Classical Conversations - heading toward Challenge so what do I do NOW (history)?

[abrightmom]

Well .....

 

.... after tons of research, thought, prayer, and agony I like the idea of heading toward Challenge A & B for 7th and 8th grade. High School is up in the air. We are registered for Foundations (pondering Essentials) and we are newbies to CC. It's possible we'll hate it and we'll know by year's end. I expect to like it and so I'm now framing out a course for the next couple of years for my oldest. He's a rising 5th grader and will be 11 this fall.

 

My plan is to NOT make Foundations the core for history and science. I do think of it as a supplement and intend to practice memory work and geography at home. He'll only get Cycle 2 and 3 if he moves to Challenge A in 7th grade. I don't care a whit about trying to coordinate history with CC ... I like layering anyway so what we study at home doesn't need to mesh with CC.

 

We haven't done a history cycle at all and I'd really like to. This is where the waters are muddy. We've had a fair amount of Ancients (though not complete; tons of Bible) and my plan was to use MFW's Rome to the Reformation with all of the kids and do a bit of "extra" with the oldest. He is passionate about Geology so he's going to study with RS4K's new middle school geology course alongside our MFW studies. I will make sure he has a substantial literature list (looking at CHOLL and Beautiful Feet's Medieval guide for this).

 

If we skip Ancients he'll study

 

Rome to the Reformation in 5th

Exploration to 1800's in 6th

???? Now we're at Challenge and he's had NO history study in the Modern Era at all. He had a wee bit of American History way back in 2nd grade. I'd like him to continue history studies in 7th and 8th grade but don't know how this works with Challenge. We can spread the 1800's-Modern era over the two years to keep it lighter. Do you have any recommendations?

 

If it is doable to study history alongside Challenge then I might prefer to start Ancients with all the kids this year, then RTR in 6th, and continue from there so he can wrap up a nice 4-year-cycle before high school.

 

I am finding it impossible to commit to a plan because of the age spread of my kids and the unknowns of starting CC. I do know that I WANT my kids to study history and that I don't think of the memory work as "enough". I LIKE having flexible structure so MFW or something like Beautiful Feet works for me. I think we will do well in MFW this year and maybe next but after that my oldest will probably "age out" (though stay in the same time period with different curriculum) while my youngers keep going with it.

 

THANKS for any counsel you can give me. :coolgleamA:

[yobella]

Last year was our first year in CC Foundations and Essentials with my 6th and 4th graders. All we did for history at home was read SotW finishing 1 and then doing 2. We also did a lot of read alouds from TOG year 2 that I had bought prior to deciding to join CC. It may not seem like much history, but when I consider all the history they learned in Foundations, all the history and writing they did in Essentials, as well as all the presentations they did on history topics (this applies to science as well), I feel we had a really full year of history.

 

We didn't get to much science during the year at home, but we are doing RS4K biology and hopefully chemistry over the summer.

 

So now my older child is going into Challenge A this fall and I am going to continue with SoTW 3 and 4, along with the Betsy Maestro books on American history. I'll also add in more RS4K. I think we will have a great year.

 

Paula

[Omma]

I would go with MFW Rome to Reformation this coming year. You said you didn't care if it matched Cycle 2, but the fact that it does match a fair amount should be a big perk, still! I have been mapping this out for my dd who is going into 6th and I am going to do MOH 2 with her this year (and maybe 1/2 of MOH 3, as we are going to have hopefully completed the first quarter of MOH 2 by September). If you are doing Essentials as well, then the whole year will be on Medieval History with IEW, so it will help your CC students write their papers to be in the Middle Ages in their history at home. I have done MFW Rome to Reformation and it was a great year! One idea would be to just wait and see where you are at about 1/2 thru the year to figure out what you will do next. You will get your bearings by then and could plan and order something new around Christmas-time (which I always like to do, kind of as a Christmas present to myself :laugh: )! I can understand the excitement of going through history chronologically, as we went on to MFW Explore to 1850 this past year, and I had planned on doing 1850 to Modern this coming year, but I left the decision to my dd and she has decided she wants to do the Middle Ages again, but with MOH this time. I figure that Cycle 2 will cover up to the Modern era the 2nd half of Cycle 2, so she will complete the chronological history that way. Keep in mind that I don't have any experience with CC to see what the workload will actually be for adding very much history to Challenge classes. I do know, though, that our CC tutor for the fall said that Challenge A will be a full load as it is, so I am waiting before adding anything else to my son's plate so that he can have the best chance for success with our changeover to CC. I am hoping that he will pick up a little bit from his sister's memory work with Foundations class, though!

[abrightmom]

So far, so good ladies!! Thanks for the input. I'm :bigear: for more.

 

Omma, Thanks for the MFW RTR encouragement. It looks ideal for us this year.

[Sophia]

 

 

If it is doable to study history alongside Challenge then I might prefer to start Ancients with all the kids this year, then RTR in 6th, and continue from there so he can wrap up a nice 4-year-cycle before high school.

 

 

 

It is absolutely doable.

My rising 9th grader did Challenge A two years ago, and I still regret not having her continue history on her own. She finished her Challenge work very quickly and had time to spare. She continued into Challenge B and I also had her do an online history class with Veritas Press to fill in gaps before high school. It involved extra reading and papers, but she managed it well.

[G5052]

Mine always did more history with Challenge A, and it didn't seem like too much for us..

 

One did "Ancient History" with Challenge A because we were in that cycle in Foundations, and I basically adjusted the load depending on what was going on in Challenge A. They always participated in the read-alouds, but didn't always do extra reading.

 

The last one did the Veritas self-paced 1815-Modern class with the readers along with Challenge A. I didn't have to adjust the pace much at all although CC gave us basically a 4-day week (doing more school after CC is impossible -- they're so tired), and they just finished the Veritas class last week because it is a 5-day program. We did two lessons a day at times after CC in order to finish.

 

I'll note though that doing additional history along with Challenge A was *NOT* the norm at our campus. The director told me that we were the only ones that did that as far as she knew. CC will tell you that it is a complete program and doesn't need more, but we always added more. Yes, we're contrary!

[abrightmom]

 

It is absolutely doable.

My rising 9th grader did Challenge A two years ago, and I still regret not having her continue history on her own. She finished her Challenge work very quickly and had time to spare. She continued into Challenge B and I also had her do an online history class with Veritas Press to fill in gaps before high school. It involved extra reading and papers, but she managed it well.

 

 

What online history class did you use? I have been considering the VP self paced courses as I think my son could squeeze in a few of them, leaving 8th grade open for something of interest (or as a breather if Challenge proves to be daunting for him). If we go the self-paced route I want to start with NTGR although MARR would be a better place to jump in, allowing him to get through the Modern era before he ages out of VP elementary.

 

Very glad to hear it is "doable" and perhaps it *is* doable if we make it a priority (and the student happens to love history which my guy does).

[G5052]

And I'll note that some 7th graders (including my own), find the self-paced grammar history programs a little childish. Mine wasn't thrilled with it, but they enjoyed it and learned a lot.

 

The self-paced Omni I Primary would have been an option if it had been available at the time. They're filming the Omni I Secondary now and hope to introduce it next summer. Do Omni I Primary with Challenge A, and Omni I Secondary with Challenge B? Just a thought. A friend of mine is also considering the online "History Survey and Transition" live class because she already owns all of the history cards from previous years in CC before they came out with their own. It goes through the whole Veritas timeline in a year. Wow!

[abrightmom]

And I'll note that some 7th graders (including my own), find the self-paced grammar history programs a little childish. Mine wasn't thrilled with it, but they enjoyed it and learned a lot.

 

The self-paced Omni I Primary would have been an option if it had been available at the time. They're filming the Omni I Secondary now and hope to introduce it next summer. Do Omni I Primary with Challenge A, and Omni I Secondary with Challenge B? Just a thought. A friend of mine is also considering the online "History Survey and Transition" live class because she already owns all of the history cards from previous years in CC before they came out with their own. It goes through the whole Veritas timeline in a year. Wow!

 

 

Omnibus .... :001_wub:

 

I am thrilled to find out they're doing the Secondary lit!! :001_cool:

 

Wouldn't Omni Primary be way too much with Challenge? Omnibus is a big curriculum with a heavy reading load (and some tough, tough books).

 

I do remember reading that by 7th grade the self paced classes are on the young side so that does throw a wrench in my potential VP plan unless he wants to use them for a light history alongside Challenge (I learn a ton from those online history classes .... :D ).

[Sophia]

 

 

What online history class did you use?

 

VP's Transitions class with Cindy Lange. My daughter loved it, learned a lot and was really sad when the class ended.

[Another Lynn]

What if you did Rome to Ref this year (oldest is 5th), do explorers to 1850 (or whatever it's called) next year (oldest is 6th). Then that summer let him do VP self paced online Modern (and SOTW 4 to fill the gap between 1850 and 1900 or however the dates don't match up exactly). He will have finished the history cycle before starting challenge A, and made use of VP self-paced before he's possibly "too old" for it. Then, during Challenge years he could pursue history topics of interest or sit in on read alouds to the youngers or whatever - but you would have a lot of flexibility to adjust it depending on the Challenge workload.

 

I say all this having never done MFW or Challenge (yet), lol.

[Ann.without.an.e]

We really like VP online. I will be in a similar situation, having a child entering challenge A this year but still having 2 years left out of the 5 year VP cycles. My plan is to have him complete explorers to 1815 for challenge A and 1815 to present for B. my kids find VP "fun" and they won't feel like it is extra work. Feel free to PM later and see how this is working for me :)

[stm4him]

Honestly I really think a good history overview would be tremendously helpful.  We did some very basic American history, then ancients up to the early greeks and then went back to early American history up to the Revolutionary War and then started at 1800 and went to 1900.  I knew there were holes in there, but alongside that last year we read the Veritas Press timeline cards and discussed them and my kids picked up an amazing amount of history.  Then this year we just did the timeline cards and the history highlights and my kids layered on more.  They actually know quite a bit of history just from that.  I really think an really good one year overview could be done alongside CC this year like this:

 

 

4 days per week:

2 VP cards per day (read and take notes if desired)

2 timeline cards per day (read and take notes if desired)

Make a timeline using the dates on the cards

read or listen to Story of the World (read straight through it) and/or A Child's History of the World

have the Kingfisher and Usborne Encyclopedias on hand for extra info if interested 

Buy the Transition Guide and Pages of History Set from Veritas Press (overview of all their cards in a story format with worldview questions and literature....meant to be a one year curriculum....comes out in August....found in 6th grade transition section of their website)

Watch Mankind series

 

This may sound like a lot but the cards take about 15 minutes each or less, it probably takes 5 minutes to mark down the dates, and Story of the World can be listened to while doing other things (like chores or riding in the car).  I'm not sure how long the transition guide stuff would take b/c I haven't seen it yet, but if that is too much or takes too long he could just read Pages of History.  I really think this would give him a very strong overview.  If you want him to memorize dates have him copy a chart every day of the dates.  Memorizing the CC timeline is very easy with the song.  I really think this is doable for a 6th grader and enjoyable.  He will also get some medieval history in Essentials through IEW if you put him in (which I would totally do).  I promise you that this is more history than one might think and that a broad overview like this puts enough pegs there that he will start to make a ton of connections and will serve him better than diving deep into one period of history with big gaps and a lack of understanding as to the flow of history.  We did not spend that much time on history compared to years before that and yet they know so much more.  

[abrightmom]

Honestly I really think a good history overview would be tremendously helpful.  We did some very basic American history, then ancients up to the early greeks and then went back to early American history up to the Revolutionary War and then started at 1800 and went to 1900.  I knew there were holes in there, but alongside that last year we read the Veritas Press timeline cards and discussed them and my kids picked up an amazing amount of history.  Then this year we just did the timeline cards and the history highlights and my kids layered on more.  They actually know quite a bit of history just from that.  I really think an really good one year overview could be done alongside CC this year like this:

 

 

4 days per week:

2 VP cards per day (read and take notes if desired)

2 timeline cards per day (read and take notes if desired)

Make a timeline using the dates on the cards

read or listen to Story of the World (read straight through it) and/or A Child's History of the World

have the Kingfisher and Usborne Encyclopedias on hand for extra info if interested 

Buy the Transition Guide and Pages of History Set from Veritas Press (overview of all their cards in a story format with worldview questions and literature....meant to be a one year curriculum....comes out in August....found in 6th grade transition section of their website)

Watch Mankind series

 

This may sound like a lot but the cards take about 15 minutes each or less, it probably takes 5 minutes to mark down the dates, and Story of the World can be listened to while doing other things (like chores or riding in the car).  I'm not sure how long the transition guide stuff would take b/c I haven't seen it yet, but if that is too much or takes too long he could just read Pages of History.  I really think this would give him a very strong overview.  If you want him to memorize dates have him copy a chart every day of the dates.  Memorizing the CC timeline is very easy with the song.  I really think this is doable for a 6th grader and enjoyable.  He will also get some medieval history in Essentials through IEW if you put him in (which I would totally do).  I promise you that this is more history than one might think and that a broad overview like this puts enough pegs there that he will start to make a ton of connections and will serve him better than diving deep into one period of history with big gaps and a lack of understanding as to the flow of history.  We did not spend that much time on history compared to years before that and yet they know so much more.  

Shaina,

 

I really love this. :)

 

What is the Mankind series?