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California History with literature


tammyw
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I'd like to do this with dd this year. I like some of the book recs at Beautiful Feet, but we are secular and I don't like their guides at all. Does anyone have guidance? Even if it's just a list of books to be read. My dd is 9 and an avid reader. We live in California but may be moving in the next year or two so it seems like a good year to do this with her.

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You could just use the books. I had the guide and slowly left it and just did the books plus extras.

 

Ack - edited and lost all my edits!

 

I had this textbook available. It was surprisingly good IMHO. My son didn't even complain really for the bits I assigned. I used it for my outline.

 

I created an outline of what to teach. I can email that to you if you want it (Open Office format). I used the Beautiful Feet guide plus books also, but added in coloring books and some extras. I was teaching a 4th grader and 1st grader at the time. I deviated from it as we went, but it was my starting point.

 

Two of our favorite add-ons not on my outline but enjoyed were Tales and Treasures of the California Gold Rush and Dame Shirley and the Gold Rush.

 

Editing again - we added a few more Scott O'Dell titles to in addition to the BF guide. He wrote many many things about California.

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I'm okay with just reading books (I don't need a guide specifically) but I was hoping someone might have a better list of books. I definitely don't love ALL the books in their list, and I'm sure there are others that would be good to include.

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Well, the first two read alouds that come to mind are By the Great Horn Spoon and The Ballad of Lucy Whipple. Oh, and Laurence Yep's Golden Mountain series... I think that's what it's called.

 

ETA: Oh, and Esperenza Rising! Though your ds might be young for that one...

Edited by farrarwilliams
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I went to Rea Berg's presentation on this guide a couple of years ago, and I don't remember any of it being religious. In fact, I learned a lot from it. You learn what's going on on the West Coast while the Europe was colonizing the East Coast. Like I didn't know that the Russians were trying to colonize California!!

 

The one book from the series that I would say is not-to-miss is The Cruise of the Arctic Star. You could use the guide to at least know what order to read the books in and at least have an idea of the point of each book--don't feel like you need to be legalistic about it.

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I've been busy this summer putting together our own literature-rich California history course. It is a lot of work, and I'm still not done yet!

 

We are using a public school textbook as a spine, and I have been impressed with their "unit bibliograpies" lists-- lots and lots of books there!

 

http://www.eduplace.com/ss/socsci/ca/books/bkd/bibliography/index.html

 

We are also making use of a lot of the "History and Happenings/Hands-On History" series from Ghost Town Publications:

 

http://www.ghosttownpub.com/001.html

 

We'll be including most of the Beautiful Feet suggestions, but I won't use the guide.

 

I also found this list to be useful, though it includes a lot of twaddle-type books:

 

http://www.benicialibrary.org/kids/homework/books/cafiction

 

Someday I hope to share my plan-- if I ever finish it!

 

Good luck with your planning!

Edited by SweetandSimple
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