Ancient or modern first

[countrymum]

I will have a 1st grader and a k4 girl. Any pros or cons for starting with ancient history or American (with some equivalent world thrown in). What do you prefer and why?

[Amateur Actress]

There seems to be two schools of thought on this:

 

1) Start at the beginning with ancient and go chronologically

 

2) Start with American because that is your and your kids' history and it will make it more relevant and exciting for them.

[Bluegoat]

I think either can work.  Are you planning on keeping them in the same period?

 

For kids under about grade 3, history tends to be mostly about stories.  I don't think it is actually very important to make history strongly chonological for those years - especially kids in K and gr 1 sometimes don't really find a timeline all that enlightening. 

 

For myself, I have tended to do two streams of history, or sometimes even three - I have world history which is somewhat chronological, and within that we also focus at times more on British history of that period.  And then we do Canadian history.  Up until grade 5 our Canadian history was more in story format, but this past year I began to match it up a little more with our other history - we were looking at the early modern period which is also when we get the main exploration by Europeans.

 

Other ways of choosing might be to see what resources you can find that will work best for you and go with those, or you could ask your student about preferences.  I've sometimes found a great resource that will not be great for my student quite yet, so I've scheduled that topic for later.

 

It can also help to look a few years down the road and visualize what you want to accomplish by then, and work backwards - these plans often change but at least it gives a sense of what has to happen and if there are important things to do in a particular order or start by a particular time.

 

[alisoncooks]

We started at the beginning because pyramids & mummies and castles & knghts are just FUN when they're young. And there are such fun crafts and activities.

[Ellie]

There seems to be two schools of thought on this:

 

1) Start at the beginning with ancient and go chronologically

 

2) Start with American because that is your and your kids' history and it will make it more relevant and exciting for them.

 

I'm in the (2) camp. And field trips. You can do some awesome American history field trips.

[KarenNC]

I was only dealing with one kid, so it was easier.

 

I chose to do a "highlights of American history/social studies and modern world cultures" for kindergarten. We went through the DK "A Life Like Mine" and "A Faith Like Mine" along with watching videos of traditional dancing and trying traditional foods or attending local cultural festivals relating to those cultures (when possible) for the world aspect. For the American highlights, we did major holidays/symbols/people, just to make sure we had touched on who George Washington was and what the Statue of Liberty was, that sort of thing. We looked at websites from historic sites associated with American history, which usually have a kids' educational area with activities. The National Parks also has a Jr Ranger/Web Ranger free educational program that we used. Our local area has a lot of Rev War and Civil War history sites and re-enactments, so we hit some of those on field trips with our local homeschool group, along with field trips to "community helpers" like the fire station, police department, post office. She was reading well, so we pulled a lot of early reader-type biographies, historical fiction, and non-fiction from the library as part of our reading. This year coincided with a lot of travel for us---Disney World (including Epcot) with grandparents and a long driving trip through several states--so we incorporated topics related to sites we would be able to see. It was fun and gave her a lot of hooks to hang later information on, but now at 16 she doesn't remember a lot of detail from it. The main purpose was for me to feel that she had the degree of cultural literacy that would be expected of an early elementary-aged child in the US as I knew our history cycle would not line up with the social studies in the public schools. I didn't want her to feel unprepared for general knowledge questions in testing (our state requires yearly starting at age 7). You could also take a look at the "What Your _________-Grader Should Know" series to make sure you've hit the highlights.

 

For first grade, we then did the Ancients using Story of the World and the activity guide (though we mummified potatoes instead of a chicken!). We continued to do a lot of the group field trips to various local sites, attending library programs, and going to various cultural festivals throughout elementary as they came available, not just limiting them to what we were studying at the time, so there was always some mix.

 

In part, it will depend on how close in ability the two students are. If the first-grader is ready to move into the activities for Ancients and you want to keep to the SOTW 4 year cycle, I'd probably make that the focus letting the younger participate as able, then do American/world highlights as a fun supplement on the k4 student's level. She'll pick up some from the Ancients and the 1st grader will benefit from the American/world.

Edited August 9, 2016 by KarenNC