History for almost 11yr old, approaching grade 6

[Flowergirl159]

Okay so my eldest is nearing 11, and is nearly finished grade 5.

 

Her history studies so far have been:

• bible stories - most of the history she knows has been from our bible readings
• in the beginning of her fourth grade year, we covered SOTW 1, but only the first 17 chapters (some of that content she remembers)
• the past twelve months she has been working on Core D from Sonlight, American History, explorers and colonists (we aren't even American however, so probably not great use of our time, however she loved studying the USA)

I understand that in public schools, not much history is covered. But I really want my children (and me too) to learn the basics in history.

 

I had planned on doing two four-year rotations for her, as she had eight years left of school and then she would cover all the historic periods twice. To me, that sounds perfect  ;)

 

I have found Sonlight to have too much reading, and we even dropped most books except the readers and read alouds. There are way too many read alouds for me to get through and as they pertain to a country other than our own, it probably doesn't matter too much that we don't get to them all. I also have two younger children and thought I would like to do history altogether, like we did nearly two years ago. Use the same spine as a read aloud, then each child has their own literature and other books at their own level. My other children are almost finished in grade 3 and grade 1. I was actually doing Core B with my middle child, but we hardly got to any history. I thought that history separately would work, but I don't feel like I have a proper plan in the long run on getting that done.

 

I would like to do history altogether, plus adding extras for them individually.

 

What era would you recommend I start with? I really want to do Ancients, as that is the beginning, it sounds logical to me :) In saying that though, we haven't done the middle ages and that sounds exciting.

 

I have ten/eleven weeks left of school for this year, so maybe I could cram in ancients (ancient Greece, Rome) that we haven't covered. And then in Feb when we start our new year, we can do the Middle ages. But if we do this, I wonder if my oldest would find the following year boring as that is the era we have sort of covered this year :/

 

I have read for hours today on threads on this forum, regarding history options. I mean literally hours!!! And I am wishing that we had stuck it out with following the four year cycle that we started nearly two years ago. I read how others just plodded along and are nearly finished their first rotation through. I feel like we have hardly covered anything, and now high school is just around the corner :(

 

[The Princess and the Jedi]

If your daughter likes Sonlight...stick with Sonlight. If she enjoys the program, she's learning!  You could probably skip Core E and go on to F, G, and H for the middle school years but just get the instructor's guide and then buy the read alouds and readers you want to use from the core from Amazon. G and H cover all four volumes of Story of the World. You could maybe use the history spine  from Core W (A Child's History of the World)and schedule that in for a year during Core F since it doesn't really utilize history spine. Call the course: World History with an emphasis on the Eastern Hemisphere.

 

Beautiful Feet Books also has literature based history courses that uses less books than Sonlight. I think it's a program worth checking out. They publish three courses that may fit the bill for you during the middle years: Intermediate Ancient History through Literature, Intermediate Medieval World through Literature, and modern world and US history.

 

If your daughter wants to find out what happened in the rest of American history, I just discovered A Child's First Book of American History (Miers) and it is a fun and informative read!

 

Good luck searching!

 

Signed,

Sleepless in California

[HomeAgain]

World of Adventure level 1 covers Ancients through Renaissance.  We haven't used this volume, but we did use 3 and found it to be right about what we needed in terms of lit and history together - 1 lit book at a time, lots of projects, integrated science.  The actual history lesson we found to be better buffed up through online resources (Read Like A Historian, Letters of Note, Horrible Histories), but I was using it with a child on the older end of the scale. http://www.learning-adventures.org/Volume_One/volume_one.html

[rafgaf4]

I agree with the Beautiful Feet curriculum. It has less reading than Sonlight, but we didn't care for all of their literature selections. We just substituted other books for the ones we didn't like. 

[Flowergirl159]

I am thinking that I could perhaps cram Ancients into the next 10 weeks, using CHOW as our spine and add in literature at their own level. Then next year, cover Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, then then the following two years early modern to the present day. Then if I decide to do the four year rotation with them all again, when we do ancients, they will be in grades 9, 7 and 5. This would mean that my oldest would be doing her second rotation of Present day/modern during her 12th grade. Does this sound okay?

[Flowergirl159]

Bumping :)

 

[MomatHWTK]

If $ isn't an issue- we did the first two sets of VP self-paced history lessons in one year and the kids really enjoyed it.  

 

In general, in addition to whatever group studies and video lessons we do I have my elementary kids read a textbook of some sort that cover the materials I want them to learn. DD is reading Old World History and will do New World History next.  Middle DS is has read an elementary American History text and studied myths this year and will do a history textbook for our state next.   The textbook is assigned as part of their independent reading and then we do other studies in a group setting.  My eldest (9th grade) is using Plato history plus Discovery Education and Great Courses videos.  The Plato world history program starts with the ancients and covers through modern history over two semesters.  He's already been through the aforementioned history textbook cycle.  The Plato course has textbook style readings- which is why I supplement with the videos.  I often have the elementary kids watch the videos as well.  Cicero has always looked intriguing to me, but we've not used it.  

 

I'll probably use the VP self-paced courses when my youngest is ready for them, and that will allow the middle two children to review those lessons again.