History Odyssey has finally defeated me

[Haiku]

It's been a long battle, but History Odyssey has defeated me. We are way behind. The kids don't like it. There's way too much to do, they don't like the readings, and they really dislike having to do five different things each lesson. I tried to cut it down to a more manageable size, but it still feels very disjointed. I can't do it anymore. Suggestions?

 

Tara

[Heathermomster]

It's been a long battle, but History Odyssey has defeated me. We are way behind. The kids don't like it. There's way too much to do, they don't like the readings, and they really dislike having to do five different things each lesson. I tried to cut it down to a more manageable size, but it still feels very disjointed. I can't do it anymore. Suggestions?

 

Tara

 

 

Which HO are you using and what are the ages of your children? Where did you stop?

[Haiku]

We're using Ancients Level 2. My kids are 11 and 10. We've made it to ancient China.

[EKS]

My suggestion: Get a copy of the Human Odyssey series from K12. Read it aloud on the couch. Find some interesting adapted period literature (or the real thing, if they're up for it), historical fiction, and nonfiction that goes with what you're reading. Have them read it (or you can split it up, and they can read some and you can read some). Every so often assign some writing. Low stress and it works like a charm.

[Walking-Iris]

No advice, but I'm listening in because I planned on starting HO Ancients level 1 next year. You said you've tried to cut it down, but maybe you can look at all the checklist of stuff as options. That's essentially why I decided to try HO because I wanted someone laying it all out for me. But in option format.

 

I like the idea of mixing things up. Maybe just watch and talk about a documentary one time period/culture, read something about them the next, do a project for this.

 

I think at that age if they know their geography (I think the maps are pretty cool) and they can narrate or write a little bit about the basics, you may be okay. Maybe just pick from the readings and book recs the ones that you especially like and stick with those and ignore the rest. Other book recs I would just leave laying about for the kids to pick up or look at on their own. The timeline is pretty important. That might help put everything into perspective.

[Halcyon]

My suggestion: Get a copy of the Human Odyssey series from K12. Read it aloud on the couch. Find some interesting adapted period literature (or the real thing, if they're up for it), historical fiction, and nonfiction that goes with what you're reading. Have them read it (or you can split it up, and they can read some and you can read some). Every so often assign some writing. Low stress and it works like a charm.

 

 

This. We read, we read some outside stuff, watch Netflix videos or docs on youtube, and every so often he does a writing assignment when we come across something particularly interesting. Low stress.

[MyLittleWonders]

We are using Ancients level 2 this year but I know we will never use it the way it is written. We read from K12's Human Odyssey and SoTW and then we do the map work that corresponds to whatever we just read (I went through and found what lessons of History Odyssey went with which chapters of Human Odyssey and SoTW and aligned it that way - Hisotyr Odyssey, as expensive as it was is just a supplement for us). We also do some of the writing assignments or the vocabulary assignments. But we don't read any of the supplemental books as we just don't have the time to make our day history-centric. I do really like the map work in HO and I also appreciate the suggestions for the writing assignments, so I do use it, but I think we would all go crazy if we used it exactly as written.

[Woodland Mist Academy]

History Odyssey is one of my biggest regrets. For spines we switched to Human Odyssey and Oxford University Press books (World in Ancient Times and The Medieval & Early Modern World).

 

So.much.better.

[Heathermomster]

To supplement HO lev 2 Ancients, we read the OUP texts, K12 HO Vol 1, and watch documentaries from Amazon Prime, NETFLIX, or films found on youtube. Outlining from the KFH is absolute torture and we don't do it. We use timeline software, and I've downloaded some books from Scholastic during one of their $1 sales...One book was written by Wendy Conklin and titled Ancient Civilizations China-India-Africa Mesopotamia..

 

We don't use HO2 Ancients the way that is was written and break up the assignments so that they are manageable.

[MyLittleWonders]

We do outline occasionally from th KFH encyclopedia, but I type one or two paragraphs from the original spread and walk the boys through it. We also only do it once every other week or so (typically we will do one for history and one for science each month - I want them to learn outlining but it can become drudgery very quickly, at least the rate at which HO seems to schedule outlining).

[fourisenough]

Another vote for using K12's Human Odyssey. Those books are just wonderful. We read and discussed; did occasional written narrations; tied in literature/historical fiction as is suited us; and watched the occasional documentary. We did our writing separately ~ no connection to history.