SOTW 3 Did you take time to include more American history?

[ScoutTN]

Beginning to look through the books for next year so as to have shopping lists for upcoming curriculum sales and thinking I can't possibly do only the amount of American history scheduled. It's too fun and interesting to do so lightly.

We are taking almost 12 months on SOTW 2 and thinking we'll do this next year too.

 

How have you done SOTW 3 or other early modern history with grammar stage kids?

[linders]

Short answer - yes. Longer answer, from 1750 on we really did American history with world history as a backdrop. We read the SOTW 3/4 chapters, but all of our extra reading and projects focused on American history. Early on, I used the Maestro books for an American history spine, but they only went to Civil War. After that, American history was a patchwork of SOTW (American and world history really begin to converge by WWI) and miscellaneous books.

[fourisenough]

Short answer - yes. Longer answer, from 1750 on we really did American history with world history as a backdrop. We read the SOTW 3/4 chapters, but all of our extra reading and projects focused on American history. Early on, I used the Maestro books for an American history spine, but they only went to Civil War. After that, American history was a patchwork of SOTW (American and world history really begin to converge by WWI) and miscellaneous books.

 

This sounds very similar to what I plan to do next year. We do SOTW with a co-op class. We do reading, discussion questions, and narration at home, and in class they do timeline, map work, and hands-on projects. I am beholden to their schedule, so we'll have to trudge along (even if we'd rather take a rabbit trail), but the trade-off is worthwhile just for the accountability and fun of doing it with the group. I plan to add in quite a bit of Am history and the teacher feels the same. I love the Maestro books and will use them as a spine, as far as they go. We'll probably get started on the Am history this summer and will continue it next summer after the class ends.

[redsquirrel]

Nope, not really. We covered it more in depth at the middle school level.

[Tita Gidge]

Like redsquirrel, we cover it more in-depth in the logic stages.

 

During the grammar stage, we do some study via unit studies. One year we do states, the next we do presidents, ... lots of history infused in those studies. And by the third year we're into SOTW3. That third year we incorporate historical fiction into our reading studies (readalouds, independent reading). It can go with the timeline in SOTW3 or (I'm not really a stickler for a timeline beyond "Early Modern Era" so ...) just any biography/topic related to the Early Modern Era. Same goes for SOTW4. We also check out books relating to government holidays, and such, so more exposure that way.

 

My goal for the grammar stage is exposure and culture familiarity, as opposed to a more in-depth course. That I save for middle school.

[phathui5]

We're on SOTW 3 this year with a K'er, 1st, 4th and 6th grader.

 

The only extra time we've spent on American history so far was when we got to the part about the Revolutionary War, we spent two weeks reading the A History of US book about that time period and watching the Liberty's Kids DVDs. Then we went back to SOTW.

[waa510]

I am adding it in because my oldest is very interested in American history ( living near the White House and Mt. Vernon will do that to a kid) If not, I would have waited until logic stage. We've been using various lit, the America: the Story of Us DVDs and corresponding kindle books ( which have clips from the DVDs if you don't think your kid could sit through a whole episode it's a great alternative) and a boatload of field trips. We're also going to watch the Liberty's Kids series once it comes in from Amazon in July.

[Momof3littles]

We did SOTW 3 this year with DS1 (age 9). I went lighter on the supplemental readings in terms of world history. We read the American Girl books as part of a co-op class, which got into a lot of US History topics (Revolutionary War, slavery and the Civil War, The Great Depression, etc.). We also added in additional biographies as part of that course, and then I added in some things like the My America series. In our area there are several local events that are focused on the colonial time period, so we attended those. We definitely were a little lighter on world history and I feel bummed about that, but I know he got a pretty good overview of US history this past year.

 

edited to add that this summer we are going to pick 5-6 Native American tribes to study and do a unit on them. I'm thinking on one day we'll read background and look at the geography of the group, then on the 2nd day I'll pull in readings including myths, legends, spiritual beliefs, etc. and then the third day perhaps make a diorama or model of the form of shelter most commonly used, and then on the 4th day do a craft or project associated with that group. DS1 read Chickadee about the Ojibwa, and I have The Birchbark house for him here, so we'll do some fiction reading added in. I also picked up a DVD on the Trail of Tears.

[2_girls_mommy]

Yes, for vol. 3 I had a 1st and 3rd grader. I co taught an American Heroes class for lower elem at co-op that year. We highlighted great Americans using biography picture books, Nest Videos and fun projects. I kind of used What Your 1st Grader Needs to Know as a Scope and Sequence that year. We did a little extra with the explorers, a lot with the Founding Fathers and others from that time period (watched a lot of Liberty's Kids at home that year too) and then went forward, memorizing early presidents, and focusing on the more relevant to youngster ones and their wives and the early stories through about Lincoln that year, plus we did early inventors, even did one class on Helen Keller. That was a good supplement for my 1st grader.

 

My 3rd grader had something else that hour, but she saw a lot of the videos and picture books were were using at home. I used a 4th grade Social Studies text book on the Constitution with her to supplement government civic duties. I just assigned her to read certain chapters as we went along and we discussed using the questions from the book.

 

For State history when we got there I used a State History workbook. We didn't do it all because much of it is familiar to them already, but we did a few chapters out of it and visited some sites from it that we hadn't been too yet. We kind of do State history all of the time, but we I did try to match up the most relevant things when they fit it in as we went.

 

I do plan to go deeper for logic stage as well, though we have continued to do state history constantly even though we are back to Ancients this year. There are just too many opportunities to not do it.

[sillymommy]

We took 2 weeks for the Revolutionary War this yr. Focused on Boston & Rhode Island since it's out newest home(we're military & just moved here last fall). Then back to SOTW3.

 

Over the course of the fall & winter we took tours in Boston, listened to Johnny Tremain on cd, visited Lexington/Concord, and read lots of fun books. So, it's been an ongoing conversation, but not the weekly topic of history class.

[FO4UR]

My dc love history, so we've been doing US History casually all along via living books. Things will ramp up this year with SOTW3. I'm trying to pick books from the "other" side...stories from the POV of the African in a world of slave trading, a Cherokee girl during the Trail of Tears, etc...

 

 

We are already very familiar with Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, etc...so this is the main reason I'm choosing to go this route this year. Some things might be too much for my little guy, but we will play it by ear and see how it goes.

 

 

Our memory work is going to heavily focus on US History/Gov't.

[Mrs Mungo]

We do a year of American History in 8th grade.

[Ali in OR]

Yes, we add a lot of American history--SOTW is very light (I seem to recall only 1 week on civil war???). We use Biblioplan which schedules SOTW along with other sources, so we add History of US and lots of historical fiction. At times we've also added Time Travelers lapbooks from Home School in the Woods, Liberty's Kids, Ken Burns' Civil War dvds, etc. So we spend a lot of time on history, but we all love it.

[amyrobynne]

I'm planning to stretch the 4 year rotation an extra year with more American history when appropriate.

[mazakaal]

Like Amyrobynne, I'm stretching the four volumes of SOTW to 5 years and adding in extra American and British (because we live in the UK) history. I'm adding in some reading from A Child's Story of America, several of the If You Were There... books, and lots of historical fiction set in early America. I also have the Time Traveler's Colonial America cd on its way. If the kids like it, we'll be getting more from that series.

[tomandlorih]

Yes. I used History Odyssey for SOTW3 with my third grader this year and it worked out better for us because HO is arranged by continent-ish so instead of having a chapter here or ther on AM Hist, it has it arranged all together and you spend several months on it. We also supplemented heavily from the library, watched all the Liberty's Kids episodes, American girl books, If You Were There books, Maestros books, and many others fiction and non.. HO has a booklist and there are the booklists in the SOTW AG also.. HO also includes Evan Moor History Pockets which are always fun so that stretched it a bit more and it sounds like you are not opposed to stretching=D I used History pockets Ancient Civilizations for SOTW1 in 1st too. HO is not for everyone, but it was a really good fit with us because it was bugging us to jump around like that and I wasn't as concerned with keeping in a strict timeline as I was just the time period. lol

 

HO is more about reading and notebooking but if your dc's prefer worksheets etc.. Well, History Pockets are good.. (paper projects with lots of coloring), but for great worksheets, The Complete Book of US History is very inexpensive and just about covers it all, in order.

[kristi26]

This is the first of three terms I have scheduled out for SOTW3: http://themommywriter.blogspot.com/2013/04/free-charlotte-masonliving-bookshands.html I added some other books as well. You're welcome to check it out if you're at all interested! :)

[lillysmom216]

I'm doing SOTW 3-4 concurrently w/ Hakim The Story of US. Some nice member on here shared their schedule last year and it works really well. It is laid out over a 3 year span. Wish I remembered the name to give her credit! https://docs.google....MGU3/edit?pli=1

[ScoutTN]

Thanks for sharing! Still not exactly sure what we're going to do, but learning lots from these boards.

:001_smile:

[amyrobynne]

I really appreciate all the links, too! I've been at a loss for how to keep history interesting while ramping it up as my middle approach middle school and there's a lot of great options in this thread!