swimming-duck Posted January 20, 2016 Share Posted January 20, 2016 I know there's been posts on this. I've perished many of them. And several ended with someone saying something like "I'm going to use the four year cycle and SOTW as my spine, but add in the AO books at the right time period" OR " I'm going to use the SOTW four year cycle alongside the AO six year cycle and not worry about time periods matching up" or fill in the blank. Several of those are from years ago. I'd love to get feedback from those who've been combining the programs for years. How have you combined? Did you alter the cycles and/or choose either the six or four year or just do each alongside the other? And has it worked out or did you end up dropping one or feel it was too much? A little background info on us: We are finishing up AO year one. I've really liked it. However, we started SOTW about two years ago and dropped it (I was overwhelmed at the time - had more to do with my availability for homeschooling than the method). I have loved our year of AO truly. We've dropped a few readings, but overall I've loved the selections and having the readings broken up by week for me is AWESOME! But there's a part of me that remembers our very short time with SOTW (we made it to chapter four) and I LOVED the material, activity suggestions, map work. I feel like it was fun and I remember it well. So this positive experience causes me to want to incorporate it even though AO has worked well overall (with a rough period adjusting to narration). And I do feel like ancient history is not very thorough at all in AO's first pass through that time period, which is sad because there's so much interesting history there. So that's my experience with the two. Another note is that while I appreciate the six year cycle that AO does so that you're not rushing through time periods, I feel inclined towards the four year cycle. My body likes to birth every 3 1/2 - 4 years, which means my three boys are perfectly spaced for a four year cycle in that we'd have a new elementary student starting school every time we return to ancient history. So I've wondered if it would work better, but I know some prefer not to combine time periods for all their kiddos as they feel it's more distracting. So anyways, I guess my questions are in the first part of my post. But the rest is there to give you some background as to why I'm looking at the choices I am and how the different options could affect my family. I apologize if there's a ton of typos here. I really dislike typing on my phone, but sometimes I just can't get to the computer! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arliemaria Posted January 20, 2016 Share Posted January 20, 2016 I am currently doing AO Y1. I plan on having Robby listen to the audio of STOW 1 later this year. It will probably be in the van on the way to Greek School on Tuesday nights. It is about a 40 minute drive to and from Greek School. I would not mind if he listened to it multiple times. If he enjoys it, I might pull out the activity book and have him do a few activities when times allows, but I am not going to schedule these into our regular work/reading schedule.I know Memoria Press now offers the STOW audio cds as a summer supplement. I think that is a great option for AO users. I know we will use at least STOW 1, but have heard from some Orthodox Christians that they do not follow through the whole series because of differing views. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esse Quam Videri Posted January 21, 2016 Share Posted January 21, 2016 We use both. My kids and I love, love, love SOTW... They remember it extremely well (even years later), it's perfect for narration, and the audio CDs are so easy. We combine for history though, so despite being in "different years" with Ambleside literature, we do history together. We do include Ambleside history readings, but not all. Basically, Ambleside supplements our SOTW and goes deeper into many topics. We do still use four year cycle. Next year when DD11 starts year 7, I may have her go through the six year cycle and combine just the youngers with SOTW. Still deciding... But she will have been through all of SOTW, some of it more than once. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChocolateMomster Posted January 21, 2016 Share Posted January 21, 2016 No long term experience here...but this is how we started combining the two: Year 0.5 50 Famous Stories 30 More Famous People Kings and Things Year 1 Our Island Story 50 Famous People Year 2 Story of the World I Trial and Triumph (First Section) Child's History of the World Year 3 Story of the World II The World of Columbus and Sons Child's History of the World Trial and Triumph (Second and Third Section) Famous Men of the Middle Ages Year 4 Story of the World III Child's History of the World Trial and Triumph (Fourth Section) George Washington's World The World of William Penn The Story of Europe Year 5 Story of the World IV Our Empire Story Trial and Triumph (Last Two Sections) Abraham Lincoln's World Scotland's Story Year 6 Story of the World I Augustus Caesar's World Story of the Greeks Story of the Romans Famous Men of Rome Famous Men of Greece Trial and Triumph (First Section) Continue Year 7 and onwards as written.... And yes, then I just add the appropriate books from each AO year into the corresponding year. I also add a whole bunch a books from other curricula and websites. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swimming-duck Posted January 22, 2016 Author Share Posted January 22, 2016 We use both. My kids and I love, love, love SOTW... They remember it extremely well (even years later), it's perfect for narration, and the audio CDs are so easy. We combine for history though, so despite being in "different years" with Ambleside literature, we do history together. We do include Ambleside history readings, but not all. Basically, Ambleside supplements our SOTW and goes deeper into many topics. We do still use four year cycle. Next year when DD11 starts year 7, I may have her go through the six year cycle and combine just the youngers with SOTW. Still deciding... But she will have been through all of SOTW, some of it more than once. That sounds like it might be what I'm wanting to do. Did you go through the literature selections and pull them yourself or did you find any sort of resource that matches up the AO readings with the four year cycle? I'd love it if I could find some sort of resource for that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swimming-duck Posted January 22, 2016 Author Share Posted January 22, 2016 And thanks all for the comments thus far. We did SOTW today for the first time after not having done it since 2013! And wow - it really was fun. It's interesting because I remember feeling like it was hard to get through the reading with my kiddo at the time, but he was much younger. And after reading AO selections for nearly a year, I have to say that it feels like the difficulty level is a step down, but not in a bad way. It's going to be a more relaxing read now I think. And hopefully we can just kind of settle into it, learn a bit from the readings, and enjoy the map work and activities. One of the suggested activities was to make a mummy chicken. It looks sooooo fun, but I just can't justify wasting food on this right now! I'd maybe do it anyways, but my son is freaked out by mummies. I have a feeling that our second little one will be all about a mummy project when we do our second pass through the Ancients! It felt good to get back to this book though, as in it feels like the right decision. I still haven't decided how exactly I want to marry them up. I'm nearly through AO 1 and some of the selections we've already read would go more with SOTW 2. So I think we're setting aside our AO history readings for year one and we're just going to go through SOTW 1 and then finish up our AO 1 after we get into SOTW 2. Hopefully by then I'll have a plan other than haphazardly trying to figure out last minute what goes with what! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKDmom Posted January 23, 2016 Share Posted January 23, 2016 AOne of the suggested activities was to make a mummy chicken. It looks sooooo fun, but I just can't justify wasting food on this right now! I'd maybe do it anyways, but my son is freaked out by mummies. I have a feeling that our second little one will be all about a mummy project when we do our second pass through the Ancients! My DD6 mummified a pear slice at her co-op class. Yeah, a chicken would be cool, but you could use much smaller portions of food. I raise chickens, and I could never bring myself to use a whole chicken just for a cool project... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swimming-duck Posted January 23, 2016 Author Share Posted January 23, 2016 My DD6 mummified a pear slice at her co-op class. Yeah, a chicken would be cool, but you could use much smaller portions of food. I raise chickens, and I could never bring myself to use a whole chicken just for a cool project... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swimming-duck Posted January 23, 2016 Author Share Posted January 23, 2016 On my phone and obviously screwed up the whole quote thing, but in regards to the last comment. Yes, we would feel bad using a chicken for that. We talked about maybe just using a chicken leg or something! I do like the idea though of going through the mummification process with the kids in that way! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esse Quam Videri Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 That sounds like it might be what I'm wanting to do. Did you go through the literature selections and pull them yourself or did you find any sort of resource that matches up the AO readings with the four year cycle? I'd love it if I could find some sort of resource for that! We basically just matched up where we could. AO obviously goes FAR more in depth than SOTW, but we go through SOTW much quicker than normal (1 volume a semester) so that left us room to go deeper with AO readings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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