Samiam Posted May 4, 2015 Share Posted May 4, 2015 This would be for a 4th grader and 7th grader, both boys. I follow the CM theory...with freedom to tweak. We used SOTW for Ancients and Middle Ages. I used SCM this year for Early American History. I tweaked it, in that we did not do the World History part at all...I wanted to really focus on just American History in elementary (first time my youngest, 3rd grade, has been through American History). I also added alot more books, and slowed down. SCM might spend one-two chapters on important events/people,and move right along. I would stop, and spend a good week or two on events that I thought were important. So we spent a week on Jamestown, almost 3 weeks on the Revolutionary War (touched on several different important people, read several books, watched videos), a week on George Washington, a week on Ben Franklin, and now spending 2 weeks on Lewis and Clark (reading Seaman's book as a read-aloud is taking a bit longer than I had planned). So I used SCM as a loose "plan", adding to it when I felt the need. So we will be ready for Modern History this fall. Basically Civil War and forward. I don't mind touching lightly on the World Wars and even Vietnam, and of course more recent events as well. Obviously some topics are a bit too heavy for this age, but we can touch base on it...leaving the heavy information for high school. I expect to add a bit of world history in, as that would be a given to understand the World Wars. For some reason, when I looked over the SCM Modern American History, it's not doing it for me. I think it will be almost TOO much tweaking. Why buy it if I'm gonna change it THAT much. Please don't mention AO..just cuz I mentioned CM...I don't like AO. I actually looked at Sonlight, though I'm not a huge supporter of the company overall....the Core E, I think, (or is it Core D?) covers the time I want to cover, and has some good book choices. I looked at SOTW Vol 4...it's too much World History for my plans....I will probably use it and just listen to the chapters that are American History focused. I don't think MFW has a year that covers just American History...at least not at this level...we used Adventures way back when my upcoming 7th grader was a 2nd grader...loved it then...but I don't want to have to pay for all that comes with MFW...I'm simply looking for history. WinterPromise......hmmm...I always hear how "disjointed" their programs are. And of course, the bad customer service. Their stuff is so pretty in the catalog...just not sure it's for me. I'm a tweaker by nature...no fear to add more, take away, etc...but then I don't want to spend $500 just to tweak a bunch, and skip even more. Hate that they never come out to conventions to be seen in person! I looked at GuestHollow's plans. So far, she's the winner. But she's gone ALOT in there...and not sure I agree with some of her spine choices...the Joy Hakim books...and it requires like 5 of them or something. The Abraham Lincoln book...while I've not really looked much into it...I had the feeling this was more of a high-school level read. So while this plan is free...the book choices of just spines....that suddenly makes the cost jump up a bit or switch them out to something else. Biblioplan. No. Just no. thanks. So thus far...I've got a few things that I like about different programs....making me think that I just pull from here and there and make my own thing. I *think* I can do that...but I much prefer to have a "base" to work from..and tweak that. What else? No textbook stuff...BJU, Abeka..no. What else am I missing? A curriculum that plans good books...read-alouds, and self reads. Possibly notebooking. Maybe a bit of creative projects. Don't want workbooks, or worksheets, or tests. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurelia Posted May 4, 2015 Share Posted May 4, 2015 I'd say go with GuestHollow, and tweak it to add your own things. Like maybe use the last two volumes Hakim's concise version of A History of US as a spine, instead of the separate books. I've heard they're better, and shorter, than the original volumes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEmama Posted May 4, 2015 Share Posted May 4, 2015 Do you need a curriculum to follow? It sounds to me like you'd be comfortable simply making up your own program. There are tons of helpful threads here on American history; you might find a general spine to loosely follow and then go from there. I'm not sure what you would want to use with that age gap though, unless you want to assign heavier additional reading to your seventh grader. The assignments you could individualize easily enough, but I'd think you'd have to really make sure your older was getting enough depth. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UCF612 Posted May 4, 2015 Share Posted May 4, 2015 Not sure if Beautiful Feet books has that level of American History. I haven't used them but looked into it awhile back. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stm4him Posted May 5, 2015 Share Posted May 5, 2015 Wayfarers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EliseMcKenna Posted May 5, 2015 Share Posted May 5, 2015 Have you looked at BYL Grade 6? "Continuing your journey through American History begun with Grade 5 using the series A History of Us by Joy Hakim, you will cover the Civil War through modern day. Choose a side in the tumultuous Civil War, learn what it was like to immigrate to America at the turn of the century, learn about the World Wars of the 20th century, and join the protests during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. You will continue your study of the 50 states, in order of their statehood." http://buildyourlibrary.com/purchase-grade-6-curriculum/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted May 5, 2015 Share Posted May 5, 2015 Joy Hakim's Story of US? I know it's a textbook, but it's not a textbooky feeling one. Very well written, not at all dry. I think CM would approve. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChocolateMomster Posted May 5, 2015 Share Posted May 5, 2015 Not really a plan...but have you looked at Truthquest? You could just skip the commentary ;) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chelli Posted May 5, 2015 Share Posted May 5, 2015 I would use Beautiful Feet's new Modern American and World History for grades 5th through 8th. I am using their Ancient History this year with my 5th and 2nd grader. It's been very enjoyable and very CM. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeriJ Posted May 5, 2015 Share Posted May 5, 2015 I would use Beautiful Feet's new Modern American and World History for grades 5th through 8th. I am using their Ancient History this year with my 5th and 2nd grader. It's been very enjoyable and very CM. This is what I would suggest also. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaderbee Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 Is there a table of contents somewhere for BF's new Modern American and World History guide? I looked on their site, checked cbd.com and rainbow resource and couldn't find it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chelli Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 Is there a table of contents somewhere for BF's new Modern American and World History guide? I looked on their site, checked cbd.com and rainbow resource and couldn't find it. There is not a TOC. It does flow chronologically, but there is not a set TOC. It is just set up by lessons that tell you what pages to read out the literature selection for that topic. Sometimes a lesson includes mapping and/or timeline work. Also, discussion questions and/or notebooking suggestions are in almost every lesson as well. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaderbee Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 Thanks for the info Chelli. I was curious about what topics were covered and the pacing. We won't hit this part of history until 2016 so I've got time to see if someone local has a copy to peruse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samiam Posted May 7, 2015 Author Share Posted May 7, 2015 Thanks for all the suggestions. I see BF has a new Modern History out. The thing is I actually planned on using BF last year...collected all the books used, got the guide,,and when I started planning, and REALLY looking at the guide....they moved way too fast. The primary Am history went from Leif the Lucky all the way to Abraham Lincoln, and not enough meat in between. I ended up selling the guide and veering to SCM. So maybe this new program is better....but who can tell because the online samples are very limited. I kinda had to move on just cuz they dont share enough info to make a choice. Truthquest is an option....I hadn't looked at them recently. BYL....I have looked at it...something steered me away...can't remember at the moment what that was....will go back and look again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kristi26 Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 Hakim's History of US is technically a series of textbooks but they read much nicer, if that makes any sense. They don't READ like a dry textbook...that said, we own all of them but didn't read them much this year as we studied modern history. :glare: We ended up using lapbooks from Hands of a Child a lot, biographies, videos, historical fiction from the time period... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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