SOTW 1 - AG necessary?

[IceFairy]

I am leaning heavily towards throwing SOTW into our CM style of education. Will we miss a lot of we do not use the AG? I have student pages for maps and such but my kids are just not "into" lots of activities and projects, at least not yet.

[redsquirrel]

It isn't necessary, but it is handy. Or at least it was for me. I believe the AG has the instructions for the mapwork (in the student pages). There is a map activity that goes with every chapter. It says things like "Find XX on the map and put a circle around it. Now find YY on the map and put a star over it. color in the area within the dotted line that says ZZ.  Without the AG the student pages are just pages. You won't know how to use them all. Some of the student pages are colouring pages, so obviously you don't need anything for that. But there are things you can use as game boards and paper dolls etc. That stuff is the student pages, but you need the AG to know what to do with them. 

 

The AG also has a very helpful (for me) script for questions to review what was just read and then examples of possible narrations. I have found that to be the most useful element of the AG. It has one for every single section of SOTW. You read the chapter (or subchapter) and then turn to the AG and ask the comprehension questions. Then you ask the student for a narration. By the time you get to SOTW 3 the chapters are getting pretty dense and it is often a guided narration, but again, the AG provides help for all of that.

 

The AG also has suggested readings for every topic. I would sit down with the AG and open up my local public library website and search on all the suggested books to see what they had. I should add that I have an excellent library system at my disposal. If I knew I had a lousy one I might not find that as useful. At this point, I am guessing lots of the suggested books are OOP, but I still managed to find a very large number of them locally. Even having the books available, I don't read extra books every week, only when it is convenient

 

I would imagine Peace Hill Press has samples of the AG online for you to look at. That might help you more.

[boscopup]

Like redsquirrel, I mostly liked the AG for the map instructions (a young child that can read well can do them even if they can't write a lot yet), guided narration, and lists of extra library books. I got lucky and found someone local selling all 4 AGs for about $30 (that was an amazing deal!), so it was totally worth it to me at that price. :D I only used 2 of them so far, but I was glad to have them while using it.

 

Now if you're just using SOTW as part of some other history program, or if you just like to put book lists together yourself and do CM-style narration, then no, you may not need it. I certainly wouldn't call the AG "necessary", but I think it's nice to have, depending on how you use it.

 

We only did a few activities in the beginning, then quickly dropped those (I'm not a project mom). We also did not use the coloring pages, as my kids don't like to color.

[Farrar]

This seems to get discussed a decent amount.  I didn't find it useful and the maps were the one thing I thought was worth it, which you already have.  If you already know you won't be interested in the activities (they were the weakest part to me anyway) or the narrations or review questions, then I'd definitely skip it.  The book lists are really solid and as a CM'er you might really appreciate them...  but I generally just took out whatever was at the library, so in the end, I didn't use them that much.

 

 

[Amy M]

I really like it to make the curriculum feel more alive, more than just the story. But if you already have maps, and don't want to do the activities, and if you don't mind fleshing out book lists from elsewhere on the internet, there isn't much left except narration helps and coloring pages. I use almost all of it, except for the book lists.

[blondeviolin]

It makes the curriculum more open-and-go for us. We actually don't do many projects from there, but we use the coloring pages, map work, and review questions.

[Soror]

It doesn't sound like you need it but you can check out the preview to see if anything would be of use. I think the booklists are nice, my son never liked the coloring pages but I know lots of kids like it and it sure makes it easier to have them in one place.  

[Desert Strawberry]

For us, the activity book made us less likely to do history at all. We have maps. We do narrations. We discuss and review. I check out books from the library. The AG just slowed us down.

[Mommee & Baba]

I found it useful for my squirmy kids! :)

[Carol in Cal.]

I mostly used the book lists, which were superb--far better than what I had been grabbing at the library.

We did some map work, and it was nice to have it all laid out.

I didn't use the narration helps, and we did almost no projects.

But honestly, I thought it was worth it just for the excellent book lists.

[Garga]

I loved it for SOTW1, especially. We did a number of the activities, no not for every chapter, but enough that my son still remembers them 5 years later. I am not a crafty person (the very idea that I am makes me snort with laughter), but some of the activities were do-able even for me. Other activities involved making bread or cookies or some such from that time period. Those are nice activities as you can eat the results so there's no extra stuff in your house to store.

 

The maps were brilliant. The AG is where you get instructions on how to use the maps. If you decide not to get the AG, then when you hand your child a map, come up with something for the child to do on it, with colors. Like this: Outline the Mediterranean sea in blue. Circle Athens in red. Circle Sparta in yellow.

 

The book lists are great. Yes, I often found other things in the library, but there were a number of times that I wouldn't have known to look for certain books that were listed in the AG.

 

I also would ask the review questions after we read the chapter. It made my job a little easier to have them laid out for me so I didn't have to make up my own. And yes, I would also ask questions while we read that I did make up.

 

Overall it was worth it for me. But, as you can see, not everyone feels the same way.

[~Victoria~]

I got the AG during the sale they had after Thanksgiving.  I am glad I did - we will most likely use the encyclopedia cross reference, additional reading list, review questions, maybe the narration exercise a few days a week, and the map work.  There are coloring sheets that we may use too.  I got the pdf file so I can print the maps easily.  There is a group on yahoo (Hannah_hs_helps) where you can get timeline stuff and book recommendations.  I think you could do without it for sure (I had planned to) by looking at tons of stuff other people have done, but I am glad I got the AG because that is one less thing I have to search out online. 

 

I have seen AG's go for less than $10 on ebay - so you could get one cheap if you wanted.

[FairProspects]

The booklists are fabulous. The maps are great too. Sure, I could find my own blackline maps but I tried that this week and it was a disaster compared to how mapping normally goes. We are a project family and have enjoyed many of the projects, but honestly I would buy it for the booklist alone.

[2_girls_mommy]

Yes, completely necessary.

[Guest stewsbetty]

I relied on the AG heavily for the book lists.  I found it really helped my kids retain what they had learned when we were reading extra books about the time/people.