History besides SOTW? Unit studies?

[Runningmom80]

Don't stone me, but DS and I do not like SOTW. We have ended up just reading the additional reading and doing the activity pages, and skipping the text. It's fine for this year, he is just turning 6 tomorrow, but I'm starting to think about what we should do next year.

 

 

Basically, what we don't like is the story aspect. :lol:

 

 

I took 2 weeks off of history and we focused on the election, we did a lap book, and read a lot. He loved doing the lap book, so I'm trying to figure out a way to maybe do history as unit studies, or notebooking. Has anyone done anything like this?

 

Evan moor history pockets, are they worth my time? Or just sort of supplementary?

 

 

Or, can anyone recommend other curricula, secular, or easily secularized? (probably not a real word.)

[Embassy]

I've never used a history curriculum. I picked a topic and found library books and projects to go along with it. Now that my kids are older my oldest is mostly reading or watching lectures and my middle child is mostly reading and doing independent projects. At your child's age I did lots of projects with them along with reading library books together (non-fiction and fiction), and watching DVDs.

 

Here is one study I did when my boys were 7 and 9 http://eclectic-homeschool.blogspot.ca/2011/05/ancient-babylon-study.html

Here is one at age 4 and 6 http://eclectic-homeschool.blogspot.ca/2010/02/native-american-unit-study.html

Edited November 13, 2012 by Wehomeschool

[Dmmetler]

You might want to look at the Complete book series. There's one for World History and one for US history. They make a pretty good secular spine for elementary. Or, jump ahead and use a middle/high school PS text as your spine. We're doing that for World History with SL literature selections this year, since they program SOTW 1 and 2 and DD has already read them.

[Runningmom80]

I've never used a history curriculum. I picked a topic and found library books and projects to go along with it. Now that my kids are older my oldest is mostly reading or watching lectures and my middle child is mostly reading and doing independent projects. At your child's age I did lots of projects with them along with reading library books together (non-fiction and fiction), and watching DVDs.

 

Here is one study I did when my boys were 7 and 9 http://eclectic-homeschool.blogspot.ca/2011/05/ancient-babylon-study.html

Here is one at age 4 and 6 http://eclectic-homeschool.blogspot.ca/2010/02/native-american-unit-study.html

 

Awesome! Thanks for those links.

[Runningmom80]

You might want to look at the Complete book series. There's one for World History and one for US history. They make a pretty good secular spine for elementary. Or, jump ahead and use a middle/high school PS text as your spine. We're doing that for World History with SL literature selections this year, since they program SOTW 1 and 2 and DD has already read them.

 

I will definitely check out the complete book series, and the ps texts. Any advice where to look for the ps texts?

[Dmmetler]

I've been able to buy just student books on Amazon fairly cheaply used. The one we have is Prentice-Hall, I think, but I don't see the same cover searching on Amazon, so I'm guessing we have an old version??

[Runningmom80]

Thank you! I will see what I can find on amazon.

[kiwik]

My son is not keen on SOTW1 either. I am going to do unit studies for the ancients and take it from there. I afterschool so I figure do reading during the term (10 weeks) then do projects in the holidays. 4 terms, Egypt, Greece, Rome then archaelogy/prehistory. Something like that anyway.

[NittanyJen]

We used Hands of a Child for our election unit study. They have a library of history (and other) unit studies available. You could easily do a series of HoAC unit studies, library books, brainPOP videos ($7/month as an iPod/iPad sub) plus the Usborne encyclopedia and have a decent program going.

[serendipitous journey]

I've liked Ambleside's intro to history. This would begin with Viking Tales, and add Our Island Story; also some Famous Tales. It's very Euro- and Britain-centric, with some nods to the States, but I am quite impressed with the sense of how history happens that we are building up. Reading through Viking Tales gives a fairly elementary-friendly intro to what conquering actually entails, and what creating a kingdom involves and what kings were (generally the chief warlord, more or less) and what nobility were (subordinate warlords, more or less, with particular responsibilities -- ie providing soldiers and monies -- and particular benefits -- chiefly land & taxes). The Our Island Story is giving a similar sense of what ruling entailed and the various ways it was approached.

 

But it seems frankly unlikely you'll go that route -- it doesn't appeal to most here! for various excellent reasons. So another spine option is Child's History of the World (the newer version, a la Sonlight). It does have some Christian perspective, but is one of my favorite spines, I find it very friendly to Islam and other religions/cultures. Maybe you can read a sample somewhere and see how it suits.

 

Finally, a most unlikely suggestion: MontessoriRD's history. I hope to use this with my younger one -- it starts at the actual beginning of the universe, a la academic history and not Young Earth history. I don't have it in hand though, so can't thoroughly vet it.

 

ETA: It turns out that a subset of children click into history much better in 2nd grade. Button was one of these. I don't know if that is true at all of yours ...

 

ETA #2: a rarely-mentioned, pretty easy but not cheap option: History at Our House. Secular and seems very popular with the littles, and pretty broad-ranging in terms of multi-culturalism. But if you have an issue with objectivism per se (I understand the author is objectivist and it seriously bugged boardie SpyCar, but not other boardies so much) you might want to hunt through the threads for the discussions of that. If I'm wrong RE the objectivist thing maybe somebody will say so ...

[dbmamaz]

For world history, I used the Usborne encyclopedia of world history (there are a few versions but i think they are all similar) as a spine and brought in books and videos and projects as i felt like it. you can also check out Intelligo unit studies

[merylvdm]

We use Sonlight all through out and my kids not only love history but remember so much of what we study. A few years ago Sonlight added SOTW to 2 years of their history and so I am using it with my youngest. It is her least favorite book ... fortunately Sonlight uses lots of other ones that are much more engaging. SOTW is better than a text book, but it is not very exciting.