Any one do Hakim's Story of Us (or similar) AND a 4 year cycle?

[ktgrok]

I'm wondering if I can add these books into our 4 year history cycle, at the appropriate time. Would that work? For instance, I could do the first book, about the first American's, at the end of the middle ages/rennaisance, 2 maybe, or beginning of early modern? And so on?

[AngelBee]

I am using them with TOG.

[chepyl]

:bigear: I want to do the same thing....

[blondeviolin]

I've been thinking on this (early, I know) and am currently mulling over the idea of tossing in US history in the summers. So we'd do some math and history in the summer (and reading and playing of course!).

 

But my oldest is still 5, so it just sounds good in theory right now.

[Harriet Vane]

I took six years to do the four SOTW books and then did the Hakim American history books the next year. Dd did Am History just one year, but with ds I plan to take two years with a good government component added in.

[....]

We're doing both US History and the 4 Year Cycle - every year. I just felt very, very strongly about it. The kids need to know US History. And, we've used the Joy Hakim books, too. :D

 

Right now, we're kinda taking a sonlight-ish approach to US History. We're just reading a lot of books about it.

[KarenNC]

For kindergarten, since my daughter was reading, rather than start SOTW early (which would be an option to give more time), I spent a year doing basic US history (a few major figures, holidays, symbols, etc) and a general modern cultures study (used Children Just Like Me as the springboard). I wanted her to have some grounding in US history before we started the rotation (it also worked well with the trips we did to Epcot and later to St. Louis/Springfield, IL/Boston, etc that year).

 

For our first history cycle, I used SOTW as the main and added in the Story of the USA workbooks (the ones from EPS Sonlight sells, not the Hakim) as a springboard to add in US history. We did a lot of historical fiction, Liberty's Kids, nonfiction, field trips (including the Colonial Williamsburg electronic field trips), etc for the US history. In order to finish, it did mean I didn't put quite as much emphasis on some of the world history sections in order to fit in the US. We also school year round, which helped. I added in topics from the US history workbooks at the appropriate chronological time.

 

Now that we are on our second go-round, I'm using k12's Human Odyssey along with the printed teacher/student guides from k12 (not the online portion), and will add in Hakim's Story of Us (with the printed teacher/student guides from k12) at the appropriate chronological time. It means I mix things up, since k12 does 5th/6th as American history and 7th/8th as world, but I think it will work. I do have to modify some of the assignments in the guides.

[EKS]

I did the four year cycle and integrated the History of US into it as well as a bunch of supplemental readings.

 

The problem I had with that approach, after actually doing it, is that it made US history seem much more important in the scheme of the world because we spend so much time on it from the 1600s (year 3) on. There is much more good material for children on US history than world history.

 

To fix that, I've gone to a 3+1 year cycle, meaning world for three years and US for one. We still do US history in the context of world history, but it is in its proper proportion.

 

This year we are using the brand new concise versions of Hakim's books from K12. So far I'm liking them *much* better than the original. Not as wandery and the format and pictures are far better.

Edited September 17, 2011 by EKS

[abbeyej]

We have integrated Hakim into years 3 and 4 of our logic stage cycle. These two years are more heavily American-history focused than our grammar-stage cycle, but I think that's okay. We skipped book 1 and did books 2-5 in 7th and are using 6-10 in 8th (along with other resources for world history and additional reading). I've been happy with it. We're still managing to keep American history in the context of world history, but Hakim is giving a lot more depth and detail to our American history study.

[Occasionally]

 

This year we are using the brand new concise versions of Hakim's books from K12. So far I'm liking them *much* better than the original. Not as wandery and the format and pictures are far better.

 

Can you tell me more about these? They sound great! :bigear:

 

Thanks!

[karensk]

I'm wondering if I can add these books into our 4 year history cycle, at the appropriate time. Would that work? For instance, I could do the first book, about the first American's, at the end of the middle ages/rennaisance, 2 maybe, or beginning of early modern? And so on?

 

For ds's 7th grade year, he did Hakim's History of US books (read them on his own, plus summarized or outlined some chapters) for his history credit. Also, we did SOTW-2 as a family with 7th & 4th graders (I read the text aloud, plus the review questions & narrations), which I didn't include in his transcript. Dd did some of the SOTW-2 activity pages & timeline cards, but ds only did the occasional map activity, concentrating his time in U.S. history. I'll probably have dd11 do the Hakim books for 7th grade as well.

 

I'm sure it'd be fine to intersperse the History of US books over several years. I did notice that ds really enjoyed reading them and finished the series a couple months ahead of schedule. One option may be to make your SOTW-3 year your American history year....For the supplementary reading, assign only the Hakim books in addition to the SOTW-3 read-aloud time. If you're assigning it as independent reading, then have other activities/books for the younger kids to do/read.

 

HTH!

[Miselainia]

We're doing both US History and the 4 Year Cycle - every year. I just felt very, very strongly about it. The kids need to know US History. And, we've used the Joy Hakim books, too. :D

 

We've been doing the 4 year cycle (this is my third go-round), but a couple of years ago, I decided we needed something more.

 

I wanted to integrate some US studies into our "social studies," and started with US Geography, one state at a time which took much longer than the one year I thought it would, but we learned a lot. We just started the Joy Hakim books and have really enjoyed them. I guess we'll see how long it takes us. Since the chapters are not too long so far, we just take 15-20 minutes to read and discuss, maybe research something that catches our attention.

 

I've been doing our U.S. studies with all of my kids (well, all that can sit still for that long). My intention is to do some constitutional/government studies once we finish "A History of US."

[Amber in SJ]

If you go to Paula's Archives and look at SOTW resources there is a schedule that integrates History of US with SOTW 3 & 4.

 

http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/index.htm

 

This is the schedule we used when we got to those books.

 

Amber in SJ

[hollyandab]

Tapestry of Grace uses these in their 4 yr cycle. Biblioplan also schedules them.

[Hedgehogs4]

I am using them with TOG.

 

yes, this. It is working out great!

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

I did the four year cycle and integrated the History of US into it as well as a bunch of supplemental readings.

 

The problem I had with that approach, after actually doing it, is that it made US history seem much more important in the scheme of the world because we spend so much time on it from the 1600s (year 3) on. There is much more good material for children on US history than world history.

 

To fix that, I've gone to a 3+1 year cycle, meaning world for three years and US for one. We still do US history in the context of world history, but it is in its proper proportion.

 

This year we are using the brand new concise versions of Hakim's books from K12. So far I'm liking them *much* better than the original. Not as wandery and the format and pictures are far better.

How concise are they? Are they still thorough? What is the copyright year? I appreciate your help:)

[warneral]

Tapestry of Grace uses these in their 4 yr cycle. Biblioplan also schedules them.

 

Wow! That is interesting :)

[delaney]

I am aligning them with Guesthollow's American 1 very easily. I really need to buy the ones I don't have b/c the library may be hating me right now-lol.

[redsquirrel]

I am using them with my logic stage child. Or, rather, I am planning to use them. I have them right here, lol.

 

I will weave them into our 4 year history cycle as narration/outlining exercises when appropriate.

[yellowperch]

Red squirrel, that was my plan too. And still is. However, there is a huge gap--for obvious reasons--between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance. WE are in the Middle Ages now, and miss our SOS!

 

editing to add: I jumped to respond after only reading the title of the thread, which was cut off after "Hakim's Story". I thought this was about Story of Science, which I love, and which I would love to discuss with others who are using it. Sorry for crashing your party here.

Edited October 29, 2011 by yellowperch