Why, oh why, is SOTW 42 weeks?

[mommyto4]

Just a few weeks ago, I discovered that SOTW is 42 weeks! I guess I just assumed it was 36 weeks like most other curriculum. Now I am trying to cram the last 6 weeks in before July.

 

Just a rant, I guess!

[WiseOwlKnits]

I've often wondered the same thing. We school year round so it's not that big of a deal for us, but it's a bit irksome nonetheless.

[Shannon in TN]

I realized that the first year we did SOTW, so now we do sometimes two chapters in a week so we can still finish in 36 weeks.

[ccouch]

I know this doesn't help a whole lot now that you're at the end, but...here's a post that I bookmarked a little while back:

 

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showpost.php?p=289393&postcount=20

 

All chapters get a week, except for the following:

Intro and Chapter 1

Chapter 8 & 9

14 & 15

19 & 20

28 & 29

34 & 35

39 & 40

41 & 42

 

This gives me 35 weeks of lessons and 1 week to review, finish projects, or do additional reading.

[2_girls_mommy]

I know! You are doing better than we are, and I KNEW it was 42 weeks. We are supposed to do chapter 28 of vol. 3 today, and plan to start vol. 4 in Aug. That gives me June and July to do 12 chapters. Never mind that it took me a semester to do 14. Now I want to do 12 in 8 wks? Weeks that include camps, VBS, bdays, 4th of July, etc. LOL

[mommyto4]

I really wanted to get it done as my oldest is already going into Grade 4... I think we can do it. Next year, I will have to plan ahead!

[boscopup]

Some chapters only have one section, so they could be combined with another chapter. For example, we're doing Chapter 22 in SOTW1 right now. It has 2 sections. We do one section per day. Chapter 23 is only 1 section, so we're going to do that section on Friday this week, knocking out two chapters in one week very easily. Then well do Chapter 24 next week. I need to go through and see which other chapters we might be able to combine. I've only planned through Chapter 25 so far. :tongue_smilie: Of course, we started in January, so the 36 weeks doesn't matter for us. We're going through the summer, and currently are scheduled to start SOTW2 in October, I believe. I figure maybe by SOTW3 we'll be caught up to our year schedule... Maybe.

[Halcyon]

Well, we're not doing as well as any of you LOL. We want to finish SOTW 3 by September, and we're only on Chapter 16. That means 25 chapters in....3 months! That's about 8 chapters a month, or 2 chapters a week. Ha! I'm trying to let go, but since I'm starting HST+ in September it would be SO nice to start "fresh" with SOTW4.

[Halcyon]

I gave up on that idea. We are pretty much in the same boat (some odd place in SOTW 3). What I decided to do is finish SOTW 3 at our own pace and with the remaining time next school year do some US history. Then the following school year do SOTW 4. We love history and I don't really want to rush through just to get it done. DS doesn't want to do that either.

 

 

I hear you, absolutely. And I like your idea of doing American History once we're done.

 

But where does that leave you in the 4 year history cycle?

[sagira]

I hear ya. In the beginning I wanted to change our schoolyear to last 42 weeks too, and now we do do something similar. We school throughout the Summer until the last day of July, and this week we're finishing off The Moghul Empire - I believe (read: hope) it's Chapter 29.

[amsunshine]

We also been having a hard time finishing SOTW -- especially when we were enjoying going through each chapter a section at a time with narrations, and then having mapwork and extra reading for the rest of the week. But I'm starting to pick up the pace, and told my dds that we are "stepping up" to the next grade level in terms of workload and pacing. We are now doing 2 chapters per week for the rest of the year, but I'm doing it in 3 afternoon sessions per week with all narrations, extra reading, mapwork, and activities spread over those days (they also do independent reading correlated with the chapters over the course of the week). I was actually pleasantly surprised when my youngest dd said yesterday, "This was a really fun afternoon!" (We were just completing everything for Chapter 30 of SOTW2). So, at least they aren't feeling as rushed and frazzled as I am.:tongue_smilie:

 

We won't finish by the end of the year, but we can slow down to a more leisurely pace to finish over the summer, enjoying lots of Shakespeare.

 

This is a little too stressful for me, though, even though my dds seem to like it. Next year, I'm going to put together a similar schedule as a pp posted, where we do two chapters together at regular intervals throughout the year so we can finish easily by the end of the year.

[Haiku]

We just skip chapters we're not interested in. I only plan 30 weeks for history (we school year-round and I use the extra 12 weeks we have for other topics, such as map skills), and this year we were able to complete 39 of the 42 chapters. We skipped three due to lack of interest and combined some others.

 

Tara

[Homemama2]

 

We just skip chapters we're not interested in.

 

:iagree: This was us as well. I skipped any chapters that went into other religions or mythology. We plan to cover that more in depth when the kids are older and can understand it a little better. It ended up working out to be 38 chapters (I think) so for the last couple weeks of school we're covering a chapter and a half per week. This wasn't too bad, though, since they've finished up some of their subjects already.

[Diana B]

We are in SOTW Vol 1 and we are combining quite a few chapters to finish it up. We 'started' it in 1st grade, but didn't get very far. So we had a bit of a head start. This year for 2nd we've had too many 'breaks' from SOTW. Most of the time its because I pick up so many great books from the library we spend an extra week reading!

 

So I finally laid out what I have left for the school year (we school year round with about a month off in October). We are doubling up most weeks between now and then, but most of the doubling is with the chapters that are about the same place. So instead of doing 4+ weeks of Greek, we are doing 2. Same with Rome. We'll take just one chapter at a time for the civilizations that only have one chapter. Its easier than trying to switch gears for the week.

 

I'm not sure what we'll do for next year. I haven't even looked at Vol 2. But we'll probably just start out and see where we are half way through the year! :)

[Maverick_Mom]

I was stressing out over this, too. We're on week 29. But it dawned on me that since we're doing World Geography this year, and will continue that through the summer, I can just hold off on chapters 30-33 and roll them into our studies of India and China. It's not perfect, but it works. Then we'll just jump from 29 to 34 and continue from there.