SOTW scheduling

[hollyfell]

I just started homeschool (2nd grade) this past fall and we are working through SOTW Ancients but are not on track to finish until November (my dds 3rd grade year). I really like the trivium approach of studying history beginning to end three times and would have liked to catch up so we could finish all four volumes of SOTW by the end of 4th grade or close. We enjoy it so much that we have gone a bit slower and have also taken a few breaks so we are not catching up as I had hoped so far. I understand that each book of SOTW is 40 chapters. Here are the options I can think of:

 

Cram to finish Ancients by the end of this year and start volume II in the fall and attempt to cram all three of the following volumes into two years pehaps by skipping some sections or combining?

 

Continue at our pace, not on track and then skip modern history and start Ancients again when she is in 5th grade and get to Modern by 8th (theoretically we'll still be hs by then :) )

 

Some other option???

 

I also have a younger dd who will do Kindy next year so no formal history lessons other than working along with big sister as desired.

 

What do you think? What have you done?

[kfeusse]

I would just keep going as you are...I wouldn't cram or rush. Take your time, enjoy the lessons....I also wouldn't skip any lessons.

[Aurelia]

Have you considered continuing history through the summer so you can enjoy it and not have to cram? I wouldn't recommend entirely skipping modern history, but you could do it as just a book to be read before you start the rotation again, if you're absolutely determined to start over in 5th. It's not the end of the world if you don't go through the history rotation 3 full times. It's always a possibility that your child will not have an interest in history by high school and will only need a high-level overview before devoting more time to other pursuits (organic chemistry, screenwriting, or running her own carpentry business, for example).

 

Another option is to finish up ancient history, then do a one-year overview for 4th grade (Calvert has a course based on A Child's History of the World for 4th grade) before starting over in 5th.

 

Do you want to have both your children on the same rotation? If so, one of them is not going to be able to follow the neatly laid out classical plan. If you plan for your elder and do ancients in 5th, the younger wouldn't start the history rotation until 2nd grade. If you plan for the younger, the elder will end up doing ancients and part of medieval history before starting over again.

[throughpagesandfields]

I'm following this because even though we're far from this issue I want the impossible. I want to cycle through 3 times with both kids - but do it together. hmmmmm... I can't figure it out either.

[fourisenough]

I say just chug along and enjoy it. I don't see any point in rushing through or skipping things. If you do it *right* you're going to create a lifelong learner who will never stop reading about the world, so there will be plenty opportunities to cycle through each era any number of times.

[boscopup]

Take your time and enjoy your studies. Things change as you go, and you may later decide to go a different direction. We did SOTW1and 2, then I bought 3 and 4 for DS to keep reading (at his request). By time we finished 2, he'd finished 3 and 4 on his own, so I decided to take a couple years for US History. We'll come back to Ancients in 5th, though for a while, I wasn't even planning to do that.