History and science - help me think through this

[mamabear2three]

For Kindergarten this year we did SOTW1 and we are really enjoying it... We will finish the first book this year. My daughter loves the coloring pages and does really well with the mapping activities, but I am looking at it as a basic exposure to the time period and not really worrying about retention. I know she retained the early stuff - all about ancient Egypt, the Nile river, mummies, pyramids, etc. She still talks about that stuff, especially lately as we went to a funeral and she was connecting everything. ("wouldn't it be strange if we paid people came to the funeral today to cry really loud?")

 

Now, I was thinking that I would do SOTW 2 next year and then split SOTW 3 over two years to add more American History sections.

 

But Now I'm looking for something to do for science and am really interested in the Science in the Beginning series, but it seems like the new one out, Science in the Ancient World, would line up better with SOTW2... but I am not thrilled about skipping the first one.

 

So now I am wondering if I should do a year of American history next year instead, along with science in the beginning, and then pick back up on SOTW2 for the year after that. 

 

What would you do? :confused1:

[Hunter]

Lately, my answer to myself for these kind of questions is, what do I WANT to do vs what do I think I SHOULD do. I follow my wants. Wants are very useful information. Wants often go past the brainwashing and overcomplicating and all the things that make it hard to hear our own small voice.

 

Too often the advice of the "professionals" is influenced by what will make them money or somehow expand their comfort zone. They might not mean it or even know it.

 

The shoulds are not always better than our wants. Really. Even, if we don't know why. Again, our wants are information–very important information.

[twinmomtn]

That sounds exactly like my situation. My girls are finishing sotw1. We will start sotw2 in the fall. I just bought science in the ancient world to use alongside sotw 2 because it seems the timeframes will line up pretty well...I never heard about the series until just now so we didn't use science in the beginning. From their website I dont think you necessarily need to do S. In the Beginning first...there are references in Science in the A.W. to chapters from the first book but it seems (as I have skimmed through it) to be references to pretty basic concepts that we either already studied in other science books or something I could easily google and explain to them (such as the concept of gas, liquid, solid).

 

If we love this series, I expect we will do the rest chronologically...but I am not worried about missing the first one. Hope that helps!

[clarkacademy]

we are doing science in the beginning next year and  I have already read most of the book on my own LOL I love it!!!!!!

[Chris in VA]

I like your original plan a LOT. I wouldn't change it at all. I would've been concerned to use SOTW 4 in 3rd grade, but you say you are slowing SOTW 3 down, so you will hit 4 in 4th grade, so that sounds good.

 

[mamabear2three]

I think part of my issue is with science - my husband likes the look of McRuffy science and I do agree it looks good but it seems scattered to me (although that said we are loving the McRuffy Math, and the scattered nature is working really well for my daughter). And Science in the beginning (or Science in the ancient world) is half the cost and makes more sense to me because it has an actual purpose - to follow along with history. (And honestly, that appeals to me because I want to learn it again in that order!)

[Jerico]

We aren't using sotw but I laid out our history and science because I was having this same issue. It turns out that some will overlap and some won't regardless. So I decided just to proceed as is. We started it as soon as it came in the mail. We LOVE science in the beginning so far.

 

I got more excited because this series will take us through 6th before starting his jr/sr high series so I was happy about that.

[bethben]

Kids are a lot more flexible than we are with timelines and matching everything up. Like a pp said, go with what you want to do. Don't worry about matching science and history up. Next year, we're doing an overview of history, listening to American history in cd, and doing Science in the Beginning. My kids will enjoy all the random pieces and never even notice. My oldest learner never noticed that things weren't matching up well or even realized when we skipped a large section of history to join a co-op. As long as those elementary students are learning the basics and getting a good foundation of how to learn, everything else is all gravy.