Homeschool in the woods or Road Trip USA?

[mystika1]

Hi,

I am looking for something fun to use with my oldest that contains history and geography coverage. I had originally planned to use Road Trip USA with her but noticed HITW units. They look really fun. My plans for either one would be to put the teachers items on my nook and print out only the student pages. I can't make up my mind. HITW looks to be more in depth.

 

Our coverage of geography has been unorganized. We used all FIAR volumes in the past, completed a few Konos units, and went through about 1/2 of SOTW 1. I would like to be more consistant in our coverage of both history and geography. I would also like for her to know the states and capitals. HITW looks nice as it would also cover science.(not sure how deeply)

Recommendations?

 

Penny

Edited July 14, 2012 by mystika1

[Cynful]

Which HITW products are you referring to? I have almost everything of theirs and LOVE their products.

[mystika1]

I was thinking of starting off with New World Explorers and just working our way through them all.

 

Penny

[mystika1]

Would it work well to have the TM's on my nook? I have read that people find that printing can be overwhelming. I have the refillable CISS cartridges for my inkjet printer which lasts a very long time and also have a laser printer.

 

Thanks,

 

Penny

[Cynful]

Sure, I use my Ipad. I let the kids read the text from the Ipad or the computer, their choice. And I use the directions on the Ipad for the projects. I only print out the actual projects/lapbooks/notebooking/timelines/etc. Works great that way. The only thing is, when you transfer it to your Ipad, the "program" that works on Windows doesn't transfer, only the individual PDF files. So you have to look them up individually instead of the easy way through the program. You'll figure it out though; it's easy.

 

I've got all of them and we are in the middle of the 19th century one. I can't say the text is terribly exciting and the way the PDF is formatted, I find it very hard to read from. But you could skip the text and just use the projects along with your own text of your choosing too.

 

Let me know if you have any other questions; Good luck,

[mystika1]

Do you find the science portion enough for 4th grade? I am just trying to see how complete it is.

 

Penny

[mystika1]

:auto:

[Cynful]

Science portion? Can you give me a link? I don't remember there being any science.

[kolamum]

The Explorers unit isn't BAD, but it is NOT the best taste of HSITW. Just so you know. :) Every unit after that is 10x better, we've used Explorers, Colonial, Rev. War, Early 1900s & Civl War. We just started the Industrial Revolution.

 

The difference is that there's not as much to DO in regards to the explorers. I'm not trying to turn you OFF of that one, I'm just letting you know that if you do not like that one, don't base ALL their units on THAT one. Kwim? Our top notch fav is still the Rev. War one. Which we matched up with Liberty Kids.

 

When you purchase you'll get a cd with pdfs on it. I take the PDFs for:

 

Front Cover

Credits

Schedule

Introduction

Extras

Lessons

Projects

Teacher's "stuff" {maps, battle guides, timeline}

 

I combine all those {via adobe} into one huge pdf. I put every page in the order I want & make sure to turn the schedule & maps in the right direction. Then I only print out the notebooking & lapbooking pages as well as the timeline stuff. If there's a craft pattern we need that too. I do this when I make the giant pdf usually. Then I put all those printouts in a file in my filebox, & as we need them I pull them out. Easy Peasy.

 

Mind you, I've used these cds with WP & now SL. BUT, there's no reason you can't use them on their own they are MORE then good enough. When using on their own we get some, & there are heaps, of the books mentioned in the extras in each PDF.

 

However, if you DO use them on their own I'd go for MUCH longer then 6 weeks with the Early 1900 cd. Seriously, all most every day could be turned into a week. You do things like Lewis & Clark in one or two days. You do gold rush in one day, & so on. I think you could read the lesson & then spend time studying that topic all week.

[mystika1]

Science portion? Can you give me a link? I don't remember there being any science.

 

When reading about the curriculum on the website, it says that each unit contains science experiments. I just need to know if I need a separate science curriculum.

 

Penny

Edited July 17, 2012 by mystika1

[Cynful]

I didn't even remember the science experiments. If yours are younger, you might be able to get by with just what's in here; if they are older, I'd suggest getting a separate curriculum.

[mystika1]

I ended up purchasing HITW New World Explorers and it just came in the mail. It really looks great! I will have to use a separate science course, but that is ok. Printing it all out is not as bad as I thought it would be. I am putting it all together in one binder with each lesson separated with numbered tabs. All completed work will go into another binder. Does anyone know of a website that has library titles to go with each lesson? Just thought I'd ask as it would be a nice time saver.

 

Thanks,

 

Penny

[daughterofsarah77]

I'm kind of interested in these. How long does it take to complete one of the units? Would they be enough for a stand-alone program in American History, if you added in extra library books and readers/read-alouds?

[kolamum]

Absolutely Dawn! There's a HUGE list of extra books inside EACH cd. Movies, audio books, history books, historical fiction, etc. It's ALL there.

 

You could make it last as long or as little as you wanted. I personally think you you could use all the US ones over a 2 year period even if you used them 5 days a week.

 

Each one is scheduled {yes it comes with one, but use as you wish} for 6 weeks. Week 6 only has 2 full lessons, maybe 3. The other days are for putting together your notebook & lapbook, & planning your party.

 

Explorers is a little thick, but I was eager to move through it. We ended up reading a lot more from Around The World in 100 Years. It was a little easier to get the full picture, but we did the activities from HSITW, etc.

 

The other one I'd change up is Early 19th Century. Wow, so much in only 6 weeks time! First time I did it I freaked out & had to stop. I just couldn't fathom how I could do SO MUCH in so LITTLE time. It starts out with a lesson on the Barbary pirates & two days later you are doing Lewis & Clark. There's only one lesson on the nifty Gold Rush. So I think you could easily spend all most an entire week on many of the topics listed for EACH day. That's just me. That's how we did it, but it was also prescheduled for us that way the second time via WP.

 

If you use the REvolutionary War one be sure to do Liberty Kids!! My kids went NUTS with how well each lesson matched up with the shows. It was fun too, & because we watched them off YouTube on the family Desktop we watched an episode at lunch time each day. ;)

 

We just wrapped up Civil War {so wished there'd been a Liberty Kids equiv!} and we had a lot of fun with it. We started Industrial Revolution Through The Great Depression. :)

[MamaChicken]

These sound great. My kids are really interested in the Civil War. Has anyone done this with SOTW? I wonder if I should just take a break for 6 weeks or so and then try to pick it up again?

Has anyone made the costumes?