History help for 3rd grade

[Colesmom05]

My ds is 8 and has used MFW Adventures this year. He has enjoyed it for the most part, but it is starting to feel monotonous. I do not think we will do ECC but I do not know what to use. I've looked at MOH, SCM, Biblioplan, Truthquest, SOTW, Trailguide to World Geography. It is so overwhelming to decide which one to use. If you have a favorite history curriculum, please tell me why you like it?? Any hands on activities you enjoyed???

[umsami]

My favorite was a Child's History of the World.  Why? Because it gets done…DS loves it…and it's actually interesting.

[ByGrace3]

I really enjoyed Biblioplan the year we used it, we are taking a break to do US History, but it is our intention to get back to BP for the next cycle.

[Guest pachkijano]

We love Mystery of History. It is chronological. There are many hands on activities to do, if your kids are interested. My 10 year old son loves looking at books. I use the suggestions at the end of the book and use the library to supplement. When I have found something my son finds particularly interested in we do a few day unit study. It is easy to finish a volume in a year even with our unit studies. I hope this helps. 

[sdobis]

My 4th grader is enjoying MOH this year. We rarely do activities, but there are plenty in the book to do. This is what we do:

 

Read the day's lesson

Fill in our timeline book-we use the pictures someone posted on the MOH Yahoo group.

I write out a summary of the lesson for my daughter to use as copywork and to practice cursive. Next year, she will be writing her own summary. We save these in a binder for review. We haven't used the quizzes at this point.

[HS Mom in NC]

For the sake of disclosure, you should know I've been using SOTW with living books (library books instead of textbooks) for years and haven't done other history programs with elementary aged kids because I've been very happy, so this won't be a comparison/contrast type review.

When my oldest took an Art History class at the community college last fall, her professor told her she was the best educated freshman she'd ever met because of her very thorough understanding of World History. It was assumed the students had a basic grasp of World History and the focus was about why and how art developed the way it did because of the history.  The professor said my daughter was the only student she that could even follow along and she was one of a few students who would even discuss things in the classes.  America if failing terribly at teaching World History in public schools. I'm sure there are other homeschooled kids who used other history programs that are getting positive feedback in similar circumstances.

 

I use SOTW with the accompanying Activity Book by Susan Wise Bauer (AB) because the AB has library book suggestions and hands on activites for each SOTW chapter.  It's all done for me and I don't have to do additional research to integrate history with literature and a little science (sometimes there are good biographies of scientists or other books about development and discoveries made.)   I can add to it if I want to do more reaserch on my own for other books and activities or I can just do what's suggested. Since my youngest is an international adoptee from S. KOrea, we did more in depth studies than SOTW had.  If you're not trying to do ethnic heritage for a Korean child, the information about Korea in SOTW is enough for most people.  If I get to where I don't want to read aloud, SOTW is also on CD.  I can also have my child listen to the CDs as a review. There is a quiz book for each SOTW book by Elizabeth Rountree that I use as chapter reviews.  All together they're easy to use and provide a very thorough history study. 

 

Blackline Maps of World History by Terri Johnson (now sold as Maptrek by Terri Johnson) dovetails beautifully with SOTW for geography because it's divided by the same 4 sections of history that SOTW follows, so it's almost effortless to add in geography weekly.  I print out a master map with the important information on it and the student map with just the outline of the region and the child copies the important information onto it.  Easy and effective.

 

I read aloud the section of A Child's History of the World by Hillyer  (ACHTW) as a review of everything we studied at the end of the year. So, we read the section in ACHTW about the Ancients at the end of SOTW 1 as a review.  We read the section about the Medieval/MIddle Ages period at the end of SOTW2 and so on.

 

I do Greenleaf Gudies from Greenleaf PRess the second time around for late elementary and early Jr. High.  Their Famous Men Series has good and solid set of assignments and reading.   Their Greenleaf Guide to Ancient Literature is great for High School but a kid really needs to have the background in the Ancient World to do it.  We skipped the Genesis parts at the beginning and jumped into the literature.

 

Added on:

 

The SOTW materials listed above give you plenty to put into a lapbook (more complex folding and cutting techniques) or a notebook (simple construction or purchased) in a portfolio kind of way.  This means you can just put things in that you're doing with SOTW materials and you don't have to download a pre-designed lapbook for history unless you want to add extra.  The narrations, a list of the library book read alouds and the hands on projects or printed photos of them make for a very nice package at the end to hand to someone who asks, "What have you been learning in school?"  I'm sure mine aren't the only kids who answer, "Nothing." It's also useful to see just how much you've been doing listed out and complied in a package.  It's usually more than you think until you see it all together. Just have a safe place to keep all the finished assignments until you're ready to assemble into a lapbook or do it notebooking style and add each assignment to the next page as you complete it. My personal experieince is, people are very positively impressed by them.

[Chris in VA]

Another vote for SOTW. I am a broken record when it comes to that wonderful curriculum.

 

It's engaging, and it's so much more than just a "textbook." Using a spine and then building a curriculum around it is the way to go for grammar stage history, IMO. You get the basic story in the book, then you flesh it out with historical fiction, nonfiction (for more colorful pictures, for instance), activities/games/art/cooking, map work and narrations (to check for understanding, practice summarizing, practice handwriting). All of the extras are given to you in the Activity Guide (you get the books of your choice at your local library or thru ILL or you buy what you want).

 

It's brilliant, interesting, perfectly designed for the grammar stage, and helpful for integrating other skills.

 

Did I say I was a big fan? :laugh:

[SwallowTail]

We adore using Story of the World as our backbone, and supplementing with reams of materials from the library and internet and museums and traveling.  We read  historical fiction, seek primary sources, read biographies, and read many books on the topic we are studying (and occasionally even use Wikipedia!) , as well as art books - the sources for supplementation are almost infinite.