A History of US questions

[Nemom]

I'm starting to think about planning for HS and I like the looks of this series.  I found an amazing schedule on the Core Foundations blog site.  She has the books spread out over 8th (book one only), 9th, and 10th grade. I am curious if others spread this out over two years or complete them during one year?

 

[EKS]

First, I highly recommend the *concise* editions from K12 over the original version.  

 

That said, K12 spreads the four volumes of the concise edition over two years.  We did them in one year.

[mom31257]

Sonlight covers the volumes in one year. It looks like Hewitt does as well, and it's for 7th or 8th grades. 

 

Can you get 1 or 2 from your library system and preview them first? Dd started the series in 8th grade and hated it. After the third book, she begged me for something else. She said it was so much fluff and commentary it made it difficult for her to keep up with what actually happened. I switched to a textbook, outlining, testing, etc., and she thrived. We did not have the concise editions listed above. 

 

 

[Nemom]

Sonlight covers the volumes in one year. It looks like Hewitt does as well, and it's for 7th or 8th grades.

 

Can you get 1 or 2 from your library system and preview them first? Dd started the series in 8th grade and hated it. After the third book, she begged me for something else. She said it was so much fluff and commentary it made it difficult for her to keep up with what actually happened. I switched to a textbook, outlining, testing, etc., and she thrived. We did not have the concise editions listed above.

My library does not carry them unfortunately.

[Momto6inIN]

I second the concise versions.  We did all 4 of them in 1 school year, and it was fine, but I simply can't imagine my kids retaining all 10 volumes in 1 year.  Next time through the cycle we're going to spread even the concise version out over 2 years so we can add in more world history along with the US History.

[prairiewindmomma]

We have been using the Hakim syllabus/tests for jr high. I think one year is ok for high school; I can't imagine spreading it over multiple years unless you are dealing with weak readers or bringing a lot to the table (movies/books/writing assignments).

[bluedarling]

We used them originally with Beautiful Feet US & World History, then a variation of that without the BF guides.  (BF spends two years covering the last 4-6 books, skipping the early US History.)  That's about like spreading it over 3 years.  I think that works well if that's not the only thing you are doing...if you're adding lots of literature, movies, etc.  My boys learned the most from the Albert Marrin books in the BF program, but the History of Us books rounded that out, and provided a broader overview.  I feel my boys have a very firm grasp of modern history with this method.  Covering 3-4 History of Us books a year would be light if that was all that was being read, but the books make good spines for deeper study with biographies, etc.  I personally like that pace, and the freedom to add to it with other materials.  I think rushing through the series in one year would make history a chore, and less apt to be remembered.  I say go for it!

[Momling]

My daughter (who admittedly has an overdeveloped sense of her own maturity) found the story of US too childish at age 12. I can't imagine trying it at 14 or 15. We're using American odyssey instead and it's going fine. We are doing the book over a two year period to also incorporate literature and lots of videos and extra stuff. When planning originally, I had decided to do books 1-5 in 7th and 6-10 in 8th.

[Pen]

My daughter (who admittedly has an overdeveloped sense of her own maturity) found the story of US too childish at age 12.

 

 

Same thing here. I wish I'd used them as read alouds much earlier, but ds found the style/tone childish.

[Nemom]

All great things to think about and research. If we use this series, we will be supplementing it with lots of movies, documentaries, and books. I think I saw the first book at my local B&N. I will make a trip there when the roads are clear.

[Plink]

We did all volumes in 1 year for 5th, but many chapters were read aloud.

 

If you are going to simply assign chapters, make sure your child knows HOW to read textbooks with lots of sidebars and captions. It can seem disjointed if you try to finish all the info on one page at a time, rather than reading the text then going back and reading sidebars for that chapter. (Or read all sidebars first, either way just don't bounce back and forth)

[SilverMoon]

My kids used them in fifth and sixth grade. I wouldn't use them with high schoolers. *shrug*

 

Have you considered Paul Johnson's A History of the American People? There's a free schedule lining up Critical Thinking books, Great Courses lectures, DVDs, and more with the Johnson book. It's on the Fundafunda website.

[Mom22ns]

We enjoyed them tremendously when my kids were in 5th and 7th grade. We did the whole series in 1 year. SL has moved their core that covers them in 1 year to being recommended for 8th grade, which is what most people recommended it for anyway. If you are going to use them for high school. Definitely do it in one year.

[Julie in MN]

You can probably use Amazon Look Inside to read enough and get a sense of whether your kid would think they are too young or would already know these things, or whether they would work well.

 

They worked well for us, with a girl who's a perfectionist and who must understand/remember every detail, and with a boy who doesn't care about details and only likes things that are fun or purposeful. 

 

I did them in one year,

 

- skipped book 1, too theoretical & changing, and some of the Mayans and such we had covered before

 

- used Sonlight's over-the-top student questions every single day

 

- used Oxford Press's Assessment book, with approximately 7 quizzes for each book (we tried the Hewitt tests but it was too much to wait until the end of the book to be tested)  http://smile.amazon.com/History-US-Assesment-Books-Assessment/dp/0195153480/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423154478&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=a+history+of+us+quiz+and+exam+hakim+oxford

 

- Additions were sparse.  I had the Oxford teaching guides, but rarely did we have time to do extras.  I gave a bit of mom feedback when correcting daily work.  I read (or put sticky notes in the book) from selected comments in Sonlight's answer key to balance the books' biases, but those were way too much to use all of them.  I do love the Marrin books that were mentioned and read excerpts especially about WWI and Vietnam.  I also occasionally printed out something, like graphs of Civil War deaths, or we watched a movie.

 

I know some think this is too young for high school, but both my kids remember events and people in US history to an extent that few people around me remember them.  I have kept the set on my shelf and seen my adult kids pick up a volume on occasion.  It was my grandmother who taught me that the juvenile section of the library can be an efficient way to learn the basics of many things.  I would just add that to retain it at a high school level, it works best at my house to "do something" with the info every day (whether talking, taking notes, writing summaries, answering questions, or taking quizzes).

 

Julie

[Nemom]

You can probably use Amazon Look Inside to read enough and get a sense of whether your kid would think they are too young or would already know these things, or whether they would work well.

 

They worked well for us, with a girl who's a perfectionist and who must understand/remember every detail, and with a boy who doesn't care about details and only likes things that are fun or purposeful. 

 

I did them in one year,

 

- skipped book 1, too theoretical & changing, and some of the Mayans and such we had covered before

 

- used Sonlight's over-the-top student questions every single day

 

- used Oxford Press's Assessment book, with approximately 7 quizzes for each book (we tried the Hewitt tests but it was too much to wait until the end of the book to be tested)  http://smile.amazon.com/History-US-Assesment-Books-Assessment/dp/0195153480/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423154478&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=a+history+of+us+quiz+and+exam+hakim+oxford

 

- Additions were sparse.  I had the Oxford teaching guides, but rarely did we have time to do extras.  I gave a bit of mom feedback when correcting daily work.  I read (or put sticky notes in the book) from selected comments in Sonlight's answer key to balance the books' biases, but those were way too much to use all of them.  I do love the Marrin books that were mentioned and read excerpts especially about WWI and Vietnam.  I also occasionally printed out something, like graphs of Civil War deaths, or we watched a movie.

 

I know some think this is too young for high school, but both my kids remember events and people in US history to an extent that few people around me remember them.  I have kept the set on my shelf and seen my adult kids pick up a volume on occasion.  It was my grandmother who taught me that the juvenile section of the library can be an efficient way to learn the basics of many things.  I would just add that to retain it at a high school level, it works best at my house to "do something" with the info every day (whether talking, taking notes, writing summaries, answering questions, or taking quizzes).

 

Julie 

Thanks Julie.  The assessment book looks like a great addition.  My dd is very visual so she prefers the looks of these books over a black and white page with nothing but words. 

[bluedarling]

Thanks Julie.  The assessment book looks like a great addition.  My dd is very visual so she prefers the looks of these books over a black and white page with nothing but words. 

 

We are using the assessment book, too.  I do feel these tests are pretty "easy" in that they are only 15 multiple choice questions on each test (more of a quiz).  My child has "failed" quizzes at times that asked about names he didn't remember, but they don't really ask them to think critically or sythesize the information.  They are quizzes that check that the child read the material.  In my opinion, these are the part of this curriculum geared to jr. high.  I still use them (to check that he really read it), but I would not make these the only evaluation at a high school level.  We use essays and the Walch Focus on US History book for more on-level work.

[Julie in MN]

We are using the assessment book, too.  I do feel these tests are pretty "easy" in that they are only 15 multiple choice questions on each test (more of a quiz).  My child has "failed" quizzes at times that asked about names he didn't remember, but they don't really ask them to think critically or sythesize the information.  They are quizzes that check that the child read the material.  In my opinion, these are the part of this curriculum geared to jr. high.  I still use them (to check that he really read it), but I would not make these the only evaluation at a high school level.  We use essays and the Walch Focus on US History book for more on-level work.

I do think you can use one tool in different ways.  When my son got a name wrong, we didn't focus on "why didn't you memorize the name" but instead "why would your choice not make sense in that time period," and, "Do you get why this event was so crucial?"  I felt those "assessments" were written pretty well for that purpose.

 

It is definitely a good skill to write papers and think critically etc.  in some areas of high school, and my son got enough of that since he was in college courses in some subjects while he was doing American history at home.  But there can be different goals in different areas. 

 

One of my core requirements in my high school is thorough American History, and perhaps it's to compensate for my horrible education in the early 70s, but I want my kids to get the flow of all events more than try to come up with a 16 year old's ideas about one specific area.  My oldest did that in public school, with the history day project and other big papers and he perfected the study-and-forget technique, but he doesn't really know a lot about American history from doing that.  I am worse - I came into homeschooling not knowing whether the Civil War was before or after the Revolutionary War - how pitiful is that?  And I graduated college summa cum laude.  And when I'd say something about my confusion, others would often recite dates to me, but no one ever stopped to say, Julie, you can't have a civil war before the country has been separated from England and formed its own nation.  All the names and dates fell into place once I got into what was going on. That's the kind of thing that I think can be done by just talking and writing responses and thinking through multiple choices, even with an easier text, especially if the teacher is involved.  

 

Another thing that's important to me is that my kids have enough knowledge to write papers that have good examples and reasonable conclusions based on facts, and that they get the background behind different schools of thought.  Some folks on this board have amazing kids who can give historical examples in junior high, but it is rare for the common high schooler I know, because there seems to be just no time to really absorb the big picture.  I recognize that high school typically is not meant to have a broad scope, as the rhetoric level is meant to focus in more, but for me the whole picture was one of my goals in my homeschool as far as American history -- trying to help him own the big picture himself, rather than having mom leading him to the next event. 

Oh, my, I can never say anything quickly.  Hope that makes some sense,

Julie