Starting SOW1 late

[jens2sons]

I began the school year with hopes of using MOH1 for both my boys that are 10 years apart (1st and 11th grade).  They were both bored, one under challenged and the other over challenged, so I decided to jump over to Modern history since my 11th grader was needing it to fill in a gap.  That all worked out great until we decided to put my oldest in at the local community college for dual credit.  Now that he is not part of our home schooling, I decided to go back to where we left off with my 1st grader  (Ancients) using SOW1 and move on from there.  It's woking great.  What I'm wondering is if I need to be concerned about not getting through SOW1 this year.  I read through TWTM and loved it, but I also have another book called "All Through the Ages" that suggest that we only go through ancient Egypt this year.  Which one do I follow?  I'm confused.  I know that its my decision, but I also don't want him to fall behind according to his age group.  Any suggestions or thoughts?  

[blondeviolin]

He's not behind! Either way he's not behind. Most kids don't even get ANY history in school for a few more YEARS. Decide if you wanna work through the rest of SOTW 1 over the summer or if you wanna just pick it up again in the fall and don't even sweat it. :)

[Chris in VA]

Lots of people don't finish SOTW in a year. Just do your regular routine until you come to the end of your school year, and pick up with the rest the next year. You can always skip a chapter or condense if you want to. Many combine chapters in the same week, not choosing an activity to do that week. IIRC, we skipped 3 chapters and took some time off of SOTW 1. 

 

You have a little bitty--it's perfectly OK to relax! 

[HS Mom in NC]

It took us a year and a half to get through SOTW 1 because my youngest is a turbo powered dynamo and was in no way able to focus long enough for us to get through it in one year. 

 

So we're finishing SOTW 2 in a few weeks which is  the end of 3rd grade for us.  We'll do SOTW 3 for 4th grade and SOTW 4 for 5th grade.  Oh well.

 

I don't do 3 full rotations because I do more in depth American History for a year after we do a 4 year rotation of World History twice. We'll do American history for 6th grade.

 

We use All Through the Ages to supplement our reading, but SOTW is our spine.

 

You can do it any way you want to-speed up or slow down as necessary.  You know best what your kids need.

[kiwik]

There is no law that says you have to finish SOTW1 by the end of first grade.

[....]

I decided to go back to where we left off with my 1st grader  (Ancients) using SOW1 and move on from there.  It's woking great.  What I'm wondering is if I need to be concerned about not getting through SOW1 this year.  

 

My 3rd grader is still in SOTW 1.  You have plenty of time to get through the series!  Even we have plenty of time to get through the series.

 

I don't start the Story of the World books until my kids turn 8.  Before that, there is no way my kids can grasp the readings about the different kings, invasions, kingdoms, etc.  And they wouldn't retain anything at that age, either.  My 11 yro is in the beginning of SOTW 4 and it will probably take us a year to finish.  There is so much content...so much stuff happening in history.  Also, starting with SOTW 3, the history gets much darker (IMO), especially if you guys are doing extra reading about topics being covered (like described in WTM).  I can imagine SOTW 4 being even more so...  :(  

 

Also, remember that if you're doing a lot of extra history reading (which we do), it will take much longer to get through the series.  For example, when we read SOTW 1, we also read stuff like the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, Archimedes and the Door of Science...  It took so much longer because we read all those things alongside Story of the World.

 

Despite not agreeing with WTM about starting SOTW 1 in 1st grade and working through one book a year...I think the SOTW series is awesome.  I plan to use SWB's history books for high school, too.  I just bought History of the Ancient World a few weeks ago and was really impressed.  (I know that's off topic, but I just wanted to add that.)

[....]

So we're finishing SOTW 2 in a few weeks which is  the end of 3rd grade for us.  We'll do SOTW 3 for 4th grade and SOTW 4 for 5th grade.  Oh well.

 

I don't do 3 full rotations because I do more in depth American History for a year after we do a 4 year rotation of World History twice. We'll do American history for 6th grade.

 

 

That sounds about right.  Originally, we were going to go through the 2 history cycles before high school, but it felt really rushed...so one year, I ended up slowing down everybody's history.  After finishing the SOTW series, my oldest daughter is doing a year of US history using Notgrass' America the Beautiful.

 

So, right now, I have:

 

12 yro: US history with Notgrass

11 yro: SOTW 4

9 yro: near the end of SOTW 1

youngest: waiting until she's 8 to start SOTW 1

 

:D   Things just didn't happen the way I planned with our history cycle!

[craftyerin]

I'm intentionally not starting SOTW 1 until 2nd grade, and I'm leaning toward planning 2 years to get through it.  Do whatever you want to do and don't worry about being "behind"!

[Shellie]

I also agree that it's fine. My kids spent some time in ps, and they don't start history until 4th grade. So anything before that puts them ahead :)

[Alexigail]

We're about half way through at this point in the year and I'm fine with it.  I'm letting him listen to the audio version at his own pace and as often as he wants (he'll listen for quite a long time on his own). I will usually do the narration questions from the activity book after he's listened to a new chapter.  Some things he listens to over and over again, some things he glazes over at and never listens to again. :)

 I choose what I want to focus on for activities, either because I think it will interest him, or because I think it's something he needs to know.  He is hearing all of it, but only doing detailed work on about half of it.  We will work through the summer and probably start SOTW2 around October.

 

For next year, I will probably try a more structured study, because he's almost ready for it - maybe one or two chapters a week.  

[Hunter]

I've got a lot of preY2K and vintage ideas, so I wouldn't start SOTW 1 until at least 3rd grade. Traditionally history was not started until after home geography which wasn't started till grade 3 or 4. Grades 1-2/3 were stories and nature study and informal geography. Primary grades were not taught history.

[Walking-Iris]

SOTW1 does not mean 1st grade, it means the 1st book in that series. Read it whenever you like.

 

The WTM history rotation isn't law, or even the best way to approach history, or th ebest book son the subject. You don't even have to do Ancient history first. 

 

I think the rotations are more for scheduling purposes. 

 

My current 1st grader was trying to do Ancients, but I think he would show more interest in a dried out worm. He has enjoyed putting together a History Pocket, but other than that he could care less about Assyria or Egypt or Mesopotamia. It's nonsense talk to him. 

 

If you had a 1st grader who was interested I would go for it. To bore my kids in history is an unforgivable sin to me. LOL

 

[Hunter]

Sometimes I'm just lazy. If waiting will cut my work in half, I'm willing to wait.

 

When I was a young whippersnapper like some of the rest of you, I was in a rush to do things earlier even if it was more work. Age has slowed me down. And things were slower when I started, anyway. So a slow start plus age, is a recipe for SLOOOOOW. :lol:

[HS Mom in NC]

I assume by "behind" you mean you're worried about not being able to do  each rotation at each specific Trivium Stage individually.  Most people here don't care about the 3 stages, which is fine, but I think maybe you might be someone who does care about that? Your post isn't a lot to go on, so I know I might be wrong about that.

 

If that is a concern of yours, I understand.  I specifically want my kids to have all 3 stages because it's very important to my educational philsoposhy that we cover all of those levels of thinking.  What I had to do was grammar/facts the first time through and then make the focus on both the logic/cause and effect and rhetoric stages the second time.  That meant doing less logic and rhetoric than we would've done if I had done each separately, but I still managed to do some all the way through. 

 

I particularly wanted the rhetoric to be focused on  the greatest ideas about government, so I did most of it during the last American History year.  There was some in late modern world history the year before that.  The nice thing about American government is that it's so influenced by the Ancient Greeks and Romans (representative government at its origins) and so much of Western European history, especially starting with the Magna Charta in England in 1215 and going on through the establishment of English Parliament, that you can incorporate rhetoric with the highlights of world history influences while studying American history, so I don't think we completely lost out on not doing a 3rd rotation of World History at the rhetoric stage.

[jens2sons]

I assume by "behind" you mean you're worried about not being able to do  each rotation at each specific Trivium Stage individually.  Most people here don't care about the 3 stages, which is fine, but I think maybe you might be someone who does care about that? Your post isn't a lot to go on, so I know I might be wrong about that.

 

This is exactly what I'm concerned about.  I tend to be a bit of a "follow the rules" type gal.  I'm also new to the trivium and I'm doing what I can to get on track and move forward.  Thank you for your comments :)

[jens2sons]

SOTW1 does not mean 1st grade, it means the 1st book in that series. Read it whenever you like.

 

The WTM history rotation isn't law, or even the best way to approach history, or th ebest book son the subject. You don't even have to do Ancient history first. 

 

I think the rotations are more for scheduling purposes. 

 

My current 1st grader was trying to do Ancients, but I think he would show more interest in a dried out worm. He has enjoyed putting together a History Pocket, but other than that he could care less about Assyria or Egypt or Mesopotamia. It's nonsense talk to him. 

 

If you had a 1st grader who was interested I would go for it. To bore my kids in history is an unforgivable sin to me. LOL

 

Lol!  I SO understand where you are coming from! 

[jens2sons]

You have a little bitty--it's perfectly OK to relax! 

 

Thank you!  I DO need to relax!  Sigh...  I think I have caused my own confusion as I started reading TWTM and others on Classical home-schooling methods which got me questioning my current methods.  I think the books were making so much sense to me that I was ready to jump in.  

[Hunter]

Thank you!  I DO need to relax!  Sigh...  I think I have caused my own confusion as I started reading TWTM and others on Classical home-schooling methods which got me questioning my current methods.  I think the books were making so much sense to me that I was ready to jump in.  

 

I have done this to myself over and over and over with different methods. Of course the books make sense in theory, but when it comes time to implement them, it's a whole other story. All of these books are examples of authors with good rhetoric skills, if nothing else. So I always pay attention to what they recommend for rhetoric. :lol: