When you start SOTW later than 1st, when and how do you "catch up"?

[Guest Nina67]

We started SOTW Vol. 1 when my daughters were in 2nd and K. We're finishing Volume 2 now at the end of 3rd and 1st and are looking forward to the next two volumes. Here's my question.

 

Because we started a year late for older daughter, she obviously won't progress through the complete cycle three times. What do I do about that? Keep progressing through and miss the final year of modern history? Condense two years into one? If so, which years? I can't imagine doing that. I didn't like skipping chapters in Vols. 1 & 2, but did it in order to get finished with 42 chapters in 36 weeks of school. We never could manage more than one chapter a week, and spent longer on some.

 

Is there another solution? My younger daughter is in the opposite situation, having started a year earlier than on schedule but I'm not concerned so much about that.

 

Thanks for any advice you can give.

[Karen in TN]

What I think I would do would be to take as much time as needed with SOTW. Then start the next rotation with each daughter at whatever level she's at, taking however much time you need. At the end, your older daughter would have 2 complete rotations and would have extra time to cover civics/economics (or whatever else you think is important), and your younger daughter would be ready for her final rotation. I think it's more important to cover it well than to skim through it just so you can get in 3 full rotations.

 

Karen

[swellmomma]

I don't worry about playing catch up. We started SOTW 1 at the end of last year, this year we basically did only eygpt, we will finish the rest of the book over the summer and next year. THe level we delved into it so far was enough for 2 cycles, this was based on the children's interest. As we continue on with the bulk of the book my kindy boy will join us though he won't be doing the in depth lapbooks we do focusing instead on listening and the other hands on projects. So he will get 3 full cycles, my older 2 will only get 2, and if we keep taking 2 years per book only 1 and you know what, that is okay, don't skip chapters just to finish at a set deadline. Honestly even if we only do 2 cycles, they have studied it so deeply already they will retain far more from it than if we rushed just to finish 3 cycles.

 

What you could do is 2 full cycles, then in the remaining time instead of starting a 3rd cycle over and not finishing vol 4, let her chose which peices of it she would like to study more indepth. By highschool level that should be no problem to let her explore the timeframs/cultures on her own using the books as a starting point. If you would rather start a 3rd cycle do the first 3 vol and leave vol 4 alone, you may find she choses to study it on her own even if she is "officially" done school.

[dalynnrmc]

With my youngers, we're going through Heart of Dakota's books before we begin the history rotation. We'll do a semester study of our state to begin third grade, and then start the first year of ancients with Mystery of History.

 

MOH has 5 books instead of 4, and we'll take a full year and a half to complete the ancients on our first go-round. They'll finish the MOH rotation at the end of the 8th grade, and for high school we'll progress through all 5 books in about 9 months each.

 

My older one is a half year behind that schedule, but we may also have to wait for MOH 5 to come out when the time comes. I don't think that it will take much for him to "catch up" only a half year when he gets to high school, especially after taking such an in-depth look at ancient history at this age. He won't have to delve so deeply into the Biblical history when he goes through the ancients again, and I think that will save us quite a bit of time.

 

Here's our schedule:

PreK - HOD Little Hands to Heaven

Kinder - HOD Little Hearts for His Glory

1st gr - HOD Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory

2nd gr - HOD Bigger Hearts for His Glory

3rd gr - semester state study, then first quarter MOH 1

4th gr - 2nd through 4th quarters MOH 1

5th gr - MOH 2

6th gr - MOH 3

7th gr - MOH 4

8th gr - MOH 5

9th gr - MOH 1, quarter 1 of MOH 2

10th gr - MOH 2, half of MOH 3

11th gr - second half MOH 3, three quarters of MOH 4

12th gr - last quarter MOH 4, MOH 5

 

(As an alternate, I might consider doing SOTW in high school. At the least I'll probably use BOTH programs in high school.)

[keptwoman]

We started history with DS (8yrs) in 2nd Grade, and will do the same for DD.

I'm going to do 2 rotations for each of them with a year somewhere concentrating on history of Australia and New Zealand and 2 years at the end where they can study the time/area of their choice. I don't want to rush and would rather take our time and let the DC enjoy some time at the end studying what interests them most.

 

J will only get one rotation, with a year on Australia and NZ history and a year studying the time/area/event of choice.

[Harriet Vane]

These books are too wonderful to rush. Better to enjoy the journey and learn the material well.

 

My own dd ended up taking longer than 4 years. She started later than first grade, and enjoys history so much, that I eventually decided to just keep going as we were, digging deep and learning it well. I have never regretted it.

 

I can think of two options:

 

--Use whatever time you have in the logic stage to study just a period of history. If you have two years, then learn two years' worth. SWB recommends to change the focus during the logic years to learning the process of research. You don't need to worry about covering everything if you focus on the scholarly process.

 

--I am choosing to take a year with dd to focus on American History. I have not yet decided what to do with our other loose year before high school. I may have her start the world history cycle a year early and take five years, especially because I intend to work in Church History in addition to World History (concurrently).

[EKS]

We started the history cycle when my son was in 3rd. He is just finishing 6th (and the four year cycle) now. I plan to do a two year study of world history in 7th and 8th.

 

I also have a son going into 1st next year. I am planning to do a 5 year cycle with him for the first round because there is so much good stuff about american history for 4th and 5th graders. Then we will do world/American history again from 6th to 8th.

 

At least that is the plan as of this moment.

[runningirl71]

Because we started a year late for older daughter, she obviously won't progress through the complete cycle three times. What do I do about that?

 

I haven't decided for sure what I'm going to do, b/c it seems like the older your child gets, the more in depth they study, thus making it even harder to do a rotation! We started SOTW when youngest was in 2nd and oldest was in 5th. I have decided not to rush through this with youngest as there is just too much. I agree with other posters, don't worry so much about the 3 rotations! Of course, oldest won't do three as he started the cycle in 5th, but he can progress through SOTW much faster as he is in 7th now. He can amazingly retain LOTS of info, and really isn't "into" the activities in the AG, so I'm letting him go through SOTW books at his own pace, on his own. He does a chapter a day and outlines in the KHE. DD and I do one or two chapters a week right now. We did stop here and there and spent more time on different topics, so sometimes we'll do three chapters a week plus mapwork and timeline, but that will be it. No activity or extra reading. But, that really isn't to get through it in less time, just on time! :) I do try and finish one SOTW book in one year. And, in the early grammar stage, I focused more on exposure than on taking it slow and retention. Upper grammar/logic we are slowing down more in order to go deeper. And, I don't know exactly how highschool will look! :)

[Sunshine State Sue]

We started SOTW in 2nd grade. I wondered before we started SOTW 4 if I should skip it and start the 2nd rotation. I'm so glad we didn't. We have used History Odyssey this year to start our 2nd rotation. I haven't liked it nearly as much as SOTW. However, we will probably stick with it for logic stage. That will leave us 10th-12th grade for the 3rd rotation. Assuming that we continue to homeschool and want to do a 3rd rotation of world history, I plan to use History at our House, which does world history in 3 years.

 

My high school transcript shows one year of American History, one semester of Law Am Soc (American government, I assume), and one semester of Pol Behav. :confused:

 

Since I am unsure of college requirements for history and unsure of the necessity of a 3rd rotation of world history on top of college requirements, I reserve the right to change my mind. ;)

[chiguirre]

I'm planning to use Hideaways in History to condense SOTW over about 18 months, taking 2 weeks to do one week's unit in HIH adding in some of SL 1 and 2 and some of the SOTW AGs. We'll then spend 18 months on American history using WP's American Story 1 and 2 and add in some of SL's 3 and 4.

 

Starting in ds's 5th grade and dd's 3rd grade we'll do another Sonlighty cycle (although I doubt we'll follow the IGs very much) doing a year of world cultures, 2 years of world history using SOTW as per SL and then a year of American history using History of US.

 

This is my current long term plan and may (or may not) actually work out. I do think SOTW is very rich and using it twice will be fine.

[orangearrow]

I'm planning to do two full cycles for my oldest two. We're taking next year "off" more than likely (we are doing the Prairie Primer, and I think we're going to go ahead and spend that year studying American History). Then, we'll finish up SOTW 3 and 4 and begin again. After we finish that 1-2-3-4 cycle, we will spend a year or two studying government and civics and in-depth state history.

 

At least, that's the current plan... :thumbup:

[Guest Nina67]

and now that I've heard it from several people, it makes good sense. I don't know why I was hung up on the idea of 3 complete rotations .

 

This summer I do hope to read the chapters we skippedn in Vol. 2... at least some of them. It was mostly non-European countries we skipped or skimmed over lightly, and I want them exposed to those cultures.

 

Thank you ladies for your help.

 

I have another question about postponing the logic stage approach with DD8 because she 1) detests writing 2) she's on the young end for her grade (August birthday).

 

Would it be a big deal for me to wait until 6th to switch to logic stage expectations for her? Of course, if I saw tremendous progress in her attitude and ability by 5th, then I wouldn't wait.

 

Any thoughts on this?

 

Thanks again!

[Lovedtodeath]

I have another question about postponing the logic stage approach with DD8 because she 1) detests writing 2) she's on the young end for her grade (August birthday).

 

Would it be a big deal for me to wait until 6th to switch to logic stage expectations for her? Of course, if I saw tremendous progress in her attitude and ability by 5th, then I wouldn't wait.

 

Any thoughts on this?

 

Thanks again!

 

My reasoning on this comes from the definition of the stages in that memorization is for the grammar stage. Memorization peaks at age 10. My DD will be 10 years old for the entire 5th grade year and turn 11 in the summer, so I plan on starting the logic stage in 6th grade. And looking at the big picture, I think the rhetoric stage is continued in college, so only 3 years of rhetoric in high school is fine. I am looking forward to hearing other views.

 

I'm planning to use Hideaways in History to condense SOTW over about 18 months, taking 2 weeks to do one week's unit in HIH adding in some of SL 1 and 2 and some of the SOTW AGs. We'll then spend 18 months on American history using WP's American Story 1 and 2 and add in some of SL's 3 and 4.

 

Starting in ds's 5th grade and dd's 3rd grade we'll do another Sonlighty cycle (although I doubt we'll follow the IGs very much) doing a year of world cultures, 2 years of world history using SOTW as per SL and then a year of American history using History of US.

 

This is my current long term plan and may (or may not) actually work out. I do think SOTW is very rich and using it twice will be fine.

 

I like your plan. My plan is very similar, though my kids are almost 5 years apart, so that changes it a little.

[Guest Nina67]

....for some reason, I was thinking it peaked very young like maybe 5 or 6?

That may be b/c 7yo dd has had an easier time memorizing than 8yo dd so far. 8yo will also be 10 through all of 5th (actually 9 for a few weeks) .

I feel better now. :)

 

Thanks!

[Lovedtodeath]

I got that info from language software. I think the point is not that it is better at 10 than say...3 or 5, but that after 10 memorization becomes harder. It may be something to research on....

[Sunshine State Sue]

I have another question about postponing the logic stage approach with DD8 because she 1) detests writing 2) she's on the young end for her grade (August birthday).

 

Would it be a big deal for me to wait until 6th to switch to logic stage expectations for her? Of course, if I saw tremendous progress in her attitude and ability by 5th, then I wouldn't wait.

 

Any thoughts on this?

 

One of the benefits of starting SOTW in 2nd grade for us was that all along the writing level was just right for my ds, meaning he's a bit behind. While many 4th graders I heard struggled with outlining in SOTW 4, it was not a big deal for my ds. Likewise, people talk about the amount of writing that HO 2 requires, but it has not been overwhelming for my ds. I attribute that to starting a year "late".

[Guest Nina67]

Sue in St. Pete - that's very reassuring, thanks.

 

lovedtodeath - I only just now read your signature..... I had no idea there were two Mr. Incredibles!;)

[Lovedtodeath]

lovedtodeath - I only just now read your signature..... I had no idea there were two Mr. Incredibles!;)

 

 

Well, lets hope there are two!!:glare: And I was telling mine that you stole that from my sig!:lol:

[Guest Nina67]

come to think of it, he DID start going out-of-town a lot in '94 :D.

I'll have to think of a new nickname for mine, lest I start rumors.... i.e.

Mr. Incredible? Wait, I thought Carmen was married to Mr. Incredible! You don't think....

;).

[Lovedtodeath]

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: