History: 4 year cycle and American history in the lower grades

[cassafraz]

Okay, so here is my conundrum. I am trying to have a broad plan for what will be covered when, not set in stone, but just a general scope and sequence for the elementary years. (Yes, I know I am just starting kindergarten, but without a large plan I feel that I won't be comfortable moving forward. I need to know where we are going next, even if that is not a specific curriculum.)

 

Skills based courses are pretty easy to figure out, but those content based areas are a booger. Especially history. And since so many of the curriculums tie literature and history together, a large portion of my plan has glaring question marks on it. So, my question is this: If I do a 4 year cycle of histo ystarting in 1st grade do we miss out on american history? (we have already decided to just do basic geography and unit studies on different cultures this year as time permits. It's kindergarten, it's supposed to be fun!) Especially at the younger grades, it seems that there is a lot of great literature for American history that I don't want to miss out on! But the four year cycle speaks to me too. Our original plan was to start SOTW in first grade with the AG. But I don't know. I don't want to teach my children that America is central to everything, but don't they understand what is closer to them at this age?

 

Oh, what do I do?!!

 

This was our original plan :

SOTW w/ AG for 1-4

MOH for 5-8

 

See how neat and tidy that is? lol. But then I started looking at sonlight, and beautiful feet, and heart of dakota, and Trail Guide to Learning (which I really like but is out of age range) and and and and and

 

 

[happyhappyjoyjoy]

I did SOTW 1 in first grade. It actually took us 2 years, because he went back to school for 2nd. This year he is using MODG which is heavy on American History literature (similar to sonlight). We also began using CCM Alpha (similar to classical conversations) which is heavy on ancient. Its all worked out just fine. I've enjoyed the review of ancients while getting more exposure on American history. When we move to CCM Beta we'll focus on the Middle Ages we skipped over. We'll probably use Connecting With History 2 and SOTW 2 as well.

 

My point is that it is ok to go out of order. I do think I did a great thing by beginning at the beginning, but I don't think it is necessary to always go in order.

[bpskowski]

I'm doing(did) SOTW 1-4. We are on SOTW 3 now. I have spent weeks on some chapters as they relate to American History. Others, I just fly through so I can keep on schedule. Of course, anywhere he has particular interest we delve deeper. My ds loves history and has no problem reading and watching history during his free time. This is absolutely the right time to be doing American History as there is a frame of reference for why we came about.

 

I also thought I needed to get a jump on American History back when he was in 1st. I tried a short stint but it wasn't happening and he had no interest. So I kept with SOTW schedule. Now that we are there, he is loving it all. It's logical and the puzzle fits better in his head. Don't worry about getting it all in. There's plenty of time and we'll be repeating through 2 more cycles (if you keep on the TWTM cycle).

[cassafraz]

BPSKOWSKI-So, following the SOTW, I would just pause to add in more amiercan history as we came to it in context of the world timeline?

 

HAPPY- Do you find it to be too much to have multiple history programs going? I had thought about doing SOTW and then adding a separate American study to it, but thought it might be confusing...

[Tess in the Burbs]

We ended up using SL for grades 1-4 so we had 2 years of World(and less time spent on modern wars so young) and American 2 years. It was perfect. We did a lot of fun extra things like History Pockets, history kits and field trips. Now we are doing SOTW logic style with the encyclopedia/outlining and using other books for readers/read alouds to flesh it out. It's been a good year so far and I am glad we ended up going this route. SOTW is a nice intro to each week that they can read and then we dive deeper with other books. SL has Core G and H that could be done over 4 years instead of 2 if you wanted a schedule but we are doing out own thing this year.

[cassafraz]

TESS- I have considered that very thing. In fact, we are leaning pretty heavily towards sonlight. Very very heavily. One of my drawbacks is that my kiddo loves activities, so the SOTW AG was a huge draw for us. We won't do science from Sonlight, and I think that is where most activities are located? Did you find that to be a problem, or was it easy to add in activities to sonlight? Also, when we were looking at sonlight we were continually recommended to start with core P4/5, which seems too easy for k, but people warned that Core A might be too old for k? For background, my oldest has had two years of preschool, is starting to read, very interested in EVERYTHING, especially sciences. Loves to be read to. For example, right now, my husband is reading the Chronicles of Narnia to him at bedtime, several chapters a night. We have also been reading Magic Tree House books for a few years. He enjoys all of that, but I don't know how much he is LEARNING from them....

[Scrub Jay]

What we have ended up doing:

 

Prehistory in Kindergarden

 

Ancient history in first

 

Middle Ages in second (where we are now)

 

Early - Current Modern Times for Third AND starting American History in 3rd

 

Rest of American History in 4th and possibly adding The History of the Horse if we do WP's horse science unit. http://bfbooks.com/History-of-the-Horse-Pack

 

I use the Usborne World History book as our spine. Last year and this year we did use the SOTW audios and activity books as well but I'm not planning to next year. For American history we will be using The History of US.

 

So ours is a tweaked four year format. Sort of. ;)

[ByGrace3]

I really have struggled with my desire for the neat four year cycle and the reality of my kids. We did ancients in first, Middle Ages this year (SOTW for year one and SOTW with BP year two) and then we are detouring into American history next year (for two years). I am contemplating using the VP cards as a spine for year three and four so we are technically not abandoning the four year cycle, but just heavily focusing on American history. As in we will cover major events using the VP timeline, but all our books and read alouds will highlight American history. I *know it is ok to leave the cycle, but this helps me justify it a little more in my head and ease the guilt of just doing US alone. ;) silly perhaps but if it makes me feel better . . . ;)

 

I think there are many ways you can do it. SOTW yr 1-4 focusing on American history read alouds and readers (SL core D and E lists are a great place to start) or the SL cycle of two years of world and then two years of US, or really anything you choose in elementary is fine as long as you are reading and engaged and enjoying learning something. Remember history in the grammar stage is about establishing pegs and exposure. The timeline aspect is much more important in the logic stage.

[bpskowski]

BPSKOWSKI-So, following the SOTW, I would just pause to add in more amiercan history as we came to it in context of the world timeline

 

Yes. He wasn't so much interested in Roanoke and Jamestown. Although he loved John Smith and we did a lot of extra reading on the other parts of his life before Jamestown. He even wrote a paper on it (for my ds to voluntarily write is something!). The American Revolution and Independence which is two chapters in SOTW he loves. He watched all the Liberty Kids dvd's, plus I have read and he has read a ton of books. (He's just about finished with Johnny Tremain.) He has memorized the preamble to the constitution and is working his way to through the Declaration. His father has challenged him to memorize the whole thing but we'll see. (He is very good at memorization and really loves it.) He goes to the AG of SOTW himself and constantly does the projects. But he loves "making things." Also he loves maps. We just did the chapter on Capt Cook and Australia. He's read You wouldn't Want to Be an 18th Century British Convict and he's listening to an audio tape of Stowaway. He found some books on Australia and had me print out a blank map which he has filled out with different desserts, basins, peninsulas and whatever else struck his fancy. He's made a boomerang and been watching and listening to aborigine dancing and digeradoo(sp?) music. Sorry to carry on so but with history my ds is in his glory. And when I tried to introduce American history before it's time it really bombed. He throws himself into every time period and lives it. So following the progression of time has been natural for him.

 

At this point too, I am seeing him start to make connections. We have a poster that he adds the english kings and queens to as we read about them (we are up to George III). But looking at the poster he noticed that Richard III was the last monarchy to be pictured in knight's armor. Why he asks, and then he tells me that gun powder was now in more use so armor and the old way of fighting was out. Hmm? I tried to look up and could not find a definitive answer. But yeah, it's about that time. Also, King Richard III is the last king to do actual fighting as opposed to commanding on the field of battle. I don't think the connections would be clear if done out of order.

 

However, I still have two more to bring up and we'll see what works for them.

[alisoncooks]

See how neat and tidy that is? lol. But then I started looking at sonlight, and beautiful feet, and heart of dakota, and Trail Guide to Learning (which I really like but is out of age range) and and and and and

 

 

I feel your pain! I do the same thing (try and lay it all out, have a long-term plan). I also want to combine my 2 children in history and science, so part of my dilemma has been delaying history with my oldest until the youngest was ready to jump in. :p

 

I like how MFW does the cycle: a year of American history, then a year of world geography, before starting the 4-yr cycle.

[fourisenough]

With my older two girls, we did SOTW and American history as different subjects, concurrently. That worked okay for them. I'm doing it differently with my now 8-year old. She began the SOTW rotation in 2nd grade with Ancients. This year, in third, she is doing Middle Ages. We'll move on to Early Modern next year for 4th grade and will also add in a lot of American history as it relates to SOTW (extending certain chapters by a few weeks if necessary). Having already taught it to my older girls, I know what are the not-to-be-missed books, field trips, activities, etc. and I'm comfortable adding those in on the fly. Of course, by the time I get to DD4 (now 3), I may do something a little different yet! I like the looks of Elemental History. I'd probably use that at the K-1 level, and continue on with SOTW when finished.

[katnorman]

I'm thinking about doing SOTW 3 next year for 3rd along with Beautiful Feet Early American History Pack. Has anyone done this? Would it be too much?

[boscopup]

You might want to try something out for 1st, see what you like, then change if you need to and make a plan based off what you DO like.

 

I started out with SOTW (technically, I started with Biblioplan, but I dropped it a few months in). We did SOTW1 in first, SOTW2 in 2nd. I was planning to do SOTW 3 and 4 in 3rd and 4th grade and just add in extra US history books to those years as needed, but my son ended up loving SOTW so much that he read through all 4 volumes multiple times on his own. So then I decided I could "play" with other curricula the next couple years, not worrying about the 4 year cycle. He'd already had a good first pass through world history, so it didn't matter what we did. ;) (and really, it doesn't matter what you do anyway) So on a whim, I bought a used Sonlight Core D IG and got some books for it, and now we're doing Sonlight for 2 years. I don't plan to stick with it, but we're enjoying Core D, and I think we'll like Core E as well. So we ended up getting world history AND US history in the first 4 years anyway. ;) We'll restart the 4 year cycle in 5th (with littles in K and 2nd), and we'll see where we go from there. We may do perfect 4 year cycles after that, adding in Sonlight US History books where applicable when the younger ones get to that stage, or we may take a detour into something else again. We'll see what we want to do when the time comes.

 

At the very least, when you get to SOTW 3 and 4, check out some of the books on the Sonlight D and E lists from your library (most of them are popular books that libraries usually have multiple copies of). You'll get some extra US history in there. :)

[ChicoryChick]

I am watching Jeopardy so I didn't read the PPs due to concentration issues. Anyway I was a firm believer in doing the 4 year cycle 3X but now that my youngest will be starting First Grade next year I have altered my plans. I am now planning on going through the cycle 2X giving me time to focus on American History, Geography, and Literature. I am thinking either doing literature or American History for first - thinking about trying Elemental History "Adventure in America" if we go woth history. Pretty excited about it.

[NittanyJen]

If you stick with SOTW for years 1--4 you will get plenty of American history. Even in ancients and medieval times, we meet early native Americans and the Vikings. During early modern and modern, you can expand the America chapters as needed to include time to explore more deeply or read more. We have used History Odyssey (which includes SOTW) but I tossed in America units from Hands of A Child to expand it a bit, and we checked a pile of books out of the library-- everything from Paul Revere and Ben Franklin (he LOVED "Ben Franklin of Old Philadelphia) to Daniel Boone and Annie Oakley as well as fiction.

 

I am thinking of condensing history to a three year cycle in logic stage, with year four dedicated to just American History. Then in High School, my plan is two years of world history, one year of American government and economics (semester each) with a final year of student choice-- AP course, college course, or some focused course of his own design and choosing, such as Tudor Enlgland or WWII or whatever.

 

Many colleges I have skimmed for admissions seem to specify a year of American studies of some type.

 

 

[cassafraz]

Thank you guys so much! I am currently pouring over the elemental history. It looks like it might be a great fit for first if we decide to not stick with sonlight. So many choices! I am seriously so glad that I found this board! You guys rock!

[HelenNotOfTroy]

My plan is to use SOTW for history and in the early years add in local historical field trips as well as American tall tales, but not as part of school. Then, if I feel that we need more American history when it comes up in SOTW, I will add in more books.

[Tess in the Burbs]

TESS- I have considered that very thing. In fact, we are leaning pretty heavily towards sonlight. Very very heavily. One of my drawbacks is that my kiddo loves activities, so the SOTW AG was a huge draw for us. We won't do science from Sonlight, and I think that is where most activities are located? Did you find that to be a problem, or was it easy to add in activities to sonlight? Also, when we were looking at sonlight we were continually recommended to start with core P4/5, which seems too easy for k, but people warned that Core A might be too old for k? For background, my oldest has had two years of preschool, is starting to read, very interested in EVERYTHING, especially sciences. Loves to be read to. For example, right now, my husband is reading the Chronicles of Narnia to him at bedtime, several chapters a night. We have also been reading Magic Tree House books for a few years. He enjoys all of that, but I don't know how much he is LEARNING from them....

 

 

 

I thought it was easy to add activities. We did History Pockets where we could. I bought a kit for middle ages crafts. We did another kit for Native American/Early explorers they enjoyed. The last core we did( E) they didn't want activities lol. And even now, they rarely want to do the SOTW activities. They want to be done and go play lol.

 

You can't go wrong with SOTW in grades 1-4. Easy to implement. And Notgrass has American history stuff for middle school ages now. And then use SL for middle grades.

 

But for us, I am glad we did SL when they wanted to cuddle on the couch. Mine are 4th/5th grade this year and the time on the couch is much less....and we do a read aloud. They are just too busy anymore. You will know when you found the right fit. Don't worry about lack of American in the SOTW if used grades 1-4. Add in some Liberty's Kids videos when appropriate. Stop and do an Evan Moore unit study or other unit study and stretch out history into another year to add in things. Both are great options.

[2_girls_mommy]

We did the 4 yr plan (we are on the 1st year of our 2nd rotation now..) In the early years w/SOTW, I just took a break around American holidays to do some Am. history. 1st grade was SOTW. But in Nov. We spent time on pilgrims and Indians and the first Thanksgiving. I kept up w/SOTW too, though there may have been a week or two that we laid off of it completely, and then just rushed through a chp. or two after. In Oct. we did a 1 day unit on Columbus Day. Instead of reg. SOTW that day, we read books, did coloring sheets, learned a song about, and did map work about Columbus. The next day, back to our regularly scheduled SOTW. We did the same with our state during statehood day week and when we had opportunities to go to local historical sites. We learned about the constitution around the 4th of July and by watching Liberty's kids. We read about MLK on his holiday and early presidents on president's day, etc.

 

Then when we eventually got to chapters on explorers in SOTW2 and more early Am. history in vol. 3, we just spend as much time w/that as we needed like a PP said. When it was time to learn about our state, we had been doing so all along, but stopped to go deeper when we hit that place in SOTW (adding in a state workbook and visiting more sites) but we have done state history all along as well.

 

The SOTW is our official timeline, but we took enough short ventures into other things that I felt that they weren't totally lacking w/common knowledge.

[happyhappyjoyjoy]

 

HAPPY- Do you find it to be too much to have multiple history programs going? I had thought about doing SOTW and then adding a separate American study to it, but thought it might be confusing...

 

I did not, but the ancients was more of a review. He also is memorizing a timeline with CCM that is repeated in every level. He's now to the part of the timeline that focuses on the American history he's been learning with his 'core'. Fully doing two different time periods would be time consuming if they were both new material, but it could be done. I have made the decision to school year round taking days off when we need them. This allows me the freedom to not stress out about getting through material. I also don't stress over remembering every little detail. Some things I breeze by knowing we'll come around to it again later.

 

HTH

[happyhappyjoyjoy]

I will also add, I'm NOT an activities girl. Whenever I tried to incorporate history pockets, etc.... they sat around unfinished and became a nuisance. I learned and don't bother anymore. Reading good living history books is more important to me.

[Alice]

I haven’t read all the responses but I’d guess that what you’ll get from this thread is that there are as many ways to do it as there are people posting.

 

What we did: Used SOTW 1 and 2 for 1st and 2nd and really loved them both. During the year we would read various American history books when it was appropriate (Thanksgiving, President’s Day or if we were going on a field trip). In third grade SOTW 3 stopped working as well for me for various reasons. I decided to take a break and focus on American history. I put together an American history unit using various resources. Ds said he really missed SOTW. So we continued to read it as a read-aloud but not doing any activities or extra stuff while focusing on American history. That worked well. This year for 4th grade we are using SOTW 4 which we are both enjoying. We are also doing a US Geography study (using the Trail Guide book) with my current first grader. Both boys are really enjoying Geography.

 

The bigger picture: It’s good to have some idea of where you want to go and how you want to get there but try not to worry too much about the specifics at this point. What I’ve learned is that sometimes a curriculum or approach that works for everyone else just doesn’t work for us. Or it might work for me but not my kids. Homeschooling is all about flexible and adapting. Elementary history is also really more about the BIG picture rather than making sure you get it all in or read every book. There is nothing that is essential that you have to cover, IMO.

[kiwik]

I thought with wtm history American history was supposed to be kept in proportion to the space in history it occupies.

[2_girls_mommy]

I thought ith wtm history American history was supposed to be kept in proportion to the space in history it occupies.

 

It is. But some of us (at least I) panic at the thought of our kids not knowing some of the things other little kids know. I couldn't stand the thought of my litles not having some idea of Thanksgiving, or early presidents, or MLK, or Columbus until 3rd grade. So taking small detours on holidays was an easy way to focus on some of that for me. If anyone mentioned Abraham Lincoln in Sunday school I didn't want them to draw a complete blank...

 

Sometimes taking a small detour is just fun. One March we put away R&S grammar and SOTW for a few weeks and did a lapbook/unit study on St. Patrick and Ireland. It was completely out of our timeline, but we had a great time and shook things up a bit. Then back to our regular work we went. Never hurt my kids to take small breaks out of context like that.

[cjgrubbs]

I severely struggled with this for our current school year. We have LOVED MOH and I wanted to continue it but felt we needed some American history. I tried TOG but it was a bomb here. So I ended up using Hakim's Story of Us for my 7th grader along with National Geographic Almanac of American History and I'm just doing a president study with my 4th grader. 1st grader is listening in. We used This Country of Ours, though it end at Woodrow Wilson and we've used The Everything President's Book. Looking back, I now wished I would used Biblioplan Year 3 this year. I didn't choose it bc the companion for year 3 wasn't finished and so in my mind it seemed incomplete but now I see it would have been the perfect combination of what we ended up using with a better structure to include all 3 kids. Before deciding this I also purchased Notgrass America the Beautiful, which I also really like. So I'm not sure what we'll do next year. I had decided to get 4th grader through modern this year and start him back on Ancients for 5th (along with 2nd grader) and let 7th grader continue on with study of modern for next year so he can be ready to start ancients in 9th. I'm strongly leaning towards MFW highschool for him. 4th grader doesn't want to go back to ancients yet though and wants to study all the wars in great detail.... so Biblioplan year 4 for us all (which doesn't have MOH since vol 4 isn't written yet) or separate time periods? Decisions, decisions..... I seem to be making lots of bad ones this school year!

[cjgrubbs]

 

 

Sometimes taking a small detour is just fun. One March we put away R&S grammar and SOTW for a few weeks and did a lapbook/unit study on St. Patrick and Ireland. It was completely out of our timeline, but we had a great time and shook things up a bit. Then back to our regular work we went. Never hurt my kids to take small breaks out of context like that.

 

 

I need to have more confidence to do this!

[Amy M]

 

I feel your pain! I do the same thing (try and lay it all out, have a long-term plan). I also want to combine my 2 children in history and science, so part of my dilemma has been delaying history with my oldest until the youngest was ready to jump in. :p

 

I like how MFW does the cycle: a year of American history, then a year of world geography, before starting the 4-yr cycle.

This is me. I'm doing SOTW 1 in 1st grade now, and then we're going to do MFW's cycle as described above. Maybe it would even be more ideal to do 1st and 2nd grades with SOTW 1-2, then MFW Adventures (American history) in 3rd, MFW ECC (world geography and cultures) in 4th, and MFW's 4-year cycle for grades 5-8. That way you cycle through twice, and get the full year of American history w/out the extra world history for those younger ages.

 

I've also agonized over the layout and my long-term plan. :)

[NittanyJen]

I thought with wtm history American history was supposed to be kept in proportion to the space in history it occupies.

 

It's a nice idea, and you can do this, but with maybe just a bit of an expansion of US history during years 3 and 4. I don't recall much coverage of some fascinating (and fairly important) people in SOTW3 such as Benjamin Franklin; be a shame to leave him out (forgive me if I picked on the wrong oversight as I do not have the book in front of me). But in proportion to is not some magical mathematical formula in the case of history; the idea is to keep some balance. It is, however, not all that abnormal for a child to have a good foundation in their own history and not have it glossed over, either. What many of us hope to avoid is the totally Americentric, me-centric teaching of history that makes the rest of the world a mere footnote. However, one must not tip too far in other direction, either. It is neither embarrassing nor rude to obtain an excellent grasp of one's own history alongside world history-- it is, in fact, good civics. Some of the silliest political argument we see on the news and in coffee shops (by people who share our right to vote!!) happens thanks to people who fail to grasp both US and world history.

 

PS. I am not suggesting SOTW is light on US history-- it actually has a fair amount. I just also sympathize with people who want to extend it a bit. Just as if you live in Germany or England, it would be quite natural to extend those units.

[Guest Katobe]

I am very new to all this , could someone explain what the abbreviations stand for .... Thanks

[NittanyJen]

SOTW Story of the World, written by Susan Wise Bauer (SWB-- she gets her own abbreviation) hostess of this Forum and author of The Well Trained Mind (TWTM). If you want to give SWB a monster headache and cause her to bang her head on her desk repeatedly, go ahead and start commenting on whether SOTW is secular or non-secular. (*Please do not actually do this. I think SWB is a rather neat person ** and don't want her to hurt herself) (**blatant suck-up).

 

AG-- often refers to the activity guide that goes with SOTW.

 

HO can get confusing: commonly, History Odyssey, a curriculum plan by Pandia Press that follows the 4-year cycle proposed in TWTM and also follows classical schooling structure, in organizing learning around the grammar, logic, and rhetoric stages of learning (some people confuse the four year cycle with classical learning, but that is simply one method of implementing it). This HO uses SOTW in its grammar stage level history program (often equal to grades 1--4 if your child were in school).

 

HO, or Hum.Od is also Human Odyssey, a 3-part textbook used by many during logic stage years for its clear writing and secular approach, not to be confused with the Spielvogel book of the same name, which is a denser volume for a slightly older audience.

 

MFW is My Father's World-- someone else can correct me, but I think this one is non-secular

 

HofAC is Hands of A Child-- a series of unit studies across several subjects and age ranges, some secular, some not.

 

MOH -- Mystery of History. I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you. It IS a mystery after all.

 

Maybe I should limit my posting when running a high fever....

[ForeverFamily]

I am very new to all this , could someone explain what the abbreviations stand for .... Thanks

 

 

This list of Abbreviations was very helpful to me.