I need advice for the rest of the year (Switching from Sonlight History)

[TheAttachedMama]

Can I talk something out here?  :)

 

My son is about to turn 7 years old, and he is in first grade.  My daughter is 5.5 years old.  We are calling this her kindergarten year, but she pretty much insists on doing the same work as her older brother.  So accedmically, both kids are working at a first grade level for most subjects. 

 

We start our school year in the spring, so we have already finished 18 weeks of a 36 week school year.   Up until this point, I had been using Sonlight Core A for history and Sonlight K for science.  I really love the read alouds that sonlight uses....but I am not loving the History.  The Core A history bascially consists of reading to them from an usborne encyclopedia and a "living long ago" book.  Early on I realized that the kids weren't really retaining anything from our history study.  However, I continued on because my hope was that our time spent reading would at least give the kids to an overview of history.  But, the kids find our history readings very borning.  It is becoming apparent to me that our time spent doing History is pretty much "busy work".   If they aren't enjoying it and don't seem to be learning, I am sort of questioning if that time could be better spent. 

 

Ideally, I wish our history and science studies revolved around a more interesting spine.  (NOT an usborn encyclopedia).  And I wish our history and science studies included more picture books/library books on the topic to supplement our spine.  I also think the kids would enjoy more projects in our history and science studies.  (Although I am not really a "project mom"--I think it would make learning more fun and memorable for the kids.)  I also want to include a bit of memory work in the subjects.   SO---with those goals in mind, I went to my library and checked out a copy of The Well Trained Mind, Story of the World Vol. 1, and the activity book. 

 

After reading The Well Trained Mind, I am feeling very inspired! 

I am now thinking that I should have started our History studies at the "beginning" so to speak with ancient history and followed a four year cycle.  I am also thinking that they may enjoy SOTW as opposed to sonlight for history.  And that I could then add in library books and projects when I am able to make history more fun/memorable.  I am also feeling like I "wasted" a good 18 weeks of school this year when it comes to History. 

 

SO--now that I have a plan of what I think will work better for our school year, I am wondering how I should proceed. 

Should I....

1)  Finish up this school year (another 18 weeks) doing an overview of world history then start our ancient history next year when my son is in 2nd and my daughter is in 1st?

2)  Just start SOTW vol 1 now.  Get in the first 18 chapters now and just continue on with the remaining 24 chapters when we start 2nd grade in the spring? 

3)  Something else? 

[HelenNotOfTroy]

We are loving SOTW and the activity guide for ancient history. I don't know whether you should change now or finish Sonlight, but if you and your children are not getting what you want out of what you are doing then I would change now. It doesn't matter that you will do part of SOTW 1 this school year and part next school year.

[brookspr]

I second SOTW and the activity guide.  Many of the activities are a little to young for my 11 year old but I think they would be perfect for a 7 year old!  The guide also gives reading suggestions for each chapter and I pick the ones my son is interested in and can read rather quickly, since he also has two independent reading books and Kingfisher encyclopedia reading to do each day.

 

We are using SOTW as assigned in Sonlight core G, so perhaps as your kids get older you might go back and take a look at Sonlight again.  I tweak it quite a bit, using just the guide and books from the library or kindle editions.

[Kathryn]

If you finish sonlight, you won't be doing history anymore. The rest of that year is random social studies topics. I'd make the switch now to SOTW and get through what you get through. I toughed it out through Core A, though I was ready to be done halfway through it also. I wish I'd switched earlier. We are SO much happier with what we settled into (we use TOG with SOTW and switched to Elemental Science with library books and videos added in). We did end up switching Language Arts halfway through that year. DS was doing LA2 and we switched to WWE/FLL.

[heather124]

I just started to homeschool this year, so take this with a grain of salt.  I would start SOTW immediately and see how far you get this get this year.  We started in the summer (June) and will be finishing up in January and will move on then, even though our school year will not end until June.

 

Good luck

 

[serendipitous journey]

If you think you'd enjoy SOTW, I suggest starting it now.  You can either split it in half and save some for next year as you suggested; or you could compact it; or you could do what you can during your school year and listen to the rest as an audiobook over the summer if you don't want to do history per se over your summer break. 

 

If you are not a Young Earth Creationist you may want to add some prehistory to SOTW1 to start at the actual beginning; and if you are Young Earth Creationist you might want to allow a bit of time for a Biblical history at the beginning.  A good prehistory resource from the standard academic perspective is Galore Park's Junior History 1; it goes through Roman civilization so you could use the parts after prehistory to supplement SOTW or just jump ship to SOTW when you come to early Mesopotamian civilizations. 

 

ETA: these kind of adjustments and changes are inevitable when you start homeschooling!  At our house it was SOTW that plain didn't work in first grade ... (and it is an excellent resource)

[boscopup]

I'd start SOTW now.

[Mommy22alyns]

Definitely drop SL and start SOTW now!

[StartingOver]

I would start SOTW now. We have Sonlight Books through E, and I just use them where they fit into history with SOTW. Adding in the read alouds, and readers as we wish. I will be purchasing more Sonlight, as individual books as I am Heirloom already.

[Meg4]

This is us this year too. We are doing core A and I just can't stand reading from the Usborne encyclopedia or IHTGN. The science for us is "meh"....the story Bible over their heads.. So, basically we are down to the read alouds.    I feel like I have been in search of a good history spine for this age group forever.  I like STOW, but I think right now it might be too much for us. So we may wait and do some fun holiday stuff and unit studies until the end of the year.. and then pick it up in January. And just go at our own pace.   

[mom@shiloh]

If you'd like another option, you could also check out Hilyer's A Child's History of the World.  The first few chapters lean heavily toward evolution, so those didn't appeal to me, but other than that I liked his writing style.  I also like SOTW, but the Hilyer book seems written for a slightly younger audience, imo, so might engage your 5 yo more than SOTW.  

[Kathryn]

If you'd like another option, you could also check out Hilyer's A Child's History of the World. The first few chapters lean heavily toward evolution, so those didn't appeal to me, but other than that I liked his writing style. I also like SOTW, but the Hilyer book seems written for a slightly younger audience, imo, so might engage your 5 yo more than SOTW.

This Is actually what we did when we were going through the social studies half of Core A. DS really enjoyed it.

[mom31257]

I didn't use SOTW until 3rd grade, and honestly, I think it would have been too challenging for my ds earlier than that.

 

If the 2nd half of the core has social studies, I would use it. Social studies is fun to me, though. 

[Alice]

I would stop the history part of Sonlight if it isn’t working for you but I would wait to start SOTW 1 until “next yearâ€. I think the extra half a year would help your younger child to get more out of it. I have found it great for 1st or 2nd grade. Also, although it doesn’t matter if you start SOTW this year and finished “off-schedule†next year, that’s the kind of thing that would drive my silghtly OCD self crazy. :)

 

As to what to do the rest of this year...I’d just drop history for the rest of the year. It’s first grade and K, it’s TOTALLY fine to not to anything for history at that age (and you haven’t wasted the first 18 weeks ). It’s fine to just then have more free time but if you want to fill it with something planned, add in something they like more of as read-alouds or use the time to do more fun stuff. Art. Science read-alouds. Topical studies (you could easily do history/social studies topically and with the calendar...Thanksgiving, President’s day, Valentine’s Day (the real history behind it), Women’s history month, Chinese New Year, Black History Month, St. Patrick’s Day, Passover/Easter...all of those afford great opportunities for read-alouds and crafts or fun activities that are perfect for that age group). 

[Incognito]

FWIW, Sonlight A is different than subsequent cores.

 

SOTW is fun and my similar aged kids enjoy it.

[tld]

We're in the same place as you with Core A too.  We just finished Week 13.  I'm seriously considering doing Beautiful Feet Early American History Primary for the rest of the year.  They sell it by the semester, so I'm thinking I'll just get the first semester and it will take us through the end of the year.  A nice intro to American History before starting world history with Sonlight B next year, I think.

 

For anyone who has done Beautiful Feet American History, do you think we'd be left hanging if we just do the 1st semester and then return to American history with Sonlight in 4th and 5th grade?

[TheAutumnOak]

I would buy the SOTW audio (my boys LOVE listening to Jim Weiss), and listen to it the rest of this year...You can get the activity guide that has coloring sheets if your children like that...My boys loved the audio so much that they listened to it for a second time in one day, about 8 hours of straight listening while they played with breaks for meals :001_smile:

[JudoMom]

I'd start it now.

[abacus2]

Sonlight's Core A is not history; it is random social studies topics. We struggled with that part of Core A too, but now we are 16 weeks into Core B and really like it. I suggest dropping the social studies portion of core A while continuing the read-alouds, then give core B a try next year; it is very different in a good way.

[maize]

Another vote for starting SOTW now.

[Papillon Mom]

Same thing happened with us! Make the switch!

[Guest AnnaMaria]

I tried having the kids listen to MOH in K-1st; it was over their ability to follow the story.  I would recommend SOTW, but later.  For the younger years I would opt for a history overview like the timeline we use...

 

It's the Classical Conversations timeline song that is new this year.  It is the timeline events put to a fun, memorable song.  My kids (10, 8, 6, 4) all love it.

 

It does incorporate Bible history throughout.  So history begins with Creation and the Fall...and leads right into ancient civilizations.

 

I would recommend getting just one year's cycle (like cycle 2 audio).  The timeline cd will come with it and you could invest in the cards that come with as well.  (<$100, I think)

 

They have been effective in inspiring my children's love for history.  My 5th grader has reached the point where she knows a small amount about many events of history and is very driven to find out more.  Anytime we come across more info about one of the events on her timeline she is thrilled!  And I am glad that she has a basic sense of the timeframe a person lived in or an event happened.

 

So, if you want a fun and easy way to get a big history vocabulary, this would be the way to go.  It is a great prep for upper elementary history.

 

In fact, if you have a friend in CC, she just may have a timeline cd to sell, because with my yearly cycles I get a new timeline cd along with the cd's for that year's subject material.  (There are 3 cycles in the program, but the Timeline covers ancient thru modern and is repeated yearly)

 

 

[Guest SouthernLadyRTR]

My sons are 4 and 6. I was using Abeka for K4 and K5 up until last week, when I decided my K5 is advanced enough to be doing first grade. He turned 6 in late September. I just ordered Elemental Science Grammar Stage biology, Kingfisher Animal Encyclopedia, Janice VanCleave's Science Around the World and Biology for Every Kid, Tapestry of Grace Year One Unit One, Story of the World Vol 1 text and activity guide, Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, Usborne internet linked World History Encyclopedia, Writing with Ease level 1, First Language Lessons Level one, Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, Life of Fred Math Apples and Butterflies, Saxon Math one homeschool kit, Explode the Code Online, and Spelling Workout A. I've been familiar with The Well Trained Mind since '09 when I first tried to do it with my oldest. I wasn't sure if I would use it with my other children, but it is a perfect fit for us now. So even though it's mid-November, we are starting over and bumping up to first grade. My K4 will finish up his writing and phonics with Abeka, as well as start OPGTR, and join his brother in Science and History. 

 

Basically what I am saying is, ABSOLUTELY you can switch now. That's the beauty of homeschooling =) 

[Marsha]

Why not just go ahead and start Core B?  You can finish Core A if you'd like. You have definitely not wasted 18 weeks. You have read to them and I'm sure they have advanced some. No matter what you use for K they are not going to remember it all. They won't remember too much of SOTW either at that age.

[Marsha]

Also, don't you have a new baby? It might be easier to have something already planned. I just had baby #9 and I remember it being very hard going from baby 2 to 3 children. My oldest is 17 and I don't think she remembers too much at all about Kindergarten and 1st grade.

[GreenKitty]

Another vote for SOTW. Audio CD's or reading it aloud. 

[TheAttachedMama]

Also, don't you have a new baby? It might be easier to have something already planned. I just had baby #9 and I remember it being very hard going from baby 2 to 3 children. My oldest is 17 and I don't think she remembers too much at all about Kindergarten and 1st grade.

 

Yes, I did just have a new baby.  But the strange thing is....it has been the easiest addition we have made to our family yet!  Everyone is transitioning pretty well to the new addition. 

[Chris in VA]

IIWY, I might start SOTW in January, after taking a break for TG/Christmas.

 

But I wouldn't expect much from my littlest.

 

I think I'd prob just drop history until next year (and then do SOTW). For the rest of this year, I might do some geography and culture--maybe things like:

 

World puzzle, US puzzle

Geography Songs

Postcard exchange (pin to big wall map or on the outside frame of one using a string and pin to show where it comes from)

Pick a few countries for a trip around the world-type study--cook a food or two, play a game, color a picture, learn the location on a map, read a picture book, then put a sticker in a homemade passport

Montessori animals of the world activities (matching, coloring small booklets)

I forget the name of it, but there's that teacher/parent site that has all the little booklets you can print out (someone help me out here)

As holidays come up, study the backround thru a picture book and maybe a little project or two.