History recs or maybe Social Studies?

[displace]

We're considering HSing.  I'm thinking about History and what to do.  We currently listen to SOTW (volume 2) maybe weekly for an hour and just discuss casually, and we occasionally read stories related to what the topic is (if I remember).  If we start HSing I want it to be more in depth but not very intense.  I was considering just rotating through more stories, or perhaps some types of projects.  Coloring pages would not be useful by themselves I think.  DS enjoys SOTW a lot so I would like something a little more formal. 

 

A different thought I had was maybe start over from the beginning volume 1, then start to incorporate the activity book or projects or living books? 

 

A third thought was just continue what we're doing with history but add in some casual social studies plus hodgepodge (holidays, maybe local or US geography, perhaps world geography as we're discussing stories, maybe start a timeline). 

 

Any thoughts or suggestions? 

[....]

We always add extra books to the SOTW series.  For example, when my oldest kids did SOTW 1, we also read The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, Archimedes and the Door of Science, etc.  My 9 yro loved reading Norse Myths, Greek Myths, etc during our time with SOTW 1.  I've also added in History Pockets - they have one of Ancient Egypt...one on Ancient Greece.  One of my kids really enjoyed these, but two of my kids didn't.  

 

For the last half of SOTW 4, I'm using film footage and primary source documents along with the reading.  So, I made a list of all the major events of the 20th century that I want to cover...I found archived footage, newsreels, etc of those events/explaining them.  So (just an example), for the history of Ellis Island, we took the virtual tour online, watched a short video on YouTube that showed the different buildings and stations the people had to go thru for in-processing, we watched archived film footage (from the Thomas Edison Film Co.) showing the boats docking and the people actually getting off the boats and walking up the ramp...we also looked at a page of statistics for each year Ellis Island was open...oh, we looked at pictures of the questions they asked each family - like "Do you have at least $50 on your person?" - which we all thought was a strange question.

 

Sorry for rambling.  I think I was trying to say that we always added a lot to the SOTW series.   :tongue_smilie:     

 

As far as should you start over?  I wouldn't start over, but that's just me.  There is so much history in the last two volumes...I could spend years adding to it and following rabbit trails.      

[displace]

Thanks for practical suggestions!  And, may I add... wow that's amazing you read all those complex stories!

[OneStepAtATime]

Does your child have a special interest?  Besides doing SOTW, maybe you could help him find some great resources for a more indepth study of the history of something he has an interest in.  

 

For instance, DD loves art.  Lots of types of art.  She isn't as wild about history.  So I combined them.  We have done a study of WWI through the eyes of Faberge and his company.  We went to an exhibit, we read books, watched movies and documentaries about the Romanov family and their relationship with Faberge, and also tied all of this in to the end of the Russian family and what was happening around the world during WWI and how the fall of the Romanov family affected things and how what was happening around the world tied in with the fall of the Romanov family and then tied that back into how all of these things affected the Faberge company.  I learned a lot more about WWI from a more global perspective and DS and DD really enjoyed it.  

[SilverMoon]

I'd chose your last option. Just keep going forward and add in extras or bits from the activity guide as you see fit. Don't try fixing something that isn't broken. ;)

[HS Mom in NC]

I recommend starting at the beginning with SOTW 1 and the Activity Books. Between the SOTW chapters themselves, narrations of them, the Activity Book's mapwork, literature recommendations, additional non-fiction book recommendations, the hands on projects and the coloring pages, you just can't find a more thorough and easy to implement unit study type approach to history. We put all our finished assignments in a 3 ring binder in chronological order.   I think your kids haven't had much SOTW if they've only had about an hour a week, so I think you should start over and go all out.

There's also a test booklet for each SOTW that's sold separately: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=story+of+the+world+tests&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Astory+of+the+world+tests

We use Learning Through History's Wonders of Old for a timeline, but here's a link to several options: http://www.learningthroughhistory.com/Store/CategoryTimelines.html

 

with Homeschooling in the Woods' timeline figures: http://www.homeschoolinthewoods.com/timelinefigures.html

[displace]

Thanks for the further recs. 

[Jyhwkmama]

Look into Pandia Press.