how do you accelerate K-12 history?

[serendipitous journey]

We've just begun first grade -- Buttons 6 yo -- and it's a slow start. I could bump us up to 3rd or just pick up the pace on first. Ideas?

ETA: I imagine it picks up fairly quickly, and I'm not worried about whether he is "challenged" as long as he is having fun b/c we're paralleling with CM-style history. I thought maybe we'd just do 3 lessons/week instead of 2, and catch up that way. I guess what I'm asking is how other people with accelerated children who use this approach it? Starting at grade-level (ie, age-level) or at performance-level? I hadn't planned to accelerate him through the WTM history topics -- thought we'd stay on-topic for the year, with advanced reading/analysis -- but that will happen if I move him quickly through K12.

Edited March 2, 2012 by serendipitous journey

[melmichigan]

We stick with the 4 year rotation and just use books at whatever level the child's work/comprehension call for.

[Dmmetler]

Even if you accelerate now, it doesn't mean you won't come back sooner than you'd expect. I'd planned to do Sonlight only to have DD do two cores a year through core 1/2 and 3/4-but next year, she wants to go back and start over and "Spend a LOT of time on it!". I think that it's the whole-part thinking that she demonstrates in other areas-she wants the big picture first, and then to dive in, rather than to dive in sequentially. So if Button is encouraging you to go faster because the pace is too slow, I'd go ahead and accelerate, and worry about the WTM sequence later.

[Ester Maria]

I accelerate skill-based subjects vertically, i.e. keep moving onto higher and higher "levels" as needed.

 

Content-based subjects, however, I accelerate horizontally, i.e. stay on the planned topic, but change the depth / resources / types of connections I am drawing to other fields.

 

So, with history, stick to the regular progression, more or less, without fastforwarding, but do it differently than what you would do with an average child.

[EKS]

I accelerate skill-based subjects vertically, i.e. keep moving onto higher and higher "levels" as needed.

 

Content-based subjects, however, I accelerate horizontally, i.e. stay on the planned topic, but change the depth / resources / types of connections I am drawing to other fields.

 

So, with history, stick to the regular progression, more or less, without fastforwarding, but do it differently than what you would do with an average child.

 

This.

[jennynd]

I accelerate skill-based subjects vertically, i.e. keep moving onto higher and higher "levels" as needed.

 

Content-based subjects, however, I accelerate horizontally, i.e. stay on the planned topic, but change the depth / resources / types of connections I am drawing to other fields.

 

So, with history, stick to the regular progression, more or less, without fastforwarding, but do it differently than what you would do with an average child.

 

:iagree:

i don't see a point accelerate history unless he ask to do it

[serendipitous journey]

I accelerate skill-based subjects vertically, i.e. keep moving onto higher and higher "levels" as needed.

 

Content-based subjects, however, I accelerate horizontally, i.e. stay on the planned topic, but change the depth / resources / types of connections I am drawing to other fields.

 

So, with history, stick to the regular progression, more or less, without fastforwarding, but do it differently than what you would do with an average child.

 

:iagree:

i don't see a point accelerate history unless he ask to do it

 

This.

 

This had been my plan, but the living history material is so far beyond what he's doing in K12 (though again, I realize we've only just begun).

 

Kai, you use K12, yes? did you augment the K12 topics, or enrich parallel with different topics (this is what we're doing now, by default -- the living history, and the Montessori geog. we're going through VERY SLOWLY, are unrelated to the K12 lessons), or something else entirely? or not with first graders? :bigear::bigear::bigear::lol:

 

thank you everyone!

[EKS]

 

Kai, you use K12, yes? did you augment the K12 topics, or enrich parallel with different topics (this is what we're doing now, by default -- the living history, and the Montessori geog. we're going through VERY SLOWLY, are unrelated to the K12 lessons), or something else entirely? or not with first graders? :bigear::bigear::bigear::lol:

 

 

I used SOTW in first grade. However, when I used K12 history (in K and 4) I very seriously supplemented with about a zillion books. Now that I'm thinking about it, I also went through each of them in a semester because I decided to do K12 history in January both times.

 

And actually, now that I'm thinking about it even more, we are using K12's concise version of Hakim's A History of US this year, but instead of splitting it over two years, we are doing it all in one year.

 

ETA: Maybe I should be even clearer, since it's evident that I've accelerated K12 history. We did K12's History K in K, SOTW 1 in grade 1, SOTW 2 in grade 2, SOTW 3 and K12 History 4 in grade 3, and now we are doing the reading for K12's 5th and 6th grade history in grade 4. All of this is being heavily supplemented. My plan for grades 5-10 would be the following: K12's HO1 in 5th, HO2 in 6th, HO3 in 7th, K12's American Odyssey in 8th, and some sort of world history in 9th and 10th (I used Ways of the World with my older son and it was excellent). In looking at K12's World History: Our Story, I think it would be too much of a repeat of HO for an advanced kid.

Edited March 3, 2012 by EKS

[ElizaG]

We just finished K12 2nd grade history, which is a year below grade level for my eldest. We supplemented with lots of books of different reading levels and formats, timeline cards, goodies from the local teacher's store, WTM style language arts, plastic figurines and cardboard castles galore, and many in-depth discussions. :) They loved it, and their retention with the content that I read to them from the K12 lessons has been excellent. Not only on those fill-in-the-bubbles tests, but in everyday situations.

 

Last night, we were having a relaxing bedtime conversation about the nature of authority (okay, we are weird :001_huh:), and I mentioned that something reminded me of the Magna Carta "that King John was forced to sign in 1216, wasn't it?" Both children immediately jumped in to tell me it was 1215. Silly mommy!

 

We're now doing Renaissance and early American history, and I'm trying Paths of Exploration, a literature-based curriculum rated for grades 3 to 5. I thought this might be easier for me to implement, since we have a new baby in the house. As it turns out, the book selections and hands-on activities are good -- maybe a bit on the light side for my eldest -- but the expectations for written output are way too much for my 6 year old. I'm going to try adapting it, but I think we might end up going back to the K12 + DIY method.

 

We used SOTW1 for 1st grade in a similar way. The thing I like about these curricula is that the basics are taken care of, there are some enrichment activities if we want to do them, and we can let our imaginations run wild with everything else.

 

Like EKS, we ran through the lessons pretty fast with both SOTW and K12. We would often do two lessons in a day, sometimes even more. But then we would just as often skip it for several days (life gets crazy around here). Sometimes we'd also take a month or more off history, and do another "unit" such as a continent study or science theme. (It seems to work better for us when we do the content subjects one at a time, rather than in parallel.) So I wouldn't count on a year lasting a whole year.

Edited March 3, 2012 by Eleanor

[serendipitous journey]

Thanks, Kai & Eleanor. This was helpful. I think I should look at the full lesson plan list for our upcoming lessons and correlate them with supplements &c. ... your posts have given me food for thought, directions to go, and a bit of a kick in the tushie to get it organized! :)

[kristinannie]

I accelerate skill-based subjects vertically, i.e. keep moving onto higher and higher "levels" as needed.

 

Content-based subjects, however, I accelerate horizontally, i.e. stay on the planned topic, but change the depth / resources / types of connections I am drawing to other fields.

 

So, with history, stick to the regular progression, more or less, without fastforwarding, but do it differently than what you would do with an average child.

 

 

 

:iagree: I don't feel any need to rush through history. That said, I have never looked into K-12 history so I can't say much about that. Do you have to do it? Couldn't you just do living books on your own?

[serendipitous journey]

:iagree: I don't feel any need to rush through history. That said, I have never looked into K-12 history so I can't say much about that. Do you have to do it? Couldn't you just do living books on your own?

 

I don't have to, and I could, but living books for ancients has been a bit of a challenge because Button detests myths. And we do not teach the Bible as historical truth. And I don't have a lot of time to invest in this; also am demoralized, a bit, by book-related peculiarities of this child. Finally, he needs a reasonable amount of structured input to stay happy (we suspect) and doesn't sit still for long living-book reads. So this seemed a reasonable first-pass attempt to address all that. I think it will be okay, I was just taken aback by the relatively shallow level of analysis in the questions for the first graders ... :lol: what was I expecting????

[boscopup]

I think it will be okay, I was just taken aback by the relatively shallow level of analysis in the questions for the first graders ... :lol: what was I expecting????

 

You weren't thinking about what first graders usually learn in school. :lol: They study "neighborhoods" (ie, what one is), "community helpers" (ie, what a policeman, fireman, etc. are), and that sort of thing. They really don't do "history" in most public and private schools. In fact, I can't think of a single thing my son learned that was history-related in the first half of first grade while in school.

 

So yes, I imagine 1st grade level would be very simple questions. :)

[Iucounu]

What we're doing in history for the next year or so includes Glencoe World History (two passes), Get Ready! For Social Studies: World History (this is like a super outline and/or study guide), and bunch of odds and ends for extra reading and enrichment (Horrible Histories, Evan-Moor pockets, "day in the life" books with activities, Nat. Geo. books, etc.). DS seems to have a history interest, and it was hard finding things with a beginning level of content at his reading level, so we just decided to start at a higher level. So far he likes the Glencoe text a lot, and he's been reading the Horrible Histories off and on for a while.

 

It seems to me that for kids with advanced reading and learning abilities, history materials written for older kids or adults will naturally tend to include deeper and broader treatment of the subject matter and so might be a good choice. Time will tell if our choices were good ones. One thing I like so far about the Glencoe book is that each section starts and ends with overview and summary info, is followed by questions, and sprinkled through the text are extra questions designed to get the students to summarize what they're learning and think about it as well. We haven't done more than peek at the workbooks, since the first pass is just about learning how to study such material and getting an overview in place.

 

I guess this is not vertical acceleration, so much as horizontal, by starting at a richer content level for the same material than would be normal for his age.

[Amber in AUS]

I accelerate skill-based subjects vertically, i.e. keep moving onto higher and higher "levels" as needed.

 

Content-based subjects, however, I accelerate horizontally, i.e. stay on the planned topic, but change the depth / resources / types of connections I am drawing to other fields.

 

So, with history, stick to the regular progression, more or less, without fastforwarding, but do it differently than what you would do with an average child.

 

This is what we do too!

[regentrude]

I accelerate skill-based subjects vertically, i.e. keep moving onto higher and higher "levels" as needed.

 

Content-based subjects, however, I accelerate horizontally, i.e. stay on the planned topic, but change the depth / resources / types of connections I am drawing to other fields.

 

So, with history, stick to the regular progression, more or less, without fastforwarding, but do it differently than what you would do with an average child.

:iagree:

We would use more challenging books, go into more depth. Our goal is to learn more in the same time instead of taking less time to learn the same stuff.

[serendipitous journey]

What we're doing in history for the next year or so includes Glencoe World History (two passes), Get Ready! For Social Studies: World History (this is like a super outline and/or study guide), and bunch of odds and ends for extra reading and enrichment (Horrible Histories, Evan-Moor pockets, "day in the life" books with activities, Nat. Geo. books, etc.).

 

Thanks for this list! There seem to be 2 versions of the Glencoe, one labeled for students; or is it all the same book -- which do you have?

[Iucounu]

There are scads of micro-versions of our Glencoe text, mostly due to versions created for different states. I chose this one (NY state) only because I also found a companion CD for that particular edition for cheap. The companion CD has the complete searchable text, audio reading of the text, complete workbooks and study guide content, supporting video content, and I don't know what else; we've stuck to the text so far.

 

Another one you may want to consider in the same vein, and even by the same author, is World History: The Human Odyssey. Apparently it has a little more text and a few less pictures, though they share some content as well. Spielvogel has also apparently written a third similar text on western civilization, but that's aimed at college students.

 

So far, with our volume, I've found the writing level to be good for us. The text is clearly written, and though there is a lot of new vocabulary it's clearly defined, and the rest is accessible to DS but not on too low of a level either. It's just what we wanted in terms of level. DS6 also has a blast with the included reference maps and other stuff.

[serendipitous journey]

There are scads of micro-versions of our Glencoe text ... The companion CD has the complete searchable text, audio reading of the text, complete workbooks and study guide content, supporting video content, and I don't know what else; we've stuck to the text so far.

...

So far, with our volume, I've found the writing level to be good for us. ... It's just what we wanted in terms of level. DS6 also has a blast with the included reference maps and other stuff.

 

This is so helpful. I think I could purchase the text & CD via our charter school, which would be free for us; thank you again.

[Iucounu]

That's great! You're welcome. If you wind up getting it, I'd be interested to hear what you think, when you get a spare moment.

[Embassy]

I'm on my 3rd year of ancient history:tongue_smilie: We will only finish ancient Greece this year. The first year was mostly prehistory and the second year was mostly ancient Egypt. We don't go through the information quicker - we just go through more information in a way that engages my children. IOW, we soak in the time period and explore much more than the standard amount of information. We were highly hands-on for the first couple years and are now mostly reading for history.