SOTW question

[sdobis]

I'm planning on using SOTW 2 next year with a 2nd grader. We'll do a one week history/science rotation. With 42 chapters and so many fun activities in the guide, how do you finish in a year. What would a typical day include?

[knitgrl]

This year, we did science M, W, and F and history T and Th. On Tues, we would read a chapter, narrate, use part of that narration for copywork, look at the history encyclopedia and that's it. She never wants to do the mapwork that day. Thursday, she does the mapwork and we read a related library book, and possibly do a project. The projects have fallen by the wayside this year. There have been a few weeks where we did two chapters and skipped additional read alouds, and I assigned her to read an extra book or two. There is always the option of skipping a chapter or two. For instance, you could skip the Shakespeare chapter and cover him in another way, and the last chapter is just kind of an overview, and doesn't seem extremely vital. 

[HomeAgain]

I set up task cards this year for Vol. 1 before I switched to a unit study method.  Reading ahead, some chapters are very short and don't have a lot to go with them.  We do those as end-of-the-week reads before embarking on a longer chapter the next week.  For vol 2, it'll go something like this:

Ch.1- introduction/continuation readthrough.  We're not going to spend a lot of time on Rome again, but read it on Mon and start Tues with ch. 2 for the week.

 

Ch. 12 will be an end-of-the-week read.  We'll continue talking about Islam during the crusades chapters and will have done a full week with ch. 6 & 7 each.

 

Ch. 37 (Copernicus) will be taken out of history and done with science.

 

Ch. 39 (Shakespeare) will be taken out and we'll start studying him around ch. 35, reading the Shakespeare Stealer and going through an activity guide I have during language arts.

 

That brings us down to 38 weeks, and if I wanted we could bring it to 37 by taking ch. 17 and mixing it with 15, then doing a quick read through to reinforce after we finish 16.

[2_girls_mommy]

I'll be honest. We never finished in a year. Our goal was always one chapter a week. But life happens. It is Halloween. We would end up reading Sleepy Hollow and not getting to SOTW that week. Or we would spend more weeks on one chapter because it was super interesting or there were field trip opportunities that related to history or what have you. 

 

So we always ended up just reading several chapters. Once a busy season was over, we would spend a week and read a chapter a day or a section a day for 2 weeks. Then we would only do associated work with one of those chapters in depth or something. We might look at the globe daily as we read, but in general, we would only go deep and do extra readings, maps, outlines or whatever on one specific chapter. 

 

And we kept reading through the summers often. Or took a month off, then read the last 10 chapters in August just reading and then moved into our next volume in Sept. and went back to narrations, outlines, color pages, mapwork, projects, and extra readings on selected chapters at that point. There is just no way to go deep on every chapter for us. 

[mamaraby]

We use HO in conjunction with SOTW, but I have gone with just SOTW and the AG on year. Either way, what we usually do is read about a chapter and a half or basically one section a day, three days a week. Some weeks if the sections are short we read more than one. Some sections there isn't a lot to do or the activities just don't thrill us. Other sections we struggle to do all the things we want.

 

We can get through it in 34 weeks which is good because we only need 35 weeks to get our required hours in for the state and that extra week is easily taken up by field trip type days and other assorted non-school day, outside class, etc type work.

[ScoutTN]

We use the summer. History here is mostly reading and my kids love it, so no one complains.

We enjoy rabbit trails, library books, literature RAs or audiobooks that correspond, and an occasional video. We never really stop history!

Edited April 14, 2017 by ScoutTN

[73349]

We did two chapters some weeks: 2 & 3 together, 31 & 32, 36 & 37, 38 & 39, and 40-42. That saved 6 weeks.

[sdobis]

I think I'll cut a few sections and try not to go overboard with activities. Now it's time to start culling everything that I want to do and pick the best.

[goldenecho]

I am just finishing Volume 1.  The first year, I aimed for a Chapter a week, but that didn't happen...only got to Mesopotamia, and took a break to do some Bible Study, then learned our co-op would be doing this the next year so decided to wait and do it with them then.

 

They did two chapters a week, with a "field trip" every 4 weeks (so three chapters, than a field trip of some sort), plus some breaks for holidays.  I really struggled with that...was always making up time that 4th week, but it did force me to be more diligent.  And by that time my son had sort of gotten where he wasn't as interested in crafty stuff, so that saved some time...we mostly only did activities at co-op, and when in February the class disbanded (various reasons), at home I didn't do crafts for most chapters.

 

Here's what I did do every week since then, which has worked for us....

In stead of working by chapters, I worked by subsections...I would try to do one subsection per day.  In Volume 2 there are 2-4 subsections in each chapter.  So if you aim for one sub-chapter a day, you will get 1-2 chapters done a week.

 

The week before I  look over the upcoming chapters for the following week, visit the library and get related books for the following week and use pictures from those along with the lessons.   If I can't get to the library, or can't find a good book, before the lesson I'll look up pictures online to use with it.  My son has liked videos too, so I will usually look up some short videos to use too (TedEd, Etra History, and Crash Crash course have great ones on a lot of the topics)...though not for every chapter.    Occasionally we'll do an activity from the activity book, or do something I saw on pinterest.

 

And yeah, I've cut out a few sections...in Volume 1 I cut out some of the myths when I was running short on time.  

Edited April 15, 2017 by goldenecho

[rebbyribs]

We didn't.  We ran over a bit into the next year and then just kept going with SOTW3.  We went through SOTW3 last year and into this fall.  At that point, we started in on the Beautiful Feet California History which is only supposed to take 1 semester.  Next fall we'll start on SOTW4.  I keep hearing that SOTW4 is best for slightly older kids, so I was in no rush to get to it this year with 2nd graders.  This way, we get to it when my big kids are in 6th and 3rd grades, and then the next year my little guys can join in on Ancient History.

[RootAnn]

Doing history 2-3 times per week always got us through SOTW 1 and 2. The sections were longer in 3 and 4, so I had to cut down on extras, run over on weeks, or do history 4 times per week. I did all but run extra weeks because we like to be done each year.

 

The older kids naturally pick up some of the extra reading. It is just harder to get through the later books with youngest. (My two youngest haven't done SOTW 4 for a variety of reasons, but will be ready for it when we swing back around in 3 more years.)

[goldenecho]

Thanks for the warning.  Good to know ahead of time!

 

 

Doing history 2-3 times per week always got us through SOTW 1 and 2. The sections were longer in 3 and 4, so I had to cut down on extras, run over on weeks, or do history 4 times per week. I did all but run extra weeks because we like to be done each year.

The older kids naturally pick up some of the extra reading. It is just harder to get through the later books with youngest. (My two youngest haven't done SOTW 4 for a variety of reasons, but will be ready for it when we swing back around in 3 more years.)

 

[blondeviolin]

We just do a chapter a week or MAYBE two if one chapter only has one section. And when we get to our "summer break" we just read it and talk with no narration and maybe map work if we got to it.

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

I get the CDs and we listen to it in the car on the way to karate. I've been trying to get through volumes 2-4 in two years and we can get through two chapters a week this way. We'll also listen to it throughout the summer. We listen to the chapters and narrate on Tuesday and then do maps, coloring pages, library books, and any projects on Thursday (I choose just a couple of those things each week, not all) Sometimes we do maps/library books/projects for both chapters, sometimes just one.

[Amy M]

We also did one subsection per day for three days per week, and activities on Friday. I added in maps, coloring pages, etc. when we were reading about them. You could consider cutting the stories/lit sections (like about Sinbad) and just having your child read their own literature in their reading time. I wouldn't be able to split history and science half and half. We've always needed a little more time for history. If you want 36 weeks for your school year, maybe more like two weeks for history, one for science would help get it all in. This year we are doing MFW RTR, and they squeeze SOTW 2 into 21 weeks with activities and supplemental readings scheduled. It's really tough. They cut lots of maps, some subsections, and some days and read up to 5 subsections. I can't imagine doing it in 18 weeks unless you cut a lot of activities and work requirements and only read a lot.

[ScoutTN]

We listen to the audiobooks too. Great review!