.

 

We have veered off "schedule" a couple of times. A couple of years ago, for example, most of my kids did Sonlight 5. This past year, we just picked up where we were and moved on.

 

I'm not rigid or anything, it has just made life a little simpler for me around this time of year when I am hunting for books for the following year.

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Does everyone do the 4 year history rotation?

 

What do you do?

 

We do the 4-yr rotation, but we're going to break it up whenever we finish early with geography, US history, etc. We'll also have units on wherever we visit.

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I don't care about getting the cycles in.

 

I care about working at DD's level at the 'next thing.'

 

So, for instance, we are in SOTW4 now and are also using Kingfisher for her outlining. We are also doing some amplifications of the US history part of it, because I want her to know that thoroughly and thoughtfully. So I'm using some Steward Ship unit studies as well as extra fiction and non-fiction reading kind of interspersed with our march through world history as a whole. This is working out quite well. DD is 11 1/2.

 

I just reread TWTM, and see that SWB cleverly anticipated that there might not be as much American history coverage in the world history books for some people, and she suggested using the Critical Thinking in US History books to amplify on the AH part of of WH. That was a really, really good idea, but I had forgotten about it so that's why I ended up trying All American History (a fine text, but not nearly as engaging as SOTW) and these unit studies. I may use the CT books next year as part of our emerging logic studies. When will I learn to reread TWTM more often???

 

I have occasionally thought that we would converge into a Sonlight approach sometime, but that never seems to quite work out. I had planned to do Sonlight 5 after we finished SOTW4, but probably won't at this point. Instead we will probably work in some third world country little unit studies or flash studies into our progress here and there. For instance, DD wants to learn about Japan, so I have assembled a bunch of books taking place there. I'm not assigning them as history or social studies, but more as a theme imposed on some of her outside reading.

 

I believe that the main thing is that no matter what history topic you are studying, you do it at the child's level with ancillary assignments that are appropriate to his stage of learning.

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Both of my girls did the first rotation from 1st - 4th grade. My 4th grader is finishing SOTW 4, and my ds is in SOTW 1, and will continue with all four years.

 

After that, I diverge a bit. We've done a year of British history, a semester of medieval history, a semester of 20th century history, and we recently started Sonlight's American history programs (Cores 100, for my oldest, and 3+4 for my younger dd), which we'll continue through next year.

 

I plan to cycle back through in high school.

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Our history rotation is taking more like 5 1/2 years. We LOVE SOTW and don't want to blast through--we want to savor as we go.

 

Dd will do two years of American History, government, and civics before starting SWB's high school history stuff. If our Am History and government stuff can get done a little quicker, we will start high school history early.

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We are doing a very odd sort of two-cycle history plan that is more waldorf the first time through and CM the second time. I'm using Core Knowledge and the standard waldorf cycle for our first time through. The second time I plan to use Ambleside's HEO and add some more world history.

 

1st - Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt (CK) World fairy tales (waldorf) Early American Civilization through colonies (CK)

2nd - Ancient India and China (CK) World legends (waldorf) Making the U.S. Constitution through Civil Rights Leaders (CK)

3rd - Ancient Greece and Rome (CK) Old Testament studies (waldorf) Earliest Americans through colonies (CK)

4th - Vikings and Middle Ages (CK) Norse Myths, Kalevala (waldorf) American Revolution through Early Presidents (CK)

5th - Renaissance and Reformation (CK) Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China and Persia (waldorf) Westward Expansion through Civil War (CK)

6th - Exploration to the present (CK) Ancient Greece and Rome (waldorf) Immigration through American reforms (CK)

 

American History is covered twice in Core Knowledge - 1st through 2nd and again 3rd through 6th. I add in this and that to our American Studies as needed. For 7th-12th American and World history will be studied together

 

7th - 800-1400's

8th - 1400's - 1600's

9th - 1600's - 1815

10th - 1815 - 1900

11th - 20th Century

12th - Current Events and Ancient History

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We do the 4 year rotation, but only twice. We use SOTW for my younger 2. My eldest did the first two books, but is older, so we are using a World Studies book to do a shorter time for the latter half. We're hoping to use as much of SWB's high school and self-education books. So far only the Ancients is out, but she's diligently working on the second manuscript. I'm guessing my eldest won't be able to do all 4 years of it, but that at least one of my younger two will.

 

We start history somewhere in the first 4 years, but not first or second grade, which means we won't run into issues with SOTW 4, which we don't have yet. In fact, I plan to use that more when my kids are in middle school. Apparently PHP will be putting out materials for older students to use, so I'm looking forward to that.

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We also took 5 years instead of 4 going through SOTW, but spent much time in time periods that interested us. Now, in 4th and 6th grades, we borrowed the SOTW CD's and listened to all four volumes in one year (no activities, just listened, enjoyed, and reviewed our notebooks). It was wonderful to have that overview. We decided to move onto Tapestry of Grace next year, but we have enjoyed all we've done to this point.

Julie

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No, we spend 1.5 years on ancients, 1.5 on middle/Renaissance ages, and condense 3/4 into one year. With that said, we do a few units every year around patriotic holidays on an American History/Government topic, play American History & Government based games, view DVDs, and read books.

 

We most likely will skip American History/Government in 8th grade & do a non-western cultures study similar to SL5.

 

I use the linked calendar as a starting point to discuss topics in American history 2x or more per week. I also use many of the lesson plans found via the 2nd link.

http://www.crf-usa.org/history_calendar/january_08.htm

http://www.crf-usa.org/constitution_day/constitution_day_home.htm

 

 

Here's a basic schedule for this year. We add topics as the calendar months show up.

 

January: Emancipation Proclamation/MLK/Civil Rights

February: President's Day (4-6 presidents a year)

March: Various (Boston Massacre)

April: Spanish American War, Paul Revere's ride, etc.

May: Various

June: Junteenth & Reconstruction

Fourth of July (American Revolution, Founding Fathers, etc.,)

August--War of 1812

September-Constitution Day--month long study

October: Discovery of America--1st Nations)

November: Veteran's Day, World War I or II, Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, 1st Nations

December--Boston Tea Party with lots of tea!

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With my youngers, who are the only ones I'll have from the beginning, are doing HOD from K through 2nd. Then in 3rd grade we'll begin with a 1/2 year of state study, followed by 1 1/2 years of ancient history. We use MOH, and there will be 5 of those, so I guess that's 6 years - twice.

 

With my oldest, I only started the rotation recently. We started with a 1/2 year of state study during the last part of 3rd grade (because we were doing it with scouts and I just ran with it), and recently began MOH 1.

He's a 4th grader now (as of Feb), and will probably have to combine in high school. (For certain he will only take one year max to go through the ancients, since we're taking so long this first time.) Haven't figured his out all nicely and neatly all the way through, yet. The first time through he'll take it as it comes, and we'll do some "figuring" after that.

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I plan to with dd4. When she starts 1st grade, the plan is to start with TOG then. This year we studied modern history using mostly Netflix videos. Next year, I am planning to use James Baldwin's history story books and Edward Eggleston's American history stories, focusing on the people of history. The year after that, maybe The Young Folks' Josephus or Greenleaf Old Testament, then start with TOG Redesigned Year 1.

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We do the 4 year history rotation. It has been kind of the central pin of our homeschool since I read TWTM even though I don't follow TWTM very closely. It just feels like a really convenient and organised way to study history AND literature. And we didn't even start from the beginning- we will only get through twice, if that, with my older. We do it together, because I love history!

I add in our country's history (Australia) as a parallel stream and that has never been a problem. Sometimes they will just have a living book, a novel, each term, and sometimes they have read historical accounts or even text books. I focus on Australia's history more deeply as we come to the time in world history, too, but our history, apart from the aborigines which we cover when we do Ancients, is even more recent that U.S. history.

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I REALLY wanted to do the 4 year thing. It didn't work out. So we are using CHOW as a 1 year overview and maybe History Ody. Level 2 starting next year. Or I may go with Oak Meadow for Middle school. I started late with mine but with the youngers, I am going to try to start TWTM from the start. We will see how their grammar stage stacks up. It has to be better than my two older guiena pigs.

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We cycled through history only once during my dc's elementary years--although one of them had a cycle and a half since he jumped in on his sister's schedule in the 3rd year. In high school we go back to doing classes--World history, American history, Government, Economics, Geography, and Philosophy/Ethics/World Views.

 

J

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