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How can I make history more interactive with more output and less listening?


Annie Laurie
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This might seem simple to most of you, so please be patient with me. I love Sonlight, I've always used it, and it clicks with my brain. However, I gave my kids end of year evaluations, and from other conversations we've had, I'm realizing that just because this model works for me does not mean it works for my kids.

 

My kids love to read, but one of them says that read alouds are just too hard to listen to and sit still through. This same child reads voraciously, a crazy amount of books, many classics and some fluff. This child does like to read and learns a lot from it, this child just doesn't like being read to. Said child will be in 5th grade.

 

This same child has repeatedly asked for things to be more like public school. (Child has never been to public school but has friends who go to PS and reads books about kids in PS.) Child asked for school to be "more interactive, I'd like more reports, assignments, quizzes, and for things to be more organized."

 

One of my other kids keeps asking me to assign him reports too.

 

I know this should be easy, it's just hard for me to change my thinking and the way I do things.

 

ETA: Another problem is that the 6th grader is an extremely reluctant reader, and I have tried everything to get him interested, but he does read the SL readers happily and needs up liking most, and he does like the read alouds and I feel he gets in a lot of extra exposure to language and vocab that he wouldn't get on his own. So I've been stuck on SL due to his needs. How do I balance that with my other kids' needs?

 

I think maybe TOG would be a better fit for history, or should we just try SOTW this year with the tests and more written work for history? Or could I add that to SL? My toddler is so difficult, I really need open and go, I just don't have the time or brain cells right now to plan anything complicated. I'm feeling overwhelmed.

 

I will have a 6th, 5th, and 3rd grader.

 

Any suggestions? Or could any of you share how you incorporate more structured learning and more output into your content subjects without it becoming drudgery?

Edited by Annie Laurie
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I do think TOG might be a good fit for your 5th grader based on what you have described and my little teeny bit of experience with TOG. We have just started using it. But I've spent a lot of time preparing, printing (I bought the digital), and organizing the books (as we try to utilize our library and avoid buying).

 

Does your library have The Well Trained Mind that you can check out? What you are describing that your 5th grader is asking for sounds like it could be a good match for how TWTM teachers to do history. You pick a spine and complete notetaking on a series of pages each week, then child picks a topic that he would like to learn more about to research. Library trip to get books or other method to do research. From this the child completes an outline (on one page or section of a book) and writes a report about his topic. Every week. It's methodical and allows the child some flexibility to pick topics he's interested in. This is an inexpensive way to learn history as you would only need to purchase a spine for him to use.

 

SOTW is great and my kids enjoy listening to it. It would be great for your 3rd grader and I'm guessing all your children would enjoy listening to it. The CDs recorded by Jim Weiss are excellent and you can listen in the car. SOTW activity book has some additional recommending reading.

 

And you could keep reading SL books aloud to benefit your oldest!

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I like MFW and feel that it fits that criteria, but I know that's not a popular choice here. Actually, we LOVE MFW, tons of activities, still a lot of read-aloud time, but much less than Sonlight, it's just a really good fit for us.

 

I wish I could use it, but the spines just don't look like a good fit for us.

 

I do think TOG might be a good fit for your 5th grader based on what you have described and my little teeny bit of experience with TOG. We have just started using it. But I've spent a lot of time preparing, printing (I bought the digital), and organizing the books (as we try to utilize our library and avoid buying).

 

Does your library have The Well Trained Mind that you can check out? What you are describing that your 5th grader is asking for sounds like it could be a good match for how TWTM teachers to do history. You pick a spine and complete notetaking on a series of pages each week, then child picks a topic that he would like to learn more about to research. Library trip to get books or other method to do research. From this the child completes an outline (on one page or section of a book) and writes a report about his topic. Every week. It's methodical and allows the child some flexibility to pick topics he's interested in. This is an inexpensive way to learn history as you would only need to purchase a spine for him to use.

 

SOTW is great and my kids enjoy listening to it. It would be great for your 3rd grader and I'm guessing all your children would enjoy listening to it. The CDs recorded by Jim Weiss are excellent and you can listen in the car. SOTW activity book has some additional recommending reading.

 

And you could keep reading SL books aloud to benefit your oldest!

 

I own the second edition of WTM and refer to it all the time, and listen to SWB's lectures. It just feels like too much planning for me right now, but maybe I should get over that. Maybe if I plan the entire year out before we start.

 

ETA: Now I'm considering Trisms History's Masterminds. But really, I need to keep it simple and inexpensive this year, so I should probably consider doing it myself.

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My first thought is that your 5th grader is not an auditory learner. She just doesn't learn well by hearing. I can sympathize as I am the same way. Give me a book, I can learn the material. Read it too me or make me sit in a lecture on it and you are wasting your breath.

 

Maybe you could let her read aloud to the other kids sometimes, or read the material on her own. Save read alouds with her for fun books at bedtime.

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Have you considered Heart of Dakota? There's much less reading-aloud and independent reading than Sonlight, and there are lots of "assignments" to go along with the history readings each day. There's copywork, notebooking, projects, timelines, etc. It's also very open and go, much more so than MFW or TOG, from what I understand (although I've never used those particular programs).

 

HTH!:001_smile:

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Just a few observations. One, when people say "my kid can't sit still during a read aloud" that can mean either he's a kinesthetic learner or he's got a touch of attention/adhd going on or both. I would follow that train of thought. STRUCTURE is a buzzword with adhd, and your kid is actually ASKING for it. I would definitely pursue that.

 

For us the online self-paced history from Veritas Press hits all the fronts. It stay relatively engaged, because they have to do something (game, hit a button, etc.) every so often on the screen to keep it going. Serious retention because they spiral the important stuff. No essential reading, just suggested reading lists that have both upper and lower levels. They actually dropped the price this year and do a multi-child discount. Check it out.

 

Hold it, you have a TODDLER in the room while you're doing these read alouds? Whew, no wonder they're wanting structure and open and go! You want it and they want it. I'm wondering if the issue is maybe that they feel they're being held back waiting for you to attend to the toddler and littles. My dd gives me a lot of that. About 4th grade they start into the "just let me be independent" thing, whether they're totally ready for it or not. :)

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