troubles with 5th grade history WTM way

[dgirlfriday]

Is anyone having trouble with 5th grade history? I love love love SOTW. But I now have a 5th grader that needs more. I have tried following the WTM outlined schedule but am frustrated with trying to find outside reading. We are doing Vol 1, the ancients. We do a 4 day school week, so we do 2 days of history and 2 days of science, alternating. He reads to his 1st grade sister the SOTW and asks her the questions and they do the map together. Then he moves to the suggested Usborne pages and does his list of facts and the timeline. He chooses what topics he'd like to know more about and I search the library for appropriate books. And I can never find anything! Either the book I want is at another library and will take a week through request to come to me, or they don't have anything on the topic whatsoever. I find myself searching on amazon, but don't want to spend tons of money on extra supplemental reading. The outlined WTM schedule and process seems so excellent in theory, but I'm having such a hard time putting it into practice.

 

Anyone have any suggestions? I thought perhaps he could get some extra supplemental info from an atlas, but of course this info is current and not about ancient times.

[TarynB]

The same issue is what led us to modify the WTM suggestions. We use Kingfisher world history for notetaking and the K12 Human Odyssey text for additional reading. No more juggling library books every week! Maybe you could try that or a similar text. Some people also use OUP's World in Ancient Times series for more detailed reading.

[sillymommy]

My DS won't start 5th grade work until later this summer, but I'm already wondering the same things. It takes at least a week to get many of our requested books. Our budget won't allow for buying lots of supplemental reading. So, I'm now hunting for a used set of encyclopedias. That would be easier & most cost effective for me in the long run, I think.

[2_girls_mommy]

I try to pick up books a week in advance, the same way I did in grammar stage with SOTW. If I get a few books on the topics, whatever the library has, chances are there is something in there that she wants to read and write about. Sometimes she has used the internet only when there wasn't a book on the topic. For example, she chose beehive tombs for one culture. We couldn't find any books on the culture at all in a children's level at the library. So we used internet sites that week. Sometimes she writes a summary the next week, while moving on to a new topic in her outlining work, because she had to wait a week for a book to come in. It hasn't hurt anything. And sometimes we skip a week of writing a summary if she has been busy researching and writing in another subject that week. In the end she has outlined a lot, read a lot, written a lot, even if not one every single week of the year in history because she had a lot of writing in other subjects that week. Sometimes the outlining and timelining and geography was enough. She has learned a ton. And we have really liked the freedom.

[Another Lynn]

It has been several years since we tried WTM approach for logic stage history, but we struggled with it too. I think the ancients are the toughest because of the very problem you mention - lack of appropriate, available resources. I would think this would improve in the later time periods. Feel free to tweak in whatever way works best for you. It's fine to use a 2nd source like Human Odyssey or Oxford University Press's World in Ancient Times. Or it's okay for some weeks to just do the list of facts and not go deeper into other sources. I would expect this to be most true of the Ancients year and begin to see more resources available, more doors opening in the later years.

[dgirlfriday]

what is the reading level of the OUP books? i think encyclopedias are an excellent resource, but they are above my 5th grader's reading level. i ordered one of the jackdaw sets but i think that will be difficult for him to get through also.

[TarynB]

what is the reading level of the OUP books? i think encyclopedias are an excellent resource, but they are above my 5th grader's reading level. i ordered one of the jackdaw sets but i think that will be difficult for him to get through also.

 

OUP's WIAT is middle school level. My 5th grader handled the reading just fine, but they were more detailed than he wanted for history, so we use Human Odyssey instead (which is also middle school level).

 

A history encyclopedia geared towards children would work fine, like Usborne or Kingfisher, if your DC enjoys or at least doesn't mind reading from encyclopedias - some people just don't like learning that way. Usborne is an easier reading level but also more choppy/blurby than Kingfisher. Both are recommended in WTM.

[dgirlfriday]

yes we have both the Usborne and the Kingfisher history encyclopedias for children. he is not reading at middle school level yet.

[Haiku]

Using the encyclopedia as a spine just about killed us. We switched to using library books, and I ordered them several weeks ahead. For next year I bought a narrative spine. Using the encyclopedia just sucked every last bit of interest and joy out of what had been one of my kids' favorite subjects. It made it so dry dry dry! And I was so excited because I had gotten the "white" (OOP) Kingfisher for $8!

 

Tara

[Penelope]

We used Human Odyssey and World in Ancient Times and liked the latter much better.

Some weeks it was just reading and putting a few dates on the timeline. We did some outlining and narrations, but did not do anything close to all of what TWTM recommends with all of the notebooking.

 

I'm okay with that. We spent a lot of time on writing and science this year, and read lots of good books. You can't do it all every year.

[Homeschooling Again]

We've been using the Kingfisher encyclopedia as a jumping off point and sometimes we go to the encyclopedia online (through our library we have access to World Book). I like that because it gives ds a chance to do some real world research into an historical topic. For other books we rely heavily on Dorothy Mill's books (Ancient History, Ancient Greeks, Ancient Romans). I also like to recall some of the narratives he wrote during the grammar phase when appropriate to remind him of what he's already learned. I also use art books and shorter biographies to supplement along with some other library books but we don't use nearly as many books as she calls for. We have been keeping up with the enormous timeline (which I've had to roll up because it didn't stick well to the wall, plus it was hard to write on our wall), and I don't have him write something for every single topic, though for the most part we have -- even if it's just a list of 7 facts. We also use maps because I think geography is so important. I've tried to keep using Mapping the World with Art, but oftentimes we just don't have the time. I don't feel so bad about backing off of the writing aspect because we're using WWS which I think is fantastic, so he's getting plenty of practice honing that skill there. Also I choose books to go along with the historical time period we're in. I've actually felt pretty good about the changes we've made because I know that they are the right ones for us -- I think that's one of the beautiful aspects of homeschooling.

[2_girls_mommy]

Yes, I forgot to mention that we have kept up historical fiction and mythology using CHOLL as a reading guide for the year. That has helped a lot too. I haven't had trouble doing history this year. But if we weren't doing the reading to go along, only the encylopedia it might be dull.

[sdcook]

Last year (our first homeschooling), I used SOTW and just tried to get library books ahead of time. For this coming year (5th grade) I found a great supplement to the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia: The Incredible Ancient History Book Box. It contains 8, 64-page books on major ancient civilizations, with 15 projects in each book. When we get to the appropriate places in the encyclopedia, I'm planning to stop and let my daughter work as long as she wishes with the books. They're British, and cost about $20 here, which I thought was well worth it to avoid research woes (we have a very small library). http://www.amazon.co...K/dp/1843228009

[Goldilocks]

I also began requesting books ahead of time. It was so disappointing to have my son pick something that he wanted to learn more about, but then have it be such a narrow topic that he couldn't find any book about it.

[serendipitous journey]

yes we have both the Usborne and the Kingfisher history encyclopedias for children. he is not reading at middle school level yet.

 

These are some things I've found in my ramblings -- maybe one will be useful. I've included quotes so you can see the reading level/complexity/interest.

 

K12's Human Odyssey -- mentioned often. This is an excellent text. Global in perspective. This can be done quite nicely as a read-aloud, in little chunks, and you can have the child narrate back or do some comprehension questions as you prefer -- a nice option for getting high-quality history in their heads if their independent reading level isn't quite up to the text. A quote:

"Confucius placed great importance on family obligations. It is within the family, he said, that people learn respect, cooperation, and the good habits that help them deal fairly with others. He often reminded his students that young people should honor and obey their elders, and that in return older generations should give young people the guidance and love they deserve.

Confucius regarded concern for others as the key to good behavior and good government. He did not see laws as the basis for a good, orderly society. Good conduct, instead, was most important. Good conduct inspired others to be good. When people treated each other fairly and with respect -- beginning with family members treating each other well -- society as a whole would grow more harmonious. Confucius himself quoted an old Chinese text: 'Simply by being a good son and friendly to his brothers, a man can exert an influence upon government.'"

 

Builders of the Ancient World -- really extraordinary, I think. Roughly the first 200 pages correspond to ancient history. Has a respectful tone regarding Biblical religious figures & is academic in tone (ie, it is not a Christian history, but is respectful to Christian and Jewish traditions). Generously illustrated with line drawings. Caveats: strong western focus. Written in 1946. A quote:

"The Babylonians built temples to their gods, but they were quite different from those of the Egyptians. They were built of sun-baked brick and were like square towers built one above the other, each one a little smaller than the one below it. Some of the tall skyscrapers in cities today, with each story set farther back than the one below it, are somewhat like the Babylonian tower-temples.

The lowest story was brick, the next was orange-colored, the next red, the fourth gold, the fifth pale yellow, the next a deep blue, the next silver. At the top was a little temple which was thought to be the dwelling place of a god. The people believed that the god often rested on the couch in this temple and feasted from a golden table placed before it. Processions of priests climbed to the shrine to offer gifts of the people to the god."

 

 

The Cartoon History of the Universe has very excellent history. This volume takes you through Alexander the Great. Caveats: it is meatier than it first appears, has some racy humor and is irreverent RE religious figures. A quote:

"The oldest known trading center seems to have been the oasis city of Jericho, on the route from Asia to Egypt. There, 8000 years ago, travelers and their goods were protected by a high city wall and housed in what looks like the world's first hotel. Many bright ideas must have passed through Jericho. <side note> At one time people had no mathematics and only the crudest concept of number. The earliest math problem was one of division: How to divide up the food fairly? It was probably solved mechanically, by pooling everything in the middle and letting everyone make a grab. With the rise of wealth of commerce, some people turned away from this problem to concentrate on addition."

-- all this is illustrated/expanded by comic pictures & speech bubbles &c.

 

ETA: regarding supplemental material, have you considered a streaming subscription? It may be too expensive or not what you want (we ourselves don't have one) and nothing is perfect ;) but it might be a good option for pursuing rabbit trails ...

[redsquirrel]

For fifth grade my son read out of the Oxford books. We also used the K12 Human Odyssey books. Those gave plenty for outlining and narration at a much higher level than the SOTW books. I didn't need to go to the library for much extra reading, non-fiction, at all. That said, my son had done the SOTW books in years 1-4 so he would have thought it odd to use them again for middle school. I might have felt differently about it if we hadn't already used them.

[prairiewindmomma]

We had to add in K12's Human Odyssey and issues of the magazine Calliope. http://www.cobblestonepub.com/magazine/cal/ We've had a subscription to Calliope and Cobblestone for years now so we had a pretty good stash of age appropriate articles for him to utilize.