A History Of Us..

[kolamum]

Yeah or Nay.
Why or why not?


We are covering US history with the highschooler next year. I was planning on using an older SL Core 100. I'm torn on that spine, but more so from the insane amount of notes in the guide. What's the deal? If they are picked at that much why include the books rather then finding something else?

 

I have other spine options I'm seriously considering, but I'd like opinions from those who've used AHOU. :)

[Angie in VA]

Some folks here prefer the condensed version. I'd never heard of it until I read about on these boards. We used the full set, tweaking the Sonlight Core. 

 

There is  always K12's American History. What is your other choice for a spine?

 

 

[mom2att]

Well, I like them. I used the condensed version with a high school class. My students ranged from 8th grade - 10th, and I didn't want them to get bogged down in what can be very dense and detailed text in many high school books. I feel that the Hakim books give a great overview in a very readable, accessible way. They make a great jumping off point for class discussion and critical thinking activities (like Reading Like a Historian).

 

I used the Sonlight guide to get ideas for my own study guides. I also used the Oxford Assessment book, and I used other texts (K12's high school text American Odyssey, college text Give Me Liberty by Eric Foner) for my own research to add material for class lecture and discussion.

 

 

Edited April 22, 2016 by mom2att

[kolamum]

The ideas for other spines are:

 

The Complete Idiot's Guide To American History {we've been reading the European History book in this series this year with our studies. It's deep, but good}

A Child's Encyclopedia Of American History {more to tie in with the above, give a bit of an overview on some topics, photos, running timeline, etc}

Painless American Government

 

I could also use the Foster books, but I'd prefer not to use the Columbus book as it would repeat a great deal of what my child has all ready studied this year. So basically Washington & Lincoln to cover a bit more of the people from that time frame, but admittedly if the first book is as good & in-depth as the book from that series that we read this year I'm not sure we'll need the Foster books.


I'm seeing that the three companies we normally use {SL, WP, & BkSk} all use A Story Of Us as spines for high school US history. We don't live in the USA so they aren't something we can go to the library & borrow to make a choice on.. Kinda frustrating, as I'm basing a bit of what I'm thinking about them on samples from Amazon & Audible. ;)

[Pegasus]

We used the full set of Hakim's History of Us books.  I like that the writing style is engaging rather than dry.  However, it is a long series to get through in one year.  We spread it over two years.

 

[EKS]

The concise version is far better than the original.  But honestly, I wouldn't use either version as a high school spine.  How about The American Odyssey instead?

[prairiewindmomma]

Another vote for American Odyssey. It's target age range is high school, as opposed to History of US, which is middle school.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I have the American Odyssey (which we have not yet used).  I have the multi volume Story of US that we did use.  I like the looks of American Odyssey better.  Maybe the condensed Story of US is better than the multi volume one, but I felt like it was unnecessarily long winded. 

[Mom22ns]

We really enjoyed History of US. I used it when the kids were in 6th & 8th grade and we went through the whole thing in one year following the Core 100 schedule. I read about one page of the notes in the SL guide and never looked at them again. The books are very readable and it was my kids favorite year of history - ever.

 

It is a bit light for high school, but on the SL boards, you'll find plenty of people whose kids CLEP US history 1 & 2 after using nothing but Core 100.

[JadeOrchidSong]

We really enjoyed History of US. I used it when the kids were in 6th & 8th grade and we went through the whole thing in one year following the Core 100 schedule. I read about one page of the notes in the SL guide and never looked at them again. The books are very readable and it was my kids favorite year of history - ever.

 

It is a bit light for high school, but on the SL boards, you'll find plenty of people whose kids CLEP US history 1 & 2 after using nothing but Core 100.

How did you use it without the Sonlight guide? Did you do quizzes, tests, essays?

I have both America the Beautiful and Joy Hakim History of US set. I need to decide what to use, or use CLE Changing Frontiers.

[texasmama]

We used History of US in middle school, as well.

Edited April 23, 2016 by texasmama

[texasmama]

Also, I found the tests useless.

[Junie]

We are using the books this year (up to 1900 -- we do the 20th century as a separate class) for my 2 high schoolers.

 

These are really written below their level, but I am using them to make sure that everything gets covered.  Last week their assignment was to read all of book 4.  They were able to complete that easily in 5 days, so I can't imagine that the books alone would be enough.

 

We are doing a lot of other work though -- other readings, worksheets, reports, videos.

[J-rap]

We loved History of US.  We used them for a variety of ages, but counted them as 9th grade US History.  We found them very entertaining yet quite thorough.  We supplemented with lots of field trips, documentaries, literature, and the Critical Thinking in United States History series by the Critical Thinking Company. 

 

[OnMyOwn]

I have SL 100, from many years ago, which includes History of US. My dd started it this year, but it got squeezed out with everything else she has going on. I know another poster used SL 100 to prepare her dd for the AP exam and I am thinking about doing the same here. The History of US books are written more simply than a high school text, but especially for a kid that isn't really interested in history, I think they are perfect for getting the ideas and facts down. SOTW is certainly below my reading level, but I learned more about history listening to those audiobooks than I ever did in school, so I guess it depends on your goal. For my dd, I want her to learn about history and I want to do it in the most painless way possible because it is not an area of interest for her. She gets plenty of opportunities to be challenged and to read higher level texts in her other classes. I have been thinking about adding in the Critical Thinking books. I have some of those and I think they'd add a lot to SL 100.

Edited April 23, 2016 by OnMyOwn

[FaithManor]

We school year round - well we take July off, but otherwise pretty much year round. So I took the set and divided it up over a eleven months. It worked out well. The writing is more engaging than other texts, but possibly not as in depth in some areas as high school texts. Reading level is really more 6th/7th grade. So I supplemented with primary source reading as well such as some of the federalist and anti-federalist papers, etc. But I do literature in conjunction with history which makes it easier to kill two birds with one stone.

 

From the standpoint of high school level requirements, most of the local kids are reading 11-15 pages per day of texts more dense than this in order to get through them in nine months with all of the breaks this district takes. That is pretty common in all of the districts, and when I look at the density of science texts here as well, I think that the expectation is that students accomplish a lot of reading. Given the reading level, for a high schooler I would think that three or four chapters per day with note-taking would not be inappropriate.

 

We watched the documentaries as well - they used to be available on Netflix though I am not certain if this is still true or not as netflix has lost a lot of contracts recently. We also used many of the Kenneth Burns documentaries as well.

 

Given that the AP exam is college level work and contains critical analysis writing components, I would not use it to prep for that test if you think that might be something you'll consider doing.

[Mom22ns]

How did you use it without the Sonlight guide? Did you do quizzes, tests, essays?

I have both America the Beautiful and Joy Hakim History of US set. I need to decide what to use, or use CLE Changing Frontiers.

 

I read aloud, we discussed.

 

For us this was middle school and I didn't give a grade, so I didn't need anything for grading criteria. I have a child with dysgraphia and we didn't do tons of essays or writing outside of English. He's a writing major in college. It didn't hurt him. He did read all the rest of the Core 100 books. I think we might have done Jump In for writing that year. My younger followed the core 3+4 reading schedule (C+D now maybe). We read her read aloud and Hakim together. It was good and the kids really understood and made connections. 

We did another pass though US History in high school. We used college level texts. I got a lot out of it, but I think the kids got more out of Hakim, because they understood it better.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Momto2Ns

[JoJosMom]

JadeOrchidSong:

 

I'm not the person to whom you addressed the question, but Hewitt has a curriculum based upon the ten-volume series (they classify is as Junior High level.)  Also, Oxford University Press has an Assessments book.  I have and have used at least parts of both; I think you could make Hewitt work for high school. OUP has study guides for each volume, as well, but that could get pricey (too pricey for me, so I can't tell you much about them.)  HTH.

Edited April 23, 2016 by JoJosMom

[SilverMoon]

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Edited June 17, 2022 by SilverMoon

[ondreeuh]

We are finishing up HUS 1-10 using the Bookshark guide. Honestly, the snippy commentary bothers me too, so I mostly ignore them and we just use the discussion questions. Bookshark schedules it in a 4-day week, and we got quite a bit ahead by doing it 5 days per week. We took a couple of weeks off at the start of book 10 to read the Diary of Anne Frank and Bomb by Sheinkin. If I had to do it over ahead I would have probably spent those banked days on more writing about history, but he did a lot of writing about literature. I matched up Moving Beyond the Page12-14 lit units and additional reading. Those in included a biography of Abigail Adams, Animal Farm, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Book Thief, The Hobbit, The House of the Scorpion, and others. It has been a great year for history & lit here, and I wouldn't bat an eye if someone said they used it for high school history. I don't think HUS is too juvenile.

[JadeOrchidSong]

Also, I found the tests useless.

Which tests?

Did you assign essays?

[kolamum]

Thank you for all the replies & opinions. :)

I'm still entirely undecided, but as the child using it will be older I'm going to present him with the options & allow him to choose. As we're overseas I'll probably need to purchase each, but perhaps we can make a decent choice from the samples.. We'll see. FWIW, we were planning to use it with the Older SL Core 100. ;)