SunnyDays Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 (edited) After thought and discussion, we have decided to spend 4th grade on American History. (We did a bit of it this year, and on another thread several of you gave me good ideas. It came down to this: there's a lot of America we haven't covered yet, and my son WANTS to do another year of it... seize the day and all that!!) So I'm trying to flesh out my plans. Here's what I have so far... I want to do units on government and the elections in the fall. I think I'm going to use the Amanda Bennett unit studies for this, they look great! We also want to cover the presidents, so this either needs to be included in the next section, or I'll need a book that covers this. Also, we'll probably do a study of our state during the year. We need a good overview of American History, to which we can add readings and such. I'd like to have US Geography either included or something I can add on. I really want more of a textbook/spine option for this year. My thoughts on options: 1. Abeka 4th grade US History and Mapwork. This seems to be an easy to implement, all in one program, that covers what I need, and will leave us time to do other units. 2. Notgrass America the Beautiful. I see it's listed 5th-8th grades, but I've seen several posts here that say it's good for earlier grades. It's appealing, and I like that it has primary sources and a timeline included. I know it also has mapwork... to be honest, my son will hate this mapwork, LOL. It's all things like, circle this, color this... he doesn't like coloring and he'd probably rather answer questions... but I don't know how tied in the mapwork is. (It appears it's just an activity each lesson, could you easily substitute something else?) 3. I've looked at Trail Guide to US Geography... thinking I'd use this with an American History spine such as Montgomery's Exploring American History. I'm lukewarm about Trail Guide, but it would certainly work. (ETA: I'm taking this one off the list. The more I look at Trail Guide, the more I realize it's not what I'm looking for. Hmmm...) Which of these options, if any, have you used? What do you think would be a good fit for what I'm seeking? Thoughts appreciated... Edited March 18, 2012 by SunnyDays Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heidip2p Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 For the US geography have you looked at Road Trip USA? I am having the same struggle myself. I would like to find something covers American history in 1 year. I too was looking at America the Beautiful. I love how it is laid out. I just read so many mixed reviews on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lillehei Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 I had America the Beautiful by Notgrass in my hands and really liked it. It is fast paced but you could draw it out to two years. The original texts in We the People are great and I loved the maps. I didn't feel like they were busy work but I am sure you could skip it or just show him in an atlas and on a globe instead of getting the maps. I didn't care for the activities book because my kids don't like crosswords and such but it was well put together. I had the literature pack that went with it. If you have more questions, let me know. I had it for about 2 weeks so I got to look at it thoroughly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunnyDays Posted March 18, 2012 Author Share Posted March 18, 2012 Heidi, I saw your other thread on this. I was also looking at Truthquest, but I can't stretch this out to three years either!! Lillehei, thanks for the review. It's good to know that it could be done fast paced in one year, or delved into a bit more deeply and stretched to two!! I do see the value of their maps, I just don't think he'll want to color them... so we could still look at them for the information, and enhance it with a states book and maps. That makes sense. Do they schedule the literature pack with the history, or is it more independent? I edited my original post to say I'm not considering the Trail Guide option... just not really what we want. So I'd like to hear more about Abeka or Notgrass!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heidip2p Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 Heidi, I saw your other thread on this. I was also looking at Truthquest, but I can't stretch this out to three years either!! Lillehei, thanks for the review. It's good to know that it could be done fast paced in one year, or delved into a bit more deeply and stretched to two!! I do see the value of their maps, I just don't think he'll want to color them... so we could still look at them for the information, and enhance it with a states book and maps. That makes sense. Do they schedule the literature pack with the history, or is it more independent? I edited my original post to say I'm not considering the Trail Guide option... just not really what we want. So I'd like to hear more about Abeka or Notgrass!! I think we are going to do the Notgrass. After relooking at the samples this morning I think it will be a good fit. I am also going to do the 2 AB unit studies too. I will do 1 per semester along with America the Beautiful. As we can we will add in the Road Trip USA. It is a lot but we have nto covered history in very much depth so I think it will be fine. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunnyDays Posted March 18, 2012 Author Share Posted March 18, 2012 Heidi, I think we're leaning that direction too. I do still like the Abeka map work better, but I wonder if I could just add that in on its own. For Notgrass, I can't tell much about the literature... I can't even see whether there's a guide or how they get scheduled?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.