Does Anyone NOT Like SOTW

[peacefully]

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[Guest]

You guys do realize that this is a *history* book, not a bible curriculum, right? The Greek god stuff is in there because that culture actually existed and is *historical*. Ditto with Islam and Muhammad. Are Christians supposed to pretend like there is no history other than Christian history? :confused: This POV confuses me.

 

If you look at my post, specifically, you will see that I mentioned two other books that include these topics, they were just handled differently. I said I do not like how SOTW presented it. That does not mean I don't think it should be presented.

[Guest]

I'm really surprised at how many parents have an issue with teaching their kids about other gods. I consider myself a Christian and didn't grow up with any particular belief system. I loved reading myths and about other culture's gods. Not once did I believe they were real and I was a real literal child.

 

Neither have my literal minded Aspies ever been confused on the issue. I think they think they are like comic book characters. (And some of them were turned into that)

 

I don't need my history text to teach Bible. So STOW was/is a good fit for us. Same thing with Science. I want them to be presented with different viewpoints. It makes my faith stronger to consider other viewpoints.

 

But then I differ in a lot of education areas with other conservative Christians apparently so I probably shouldn't be surprised.

 

 

I think you are misunderstanding. I think it is the way it is presented that makes a difference... for me, anyway.

[ehommel]

I love history and have wanted to get SOTW. We're doing K12 next year and I was sad we wouldn't get to read SOTW. The previous comment has made my day! :001_smile:

[Mama2Many4]

*Raising hand*

 

We don't like SOTW. It's a flop for us. I have the hard cover vol 1 book and the AG that is in mint condition that I now have to get rid of. Oh well, we're going to use CHOW. Live and learn what works best for you.

[Momling]

SOTW wasn't a great fit for us either. We tried with SOTW 1, but I just didn't care for the tone... and how it missed out on topics I think are quite important (Greek philosophers, for instance) and... well... I can't stand the illustrations in it. I am really bothered by them.

 

That said, I think I probably am a little picky. But I know the sorts of books that work well for us, and SOTW just wasn't it.

[kitten18]

:lol::lol::lol: These thread crack me up.

 

"It's too religious"

 

"It's not religious enough"

 

 

We love SOTW.

[RahRah]

I'll preface that I like SOTW - I like the idea of approaching history in the grammar stage in story format, I like the CD's and I like the flow of the story....as a story, not as a way to teach history.

 

That said, I don't like the jumping around to maintain chronological order - while the story flows in listening to it, it's not (IMHO) a great way to do activities and other materials. For example, in SOTW 1 the story is moving along from pre-history, to the first peoples, to early Egypt and continues chronologically, jumping all over, returning to Egypt after seven chapters and does the same interruption when it gets to Greece, then again in the middle of Rome. Okay - I get the chronology - but to me it just makes it harder for kids to remember some things.

 

So I pretty quickly adapted our approach to SOTW and I think we've hit on a way to do it and DS really likes the way we're doing it. First we listen to the entire story on CD - usually in the car as we're out and about doing things. While we're listening to the SOTW, we aren't doing any other activities around the book, or history. We'll do general geography until we're done with the listening of the CD's as our history period.

 

So, with that, he's heard the story and has some basis to go with when we move on to the 'meaty' stuff and we hit the Kingfisher Atlas of World History as our spine for the rest of the period we're doing. That is segmented by periods, so something like Egypt is all presented as one - so we can take our time learning about all the things about ancient egypt in a more "unit" fashion than do a little here, then move to something else, then come back to it again.

 

It's when we get to using that book that I incorporate our living books, maps, projects and activities to go with each area we'll get to in the year. For me, it makes it that much easier to plan and gather what I need since, for example, I don't have to do pyramids and mummies, but ignore the Egyptian gods until later, or the pharohs, then do them when the chapter in SOTW includes them....when we're doing Egypt, we did all of Egypt as one big unit rather than bouncing around.

Edited July 14, 2011 by RahRah

[Sahamamama]

I have tried and tried to like it, but... I don't. I truly did try, though. ;)

[NancyNellen]

We definitely fall into the adoring crowd here. We have used the whole SOTW series two times through, and I appreciate the role it played in fostering a true love for history in my children. I personally thought it was thorough without being tedious, and the stories were the perfect length for my children to follow without losing interest. My children had no issues understanding how the stories were presented (myth vs. fact), but we had already read a ton of fairy tales, Christian biographies, historical fiction, and Biblical accounts, etc...so maybe they were just used to it.

 

They didn't remember everything (not that I expected them to) and there were the occasional subjects that garnered less interest than others, but all-in-all, I am thrilled that it was available for my early days of homeschooling littles. I will always cherish the memories of cuddling on the couch and reading the next story out of SOTW.

[Thia]

I just thought to come back and say that I've enjoyed reading this thread tremendously. I have opted to give it a try. So away we go...

[Poke Salad Annie]

Yep. If I could go back in time, I would use Builders of the Old World as our spine for the last two years (it covers the ancients through the Renaissance). I would absolutely still buy SOTW and read parts of it to the kids, but I wish I'd used that instead as my base. It isn't perfect either - it's way more Eurocentric than SOTW so I would have ended up supplementing that too. But it reflects my basic outlook on history better and I like it stylistically a lot.

 

I don't think SOTW is bad at all... just not the right program for me.

 

:iagree:

 

Sorry to be so late adding to the conversation here, but wanted to add my thoughts.

 

We use Builders of the Old World as our history spine too. I found two dirt cheap copies at the thrift store, and was thrilled with the writing. I've mentioned before that the book has discussion questions and ideas for crafts or activities at the end of each unit. I have found various coloring pages or printables online to add into our readings. We also make a note card for each unit to cover important people or events---something along the vein of the VP cards, except our own selection of dates, people, and events. I use the 5" X7" index cards for this and put them into a photo book in order. Copies of the Builders book can be found at resale sites very inexpensively. The activity guide for SOTW might be a good addition to use with the book, but I haven't tried to match up chapters and readings.

[odonata]

I'm happy with the first 2.5 books or so. We sort of gave up halfway through 3 and we're skipping 4 for now. My son had no problems figuring out god myths vs actual history.

 

But I'm aiming at 4-7 year olds for these books. :D Plus we add in lots of other things. We're starting with book 1 again for my daughter who's just turning 5.

 

In general, I'm just looking for them to get a general handle on major events, cultures, time periods, etc. so it's nice and familiar to them next time we get around to it when they're older. We started with the Magic Treehouse and Timewarp Trio books for them when they were younger, for the same reason. :)

[black_midori]

I agree with someone's original concerns regarding inaccuracies as written on Amazon reviews - not inaccuracies that are explained by different viewpoints, but those that SWB apparently agreed that she did "in order to make things flow better" (according to one Amazon review). Such as moving dates of events drastically so that it made more sense - even though it didn't happen that way... I don't know if that is true, but that was at least a part of the reason we chose to use something else.

 

We are using the Usborne IL Ency of The World, and my kids (5&7) LOVE it!! We're going to end up going through it much faster than I planned, since they often ask me to do more reading than I had set up for.

[chepyl]

Any history book you get with have aome errors, or what some may think are errors. With pre-history, we really just don't know. Maybe people dis not bathe. If the did not live near water, that is highly possible. History is also full of opinions and interpretations. You must approach any history text that way.

 

I think SOTW is great! It puts it in a full story that kids can enjoy. But, you cant just hand a history book to your child and say, "go, read this." Greek mythology is an important part of history. It has helped influence and shape a lot of modern arts and literature. If you know the story is based on legend or a myth, preface the story with a mini-history lesson about what a myth or legend is. It is a great teaching moment. I think kids as young as 6 can understand what fiction is. They understand that cartoons aren't real. My 3 year old gets that.

 

You just have to find what works for your family. My kids love story time...this is perfect for us. We have the Kingfisher Encyclopedia and will be reading the pages referenced in each section of SOTW as well as other books and some documentaries from Netflix.