lamolina Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 I am trying to choose the curriculum for our first year of homeschooling, which coincidentally will also be starting right after we move to South America. I am not set on any certain company, but wondering if we should start with MFW ECC or go straight into starting with the Ancients? I like the idea of getting the geography while we are in another country, but I wonder if a whole year of it is really necessary or beneficial. Anybody have a preference or opinion either way? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momling Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 I'd go straight to ancients. Geography can nicely be incorporated into your study of history. But if you're only going to be living in South America temporarily, I'd make sure to have a particular focus on history and culture and geography of your region. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lamolina Posted September 7, 2011 Author Share Posted September 7, 2011 We plan to be there 2-3 years. Do you think it would be easy enough to add in a South American study along with the ancients or would that be too much? I suppose we could do the SA part first for a few months and then head into the ancients. Other thoughts? Anyone who has used ECC and thinks I should go ahead with that? (i already have it because a very nice lady gave it to me :)) But I am just not sold on the thought of a whole year of geography/ecosystems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotSoObvious Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 I think you will be shocked at how much geography they learn during history, especially if your program uses map work, like SOTW. I also think you can easily fit in South America studies on top of Ancients. They will be LIVING South American studies. That's my opinion. I'm shocked at how much more we learn than we ever plan. In fact, it's usually the "planned" stuff that we always seem to be trying to finish... :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyLittleBears Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 (edited) I think you will be shocked at how much geography they learn during history, especially if your program uses map work, like SOTW. I also think you can easily fit in South America studies on top of Ancients. They will be LIVING South American studies. That's my opinion. I'm shocked at how much more we learn than we ever plan. In fact, it's usually the "planned" stuff that we always seem to be trying to finish... :) I could have written this post myself. I found we were doing the planned curric just to get it done and not enjoying it at all. Oddly enough, it was the ECC year. Perhaps it was my personality but it seemed to suck us dry and my lack of enthusiam was felt by my children, or vise versa. We are loving ancients this year and the enthusiasum abounds! I wish I had gone ahead with it last year like I wanted to in the first place! Edited September 7, 2011 by MyLittleBears Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wy_kid_wrangler04 Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 I would absolutely do a year of geography. I tried doing geography along with the history cycle and it just did not happen. We got VERY minimal geography in. Nothing about the different kinds of maps, latitude and longitude. No geographical terms. We are doing ECC this year and we are only on week 3 and already I am amazed at how much we were missing with geography! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wy_kid_wrangler04 Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 I found we were doing the planned curric just to get it done and not enjoying it at all. Oddly enough, it was the ECC year. Perhaps it was my personality but it seemed to suck us dry and my lack of enthusiam was felt by my children, or vise versa. We are loving ancients this year and the enthusiasum abounds! I wish I had gone ahead with it last year like I wanted to in the first place! This is the absolute opposite of us. We are having so much fun with ECC! The kids beg to do it (we do grade level subjects in the am-math, LA, reading, writing, that kinda thing) and ECC in the afternoon. This was the change our family needed! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lamolina Posted September 8, 2011 Author Share Posted September 8, 2011 Thanks for the opinions so far, looks like it is about 50/50 and I suppose I will just have to decide what is best for us. If we do a year of geography, what things have you used that are a "must have" to make it a great study? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MelissaMinNC Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 I would not skip ECC. I *just* wrote a post about it in another thread, started by JeninOR - I don't know how to link you, but you should find it really easily. It's my opinion on why ECC is important - besides which, it is really, really fun! I don't know how old your kids are, so that *might* influence my opinion somewhat, but generally speaking, I think ECC is a year not to be missed. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5knights3maidens Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 I think you could take some history from SOTW 1 and SOTW 2 and put together a nice ancient study of South America with the geography. :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lamolina Posted September 8, 2011 Author Share Posted September 8, 2011 I would not skip ECC. I *just* wrote a post about it in another thread, started by JeninOR - I don't know how to link you, but you should find it really easily. It's my opinion on why ECC is important - besides which, it is really, really fun! I don't know how old your kids are, so that *might* influence my opinion somewhat, but generally speaking, I think ECC is a year not to be missed. :) My kids will be 5, 8, and 10 when we start. The oldest will be close to 11. I found the post you were talking about and you are very convincing... it sounds amazing! I think it might tie in to our missionary experience in South America really well. Any other tips for using ECC? The tricky thing for us will be that we would have to bring all books along with us. I think I would have to pick a couple books for each country, and at a couple different reading levels. Plus my oldest reads like crazy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lamolina Posted September 8, 2011 Author Share Posted September 8, 2011 I think you could take some history from SOTW 1 and SOTW 2 and put together a nice ancient study of South America with the geography. :001_smile: this is also a great idea, as I do really want a deeper study of South America than just the part of Brazil included in ECC. Does SOTW cover quite a bit on South American history?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kalanamak Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 I'd go straight to ancients. Geography can nicely be incorporated into your study of history. But if you're only going to be living in South America temporarily, I'd make sure to have a particular focus on history and culture and geography of your region. :iagree: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mazakaal Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 I think if I were you, I'd do the geography study first and add South America study to it. I think it would be easier to add a study of S.A. to ECC than to Ancients. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
springy Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 I always prefer integrating subjects as much as possible. Geography, history and classic literature go so nicely together, and they all reinforce each other. By itself, geography can be awfully dry and without context. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lamolina Posted September 8, 2011 Author Share Posted September 8, 2011 Thank you all for the replies, this gives me a lot to think about! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizaG Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 I think if I were you, I'd do the geography study first and add South America study to it. :iagree: I'm finding that, for younger children at least, it isn't really helpful to try to teach everything in the context of sequential history. For one thing, it would take forever to get to some topics they're interested in. It can also be a bit of a brain overload, IMO, to keep jumping around the globe and hearing brief stories about very different cultures that sometimes had minimal contact with one another. We've ended up doing history SOTW style, but with an emphasis on the story of Europe and North America. We don't leave out other cultures, but we skip some of the lessons and activities that don't really flow together with the overall narrative (e.g., Native Americans in SOTW1). Then we take a month now and then to study the geography and culture of a specific continent, including any historical material that we set aside earlier. This has been working really well. :) I think a year of ECC, or a couple of months of South America study followed by Ancients, would be very well suited for the OP's situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lamolina Posted September 8, 2011 Author Share Posted September 8, 2011 What I am leaning towards is doing ECC, but either skipping a couple of the countries or condensing them so that we have more open weeks to add in South America topics. Anyone who has done ECC have a suggestion on whether it would be doable to shorten some of the countries to one week, or would it be better to skip a couple all together? One more ECC question, I know it covers certain countries, but do you actually learn the mapping/geography of more countries than just the specific ones studied? For example I would like my kids to be able to label all the countries in South America, not just the one (Brazil) that is studied. THANKS! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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