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She HATES Kingfisher.


egao_gakari
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It's "I hate history" whenever it's history time. She's a strong writer, so even though she's only in 4th grade I've been having her follow a few of the 5th grade recommendations from WTM. (E.g., reading Kingfisher, marking dates on the Timeline, making a list of facts, and every 2 chapters or so researching and writing a little composition about something that interests her. But no outlining.) She loves Story of the World 1, which I read aloud to her at the beginning of each history class, and would be happy as a clam if we did that plus the activities. But the info in SOTW1 is pretty simplistic for a 4th grader with a philosophical bent. (Pretty sure she's mostly entered the Logic stage.)

 

Has anyone used the World in Ancient Times (OUP) series as a spine? I know it's a bit too high-level for her to read by herself, but I wouldn't mind reading most of it out loud to her. What she hates about Kingfisher is the way it's broken up into tiny paragraphs with different font sizes and no narrative flow--so switching to a simpler encyclopedia like Usborne or History Year by Year won't help.

 

Any other recommendations for a narrative-style spine? Trying to be budget-conscious as well--one of the attractions of the OUP series is that it's available through our library system.

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Lots of people on here use OUP. Another option is K12's Hyman Odysseus books. They are less than $10 on Amazon, usually. It reads like SOTW, but at a higher reading level. Some people have lists correlating the content with SOTW for both OUP and HO.

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I wouldn't like doing history with just Kingfisher either. The OUP books are great. I give those to my kids to read independently in 6th grade. I also really like CHOW, which was written towards a 4th grade level. I know some people don't like the tone of CHOW, though. OUP is probably closer to the style of SOTW than CHOW is, but it's not childish at all. You could buy one volume used, without committing the entire series.

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The Human Odyssey series from K12 is excellent.  (I hate the Kingfisher too--honestly, I have no idea why it's recommended.  I mean, after trying to instill a love of history in kids with SOTW, the Kingfisher is the *exact opposite*.  Luckily, HO is more like a continuation.)

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