SOTW ? (CC)

[Dustybug]

Okay, I actually had a chance to put my hands on a copy of SOTW 1 today at B&N. I skimmed through it and didn't see anything horribly objectionable. One friend from church said she didn't like the references to nomads, but from what I saw, it didn't imply that nomads were here prior to Adam and Eve, etc. and in ancient times people WERE nomadic in nature, so I don't really get the discrepancy??? I've also heard there was disagreement in some of the Bible stories in SOTW and the actual Bible. I didn't have time to read the book in depth, so can anyone explain what people mean by that? Because from what I saw, I didn't see anything that would go against our beliefs and we are pretty conservative and YE. It didn't mention Creation, but I can teach that. I guess, I'm missing the problem??

[ByGrace3]

Disclaimer. I think SOTW is wonderful and serves a great purpose.

 

ok, now, on to your question. ;) I did have some problems with SOTW 1. I blogged some about it here but really didn't got into detail. I think SWB tried to present a secular view of history without compromising her own beliefs and I applaud her for her efforts. However, the overall feel of SOTW 1 was a difficult mix of fact and fiction and my dc had a hard time distinguishing fact from well, fiction. I honestly cannot say what I would change about it, we really liked the "stories" but the back and forth from factual to a made up story about the facts mixed in with stories about Abraham and Jesus did make it kind of confusing for a first grader imho. Obviously we talked about it and she was fine, but it was an issue. Then, I had major issues with the Abraham stories in SOTW 1. I found myself reading it out loud and then my eyebrows shot up and I quickly had to cover, "no wait, that's not true...Abraham did not worship other gods, he worshiped only the One True God. And, he didn't leave Ur because of why SOTW said, he left because God told him to leave." That chapter in particular bothered me. I get what she was doing, trying to tie in what was happening at the time in the culture with what the Bible had going on, but to me it made a factual story fiction, truly blurring the lines. Now, SWB may believe that as fact and that is fine, but I wouldn't read that chapter to my kids again.

 

After a year of it, we are using SOTW 2 but in a different way. It won't be our base, but it will be one of our spines.

 

My biggest regret of last year was history, not necessarily that we used SOTW, but that we didn't take advantage of the opportunity to tie in Biblical history to the time period as much as I wish we would have. In retrospect I would have used the Veritas Press cards as a spine and read SOTW as it fit into that order. Also, I would have skipped the chapters on Biblical people in SOTW and studied them in our own way.

 

Lest anyone throw stones, I did say several times it is great and we still use it. . . I know how people can get. :tongue_smilie:

 

Hope this helps! :)

[Dustybug]

Disclaimer. I think SOTW is wonderful and serves a great purpose.

 

ok, now, on to your question. ;) I did have some problems with SOTW 1. I blogged some about it here but really didn't got into detail. I think SWB tried to present a secular view of history without compromising her own beliefs and I applaud her for her efforts. However, the overall feel of SOTW 1 was a difficult mix of fact and fiction and my dc had a hard time distinguishing fact from well, fiction. I honestly cannot say what I would change about it, we really liked the "stories" but the back and forth from factual to a made up story about the facts mixed in with stories about Abraham and Jesus did make it kind of confusing for a first grader imho. Obviously we talked about it and she was fine, but it was an issue. Then, I had major issues with the Abraham stories in SOTW 1. I found myself reading it out loud and then my eyebrows shot up and I quickly had to cover, "no wait, that's not true...Abraham did not worship other gods, he worshiped only the One True God. And, he didn't leave Ur because of why SOTW said, he left because God told him to leave." That chapter in particular bothered me. I get what she was doing, trying to tie in what was happening at the time in the culture with what the Bible had going on, but to me it made a factual story fiction, truly blurring the lines. Now, SWB may believe that as fact and that is fine, but I wouldn't read that chapter to my kids again.

 

After a year of it, we are using SOTW 2 but in a different way. It won't be our base, but it will be one of our spines.

 

My biggest regret of last year was history, not necessarily that we used SOTW, but that we didn't take advantage of the opportunity to tie in Biblical history to the time period as much as I wish we would have. In retrospect I would have used the Veritas Press cards as a spine and read SOTW as it fit into that order. Also, I would have skipped the chapters on Biblical people in SOTW and studied them in our own way.

 

Lest anyone throw stones, I did say several times it is great and we still use it. . . I know how people can get. :tongue_smilie:

 

Hope this helps! :)

 

 

Thank you for this post. This is the exact type of answer that I'm looking for. I only sort of scanned through the book and these are the types of things that I want to know about. :)

[Dustybug]

:bigear:

[BearWallowSchool]

Disclaimer. I think SOTW is wonderful and serves a great purpose.

 

ok, now, on to your question. ;) I did have some problems with SOTW 1. I blogged some about it here but really didn't got into detail. I think SWB tried to present a secular view of history without compromising her own beliefs and I applaud her for her efforts. However, the overall feel of SOTW 1 was a difficult mix of fact and fiction and my dc had a hard time distinguishing fact from well, fiction. I honestly cannot say what I would change about it, we really liked the "stories" but the back and forth from factual to a made up story about the facts mixed in with stories about Abraham and Jesus did make it kind of confusing for a first grader imho. Obviously we talked about it and she was fine, but it was an issue. Then, I had major issues with the Abraham stories in SOTW 1. I found myself reading it out loud and then my eyebrows shot up and I quickly had to cover, "no wait, that's not true...Abraham did not worship other gods, he worshiped only the One True God. And, he didn't leave Ur because of why SOTW said, he left because God told him to leave." That chapter in particular bothered me. I get what she was doing, trying to tie in what was happening at the time in the culture with what the Bible had going on, but to me it made a factual story fiction, truly blurring the lines. Now, SWB may believe that as fact and that is fine, but I wouldn't read that chapter to my kids again.

 

After a year of it, we are using SOTW 2 but in a different way. It won't be our base, but it will be one of our spines.

 

My biggest regret of last year was history, not necessarily that we used SOTW, but that we didn't take advantage of the opportunity to tie in Biblical history to the time period as much as I wish we would have. In retrospect I would have used the Veritas Press cards as a spine and read SOTW as it fit into that order. Also, I would have skipped the chapters on Biblical people in SOTW and studied them in our own way.

 

Lest anyone throw stones, I did say several times it is great and we still use it. . . I know how people can get. :tongue_smilie:

 

Hope this helps! :)

 

:iagree: I thought you worded it wonderfully. I agree with everything you said about it. I have all the SOTW books and I plan to use them. But, I will supplement volume one heavily.

[MomatHWTK]

In retrospect I would have used the Veritas Press cards as a spine and read SOTW as it fit into that order. Also, I would have skipped the chapters on Biblical people in SOTW and studied them in our own way.

 

 

 

This is our plan, we are using VP self-paced. I am reading SOTW as a supplemental read aloud. After starting the chapter on Abraham, I didn't care for it and will probably skip the rest of the chapters that discuss Biblical people.

[Guest]

We read SOTW1 last year and my son loved it. We did skip the Bible chapters, though.

[Forget-Me-Not]

Then, I had major issues with the Abraham stories in SOTW 1. I found myself reading it out loud and then my eyebrows shot up and I quickly had to cover, "no wait, that's not true...Abraham did not worship other gods, he worshiped only the One True God. And, he didn't leave Ur because of why SOTW said, he left because God told him to leave." That chapter in particular bothered me. I get what she was doing, trying to tie in what was happening at the time in the culture with what the Bible had going on, but to me it made a factual story fiction, truly blurring the lines. Now, SWB may believe that as fact and that is fine, but I wouldn't read that chapter to my kids again. :tongue_smilie:

 

Yep--the Abraham chapter sort of left me :confused::confused::confused:. We'll weed that one out next time and pick and choose a little more around the story of Jesus.

 

I don't recall anything that challenged the young earth viewpoint, but we aren't young earth here so I wasn't looking carefully at that.

 

I haven't had similar issues with SOTW 2 and we're just getting into 3, so I can't comment to those. But obviously I liked the series enough to continue on with it :D. I enjoyed 2 quite a bit, but I've always been drawn to the dark ages/early renaissance periods far more than I have ancient history. When we loop back around to 1 again, I'll definitely sub in more of our own religious information.

 

HTH

Edited August 23, 2012 by LemonPie

[Carol in Cal.]

SOTW is wonderful. It is easy to add in Creation or not. It is easy to substitute reading the actual Bible for the occasional Bible story, or not. (I did both of those.) It is not anti-Christian as many history books are. Neither is it providential, which I appreciate as I do not want someone else to tell my kid that God planned something a certain way when it's not necessarily so.