SOTW and High School

[Cabertmom]

I actually feel a bit embarrassed asking this question because I know SOTW is intended for elementary ages. Here is our situation, though. We just started using SOTW last year when we were studying modern history. I had the little kids (ages 8 and 5) listen and do the coloring pages. I had the big kids (ages 11, 13, and 15) take notes as they listened to the audio version, enter dates into their indivual notebook timelines, and I was frequently stopping the CD to add to it and talk about things from other perspectives. All in all, it was a pretty good history year, and I felt like everyone learned a great deal (including me).

 

This year, we're going back around again to ancient history. When the oldest kids did ancient history before, it was as part of a co-op (not SOTW), and they don't remember much at all I am sorry to say. Thus it seems to me that learning the facts about history that would be gained from SOTW as a base would be valuable. What does everyone else think?

 

For the oldest 2, I was thinking of using the audio SOTW as we did last year plus assigning corresponding chapters from an ancient history textbook that I already have that is intended for high school plus combining it with reading things Aeschylus and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and some Plato as well.

 

I would probably have my 12-year-old focus more on historical fiction to go along with it like The Bronze Bow, The Golden Goblet, and the Rosemary Sutcliff novels set in Roman Britain.

 

The little kids would just listen to SOTW, and my oldest daughter has agreed to choose and plan an activity from the activity book each week as I am so incredibly uncrafty. I would probably have my 9-year-old do a timeline notebook as well. She started this last year, but I let her stop as she was finding it miserable and difficult.

 

Does this sound reasonable? Has anyone done anything like this? I guess ultimately the reason I want to do SOTW for everyone is that much of history in our home comes from discussions that take place because of what we read and/or listen to together.

[Julie in MN]

I think you should know that SOTW-1 and the SOTW-1 Activity Book are both very different than books 4. The activities are often coloring pages, and the chapters have a more story feel.

 

I would pre-read before you decide.

Julie

[Susan C.]

Dd did SOTW 1 and Greenleaf Egypt and Greece while Ds (older) did Beautiful Feet Ancients. So when they studied the same time period, they did reading on their level. They joined together in some of what we did.

[SeekingHim77]

We use SOTW as one of our spines for highschool. It gives us the info. we need in an interesting way which is more than I can say for so many highschool textbooks. We add in a LOT of other books for our history studies though so SOTW is just one of the resources we use for all grade levels.

 

Last year my daughter did Zoology 3 from Apologia and my son did Apologia Biology. I had him read the info. in the Zoology text that went along with his Biology text before he started each module. I also look in the youth section at the library for supplemental science books for him. I think childrens' books are highly undervalued for use at all ages. :001_smile:

[Julie in MN]

I think childrens' books are highly undervalued for use at all ages. :001_smile:

 

:iagree:

[Chris in VA]

A little spin-off question--What do you do with your 9yo re timeline? I'm just curious. Here, our timelines just consisted of a figure and a date on...a line. :D I suspect you have some writing involved...?

 

BTW, a great, free resource for timeline figures perfectly coordinated with the 4 SOTW books can be found at Hannah's Homeschool Helps yahoo group.

[momtotkbb]

You could also look at Biblioplan.net. I am using Biblioplan year 1 and 2 for dd for 10th grade World History - she reads the Companion on her own and answers the Adv Cool History questions, completes maps and adds to her timeline if needed (she's been keeping one for years though) and is making biographical sketches of important figures in history. She read SOTW to her youngest brother (2nd grade) as assigned in the Biblioplan schedule or we listen to it in the car. Middle ds is on a completely different program for 7th grade but listens to SOTW on his own.

[Cabertmom]

Chris,

 

I made an Excel spreadsheet last year and printed the pages into a notebook for each child. Each page has a range of dates with increasingly small ranges as it gets more modern. On each page, there's a column for the date of the event and then a much wider column for what happened then. As they hear a date from SOTW or get it from any other source, they put the date and what went with it in the timeline notebook.

 

Pax Christi,

Carla

 

P.S. I've used the pictures from Hannah's help and also just by googling people as well to add to the timeline.

[Tohru]

Sounds reasonable. The content is still there and it's easy to digest, hence easy to remember. Not everything in high school has to be grueling to be good enough :) It sounds like you're planning on supplementing anyway.

 

We're using an elementary science curriculum, but supplementing because my ds wanted to study a specific field and there was nothing comparable at high school level.

[Hope in God]

We used SOTW last year when my oldest daughter was in grade 8 and all my children loved it and learned so much. I relied heavily on the additional reading in the teacher manual. I found SOTW very digestable as well as memorable. Our "teacher" was not quite impressed though, but I think it was mostly because we didn't do a whole lot of written work for history. If you were to supplement with additional reading and put together written work and projects I think it would work well.

 

For us, I think it would be too much work for me to co-ordinate writing assignments from my not-so-creative brain so I am going to do the jump into Tapestry of Grace and let TOG figure out the creative stuff. Still, I'm a little sad to leave SOTW.:001_unsure:

[Cabertmom]

Thanks for the support, everyone. You'd think after this many years I wouldn't need it, but I guess we all do now and then. I especially appreciate the reminder from jadedone80:

 

"Not everything in high school has to be grueling to be good enough. :)"

 

I think we'll at least start with it and supplement quite heavily as planned.

[Halftime Hope]

I think we'll at least start with it and supplement quite heavily as planned.

 

We read parts of SOTW 4 this past year alongside two other history spines. The SOTW is just so memorable! LOL! We supplemented heavily with visual media and historical fiction, as well, then wrote at appropriate grade levels.