Wonder Posted August 1, 2015 Share Posted August 1, 2015 We'll be using SOTW vol. 4 as our spine for history this year. Two 3rd graders and a 6th grader. I'm just curious if others have used it for 3rd graders and, if so, did you adapt the activity book for them? I just now am realizing how different the activity guide is for this volume, compared to the previous ones (not many coloring pictures, etc). Not sure that outlining is the way to go with my 3rd graders, either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldilocks Posted August 1, 2015 Share Posted August 1, 2015 I used it with my young 4th grader last year. The sections are very long, so doing narrations was hard, but I came up with a couple of solutions. Sometimes, I would come up with a topic sentence and he would supply the details. Another method was to just write one fact that he remembered. I skipped the outlining. My kids have not been into coloring lately, so we didn't miss the coloring pages, but I thought that you could purchase those separately. You may want to check that out. We had been used to doing an activity from the guide on Fridays, and I remembered from my first time through SOTW4 that the activities in the guide were not that great. I bought 2 CDs from Home School in the Woods to do on Fridays. I chose the Civil War and WWII. The reading level of the literature suggestions in the activity guide is a big jump up from the previous volumes. You may just try searching for library books by topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penelope Posted August 1, 2015 Share Posted August 1, 2015 I think it's a little heavy for a third grader, and as you noticed, the activity guide isn't as useful. I dont think I used it at all even with a fourth grader. I switched to MP geography for mapping that year, and we would just note map locations from SOtW on the wall map and globe. Definitely wouldn't be doing outlining with third graders here, though some third graders could work on finding the main idea in a paragraph. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted August 1, 2015 Share Posted August 1, 2015 I just didn't use the activity guide much. We did the map stuff. I bought the coloring pages. I used some of the suggested readings. We did the questions out loud. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbollin Posted August 1, 2015 Share Posted August 1, 2015 Long time ago when oldest was 6th grade and middle was 3rd, we used SOTW 4 in the context of using MFW. I didn't require the 3rd grader to listen to everything. and then we had other materials on hand for 3rd grader. So she was tagging along with older sib. I don't think I would have tried vol 4 with oldest child at that age, but with other materials for younger sib it all worked out well enough. But then again, we weren't using just and only SOTW. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redsquirrel Posted August 1, 2015 Share Posted August 1, 2015 I couldn't do it. 4th year SOTW is a heavy year. The book is excellent,don't get me wrong, but there is a lot of war, a lot of death. The Holocaust is not an easy topic to cover even with a 10 year old, I just couldn't face it with a 9 year old. The reading selections are also quite challenging. As they get longer and more involved you start doing 'guided narration' for example. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonfly_Mom Posted August 2, 2015 Share Posted August 2, 2015 I have found you can find some great activities pinterest to go a long with SOTW without buying the activity books. Also if you subscribe to Dover book and get their emails then every Friday they will send you free sample coloring pages. I have been able to get many history coloring pages this way from Romans to the Americas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wonder Posted August 2, 2015 Author Share Posted August 2, 2015 Thanks for the thoughts everyone! Still not sure how exactly I'll approach this. Maybe skim over certain chapters for now? I honestly haven't actually looked in the book yet, so I'm off to do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wonder Posted August 2, 2015 Author Share Posted August 2, 2015 Well, shoot. Now I'm reading the foreword and even S.W. Bauer says she wouldn't recommend it for children under 4th grade. I've been trying to keep my girls together for history. What do others do at this point when you have children 3 or more grades apart? I think I'll do a spin-off post to ask about this stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted August 2, 2015 Share Posted August 2, 2015 Take a look at the TOG year 4 LG book list. You don't have to use TOG itself. The books they recommend focus more on inventors and such, with an age appropriate look at the Holocaust. That way they get the general overview of things without focusing the whole year on awful topics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted August 2, 2015 Share Posted August 2, 2015 It's not just the Holocaust. All the major topics are dark - the Civil War, WWI, the atomic bomb, the beginning of communism... Other options... Do a year of geography or world cultures or world religions or the like then go into SOTW4. Do a year of American history... maybe with Story of US or whatever you might be attracted to using. Then go into SOTW4 the following year. Do a year of child-led unit studies for history. Maybe they'd like to delve into a topic more? Or maybe you'd like to do a year of history by reading historical fiction? Then use SOTW4 the next year. Do a year of modern history but focus on something gentler by doing more of an outline and then maybe modern heroes and just read and do narrations for piles of biographies - Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, MLK, Nelson Mandela, to name just a few. And then know that you'll have another pass at this later on to delve into the darker stuff more deeply. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbollin Posted August 2, 2015 Share Posted August 2, 2015 Well, shoot. Now I'm reading the foreword and even S.W. Bauer says she wouldn't recommend it for children under 4th grade. I've been trying to keep my girls together for history. What do others do at this point when you have children 3 or more grades apart? I think I'll do a spin-off post to ask about this stuff. in my case, the 3rd grade younger sibling was doing more of Geography and US Fun Facts and more age appropriate US history topics and read alouds. (we're in US so it made sense to do where we are.) So she was learning states and capitals, doing US history via cookbook. colored in the time line pieces for us from SOTW. You could look at the "2nd/3rd grade supplement" that MFW has in their 1850MOD year to get an idea of what materials we used. Normally if it was a big heavy topic, I sent 3rd grader to the other room to do her independent book basket reading with similar topics. For example, while 6th grader and I were reading SOTW on post WW2 in China, and learning basics of history of communism with that, then 3rd grader could look at picture books about Chinese culture and geography. That way we were tied in theme and history time frame and even slightly connected in SOTW with projects and timeline pieces. I still remember one of the projects in SOTW activity guide that needed both girls. Something from Africa and rivers and lifting a chair. ok, maybe I don't remember the specifics, but I do still remember the girls rolling in an office chair in the garage and having to lift the chair up and over the one step. Or the demo of need for a canal. I know I remember something, but I'm getting old. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wonder Posted August 2, 2015 Author Share Posted August 2, 2015 For a while there I was rather freaking out, thinking I needed to find a completely different history curriculum, but I think I'm settled on continuing to use SOTW 4 this year... but with some modifications/changes/substitutions for the youngers. :) Thanks for all the insight! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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