CM history for a 6th grader

[KeriJ]

Charlotte Mason homeschoolers, I'd love your input.  I want to plan my own CM history for my rising 6th grader.  I'm very familiar with and pull from HOD, AO, SCM and BF, but I don't want to do any of them as written. 

 

I'd like to do early modern, but with more of an American history emphasis. (though I do want to include world history)  

 

Here are the books I'm considering but can't narrow down.

 

Genevieve Foster books....some or all

HOD Rev to Rev selections

SOTW with siblings with added independent reading

Makers of the Americas

 

then additional books and biographies such as Amos Fortune, Carry on Mr. Bowditch and other typical suggestions from resources listed above.

 

Here are the areas I need specific help with:

 

1.  Narrowing down.  I don't want a historical lit. heavy program.  I don't want history to dominate our year.

 

2.  Redundancy.  for instance: is STOW and George Washington's World too much overlap?

 

3.  Reading level and appropriateness for a 6th grader.  (She's a very strong reader though)

 

4.  CM specific assignments.  How much reading per week?  How many written narrations per week, etc.  Maybe some memory work added in.

 

I'd love to get my plan narrowed down soon.  It's been floating in my head too long!

 

 

 

 

[Kfamily]

I don't have all of it finished yet, but I do have some of what you're asking for on my blog under Year Four...I'm writing the Book Notes for George Washington's World and The World of William Penn by Foster right now for my own rising 6th grader. I've added three Maestro books (we've already read one of them and I've written notes for one of them too...and will write the notes for the other two very shortly). We've already read a few of the better historical fictions for that time period and I try to keep the focus off of historical fiction too. I have a few carefully chosen titles and those are just suggested. The Book Notes have Proper Nouns listed for oral narrations and narration suggestions for written work too. I also have links for some resources that tie in with this period too. I'm tied up this evening but I could try and offer some more suggestions for reading (my own daughter is a strong reader too) and written narrations in the morning. Everything is at my blog (A Mind in the Light) and you're welcome to download and print whatever you find helpful. I've already started my daughter in the William Penn book (we're reading Children of the New Forest and Isaac Newton: Mastermind of Modern Science because they fit the time period so well) so I will be working on the notes diligently because I need them for her. I'm planning on following the Penn book with George Washington's World. I have the first 10 weeks up for the latter book and the first 3 weeks up for the Penn book, if you'd like to look at them to see if they'd be helpful or not.

 

Here is the link for Year Four:

 

http://www.amindinthelight.blogspot.com/p/year-four.html

 

ETA: And like other CM curricula, the Years are not necessarily meant to correspond to grades.

[tjlcc]

I would probably choose SOTW to be done as a family (likely the audio version).  AO uses it for Year 6, 2 chapters per week, but I don't believe the whole book is used.  I would also go with KFamily's plans for her to do independently, along with a Book of Centuries.  I don't require written narrations from our family history (MOH), but I do require them from their independent work.

 

One written narration per day works here (for my oldest), but we are not currently using a writing program.  Not all from history, but science as well.

 

What are you thinking of for world history?

 

[birchbark]

For sixth grade we read through the Rev to Rev selections and I simply required one written narration a week. Actually it wasn't "we," DS read by himself.

[KeriJ]

Thank you for the replies. DD threw me for a loop and told me she would rather do ancient instead.  I was on the fence about that anyway, and I already have the books I wanted her to use for ancient.  So that's likely what we'll do.  But I'm keeping these suggestions for ideas for future use.