Creating/pulling together your own year-long study?

[PentecostalMom]

I have been using Sonlight for a long time.  Let me rephrase that.  A looooonnnnnnggggg time.  I am tired.  I want literature, yes, but I want notebooking, and books that I can choose.  I have a rather wide variety this year that I have to somehow cram together, and the SL books are just too much emotionally for one of them.  So, I am thinking of creating my own.

 

Has anyone done this?  Tips, resources, ideas?  I have been looking at Pinterest (timesucker) and searching online.  Just thought I'd ask here.  We would like to study American History, I am open to a two-year study, with a rather rich geography component.  I would love to use mostly ebooks for the literature, which I can get on the Kindle, iPad, or as free downloads through my library.

 

So.....help me??  A place to begin?  I feel like I need a framework.

[Ellie]

What about Ambleside Online?

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Although it's aimed at older kids, you could probably get quite a bit of wisdom from Homeschooling at the Helm.  It's by 6FillintheHeart (hopefully I spelled that right!) who also wrote Treasured Conversations, which might also be up your alley.  

[2_girls_mommy]

The Well Trained Mind in its reading sections will walk you through how to read and what to do as far as discussion and output. I don't even preplan a whole year mostly. I have a general idea and set a rough guideline for each year and have lots of resources of what I want to read and cover as we begin, but the year morphs as we go. We have always done it this way. Sometimes I pick up a lit guide from MP and we go in depth of one book or play a year. I have used the blog, Classical House of Learning Literature as a guideline and their free worksheet pages, but I don't follow anything completely. It all works out.

[Vintage81]

You could check out Build Your Library.

 

It is a literature based program also. I believe US History is studied in 5th and 6th grade. In each grade level, there is a link to the BYL Amazon Bookstore, so you can get ideas for books there. 

[TKDmom]

I like the looks of Build Your Library. I have a friend who did Y7 this year, and has been very happy. She made her own SL grids to go with it. 

 

Also, The Reader's Odyssey has good suggestions for creating your own program.

Edited April 19, 2017 by TKDmom

[SilverMoon]

I'll second Homeschooling at the Helm if you're really interested in drawing one up on your own. It's fabulous.

 

But it sounds like you want an actual program with more notebooking. Build Your Library could be what you're looking for. I've used grade 8 history of science from BYL. BYL has more nose in a book. Both chose great books and were well put together. I'm absolutely hanging onto them to use with younger siblings. I think for American they both have a two year program.

Edited July 12, 2022 by SilverMoon

[PentecostalMom]

I'll second Homeschooling at the Helm if you're really interested in drawing one up on your own. It's fabulous.

 

But it sounds like you want an actual program with more notebooking. Build Your Library or Winter Promise could be what you're looking for. I've used Adventures from WP and grade 8 history of science from BYL. WP has more notebooking and fun pages. BYL has more nose in a book. Both chose great books and were well put together. I'm absolutely hanging onto them to use with younger siblings. I think for American they both have a two year program.

 

I really want to create my own.  I have looked at in depth: Winter Promise, Beautiful Feet, My Father's World, Heart of Dakota, and of course Sonlight.  Probably also some others I cannot think of right now.  I need to use mostly ebooks if possible, supplementing with the library.  I have scads of books in storage (helping care for a dying parent and need to keep it simple and portable).

 

I am trying to combine a K, 2nd, 6th.  My intent is to do some group reading aloud with narration, etc., then add on more for the 6th grade in the form of independent reading and supplemental written narration.  This is for a season, we need to get through the next several months.  I have access to download from the library, and I have looked into both Ambleside Online and Easy Peasy. I would love to add in some age-appropriate geography.  Whew, it sounds overwhelming right now!

 

I am probably going to buy Homeschooling at the Helm and hopefully that will help me lay a framework.  I have already gone onto the library website and made a list of ebooks and tangible books that I can work into the plan.  EP has several ebook resources that I can use.  I have looked at AO, and they use several of the same resources as EP, and I find the EP website simpler to navigate.

 

I am excited about putting this together for the first time.  I just need a little hand-holding!  Thanks so much!

[coastalfam]

I totally get Sonlight's books being emotional. We did Sonlight one year, but as I looked ahead at the lists, and looked behind at little brother coming into Kindergarten (and he is SO sensitive), it was definitely one reason we went a different direction. I used Wayfarers curriculum planner (by Barefoot Ragamuffin Curricula) this year, and I felt between Story of the World, and Quark Chronicles (also by Barefoot Ragamuffin folks) and the accompanying activity guides of those two programs, that I could definitely come up with my own plan, with a more censored list of read alouds, for next year. I'm pretty excited, actually.  I'm feeling really passionate about all the literature I've picked out. :)

[HomeAgain]

We made our own study this year. I took history and divided it into seven major units: pre-history, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, China, India, Rome. I used post its to label the units in a nine-cube cabinet: all year resources, followed by the seven units, and the last for review. Then I started chucking materials in each. I used a spreadsheet/table to catalogue everything to include library books and made headings across the top for the different subjects. For example, during Greece we also did the human body for science, pottery and drawing lessons in Artistic Pursuits for art, mini Olympics for p.e. and had two readers going. Copy work was taken from myths and we had a book basket for all the extras.

 

I'm considering doing it again for vol 2 of SOTW. I liked that our resources were gathered before the start of the year and I could look ahead to the next unit easily. But because I didn't create a strict daily lesson plan we did tend to spend more time on units he loved and less on ones he didn't like as much.

[sjrbmom]

 

 

I really want to create my own. I have looked at in depth: Winter Promise, Beautiful Feet, My Father's World, Heart of Dakota, and of course Sonlight. Probably also some others I cannot think of right now. I need to use mostly ebooks if possible, supplementing with the library. I have scads of books in storage (helping care for a dying parent and need to keep it simple and portable).

 

I am trying to combine a K, 2nd, 6th. My intent is to do some group reading aloud with narration, etc., then add on more for the 6th grade in the form of independent reading and supplemental written narration. This is for a season, we need to get through the next several months. I have access to download from the library, and I have looked into both Ambleside Online and Easy Peasy. I would love to add in some age-appropriate geography. Whew, it sounds overwhelming right now!

 

I am probably going to buy Homeschooling at the Helm and hopefully that will help me lay a framework. I have already gone onto the library website and made a list of ebooks and tangible books that I can work into the plan. EP has several ebook resources that I can use. I have looked at AO, and they use several of the same resources as EP, and I find the EP website simpler to navigate.

 

I am excited about putting this together for the first time. I just need a little hand-holding! Thanks so much!

Fwiw, you may like Wayfarers from Barefoot Ragamuffin. It gives you a structure and booklists but is relatively easy to simplify and customize. It is heavy on narration and does have Geography planned in as well (we haven't done it this year - it was our first year homeschooling - but want to next year).

 

Sent from my Nexus 9 using Tapatalk

[sjrbmom]

 

 

I totally get Sonlight's books being emotional. We did Sonlight one year, but as I looked ahead at the lists, and looked behind at little brother coming into Kindergarten (and he is SO sensitive), it was definitely one reason we went a different direction. I used Wayfarers curriculum planner (by Barefoot Ragamuffin Curricula) this year, and I felt between Story of the World, and Quark Chronicles (also by Barefoot Ragamuffin folks) and the accompanying activity guides of those two programs, that I could definitely come up with my own plan, with a more censored list of read alouds, for next year. I'm pretty excited, actually. I'm feeling really passionate about all the literature I've picked out. :)

Oops didn't see your mention of Wayfarers, coastalfam :) - my son loves the readalouds but we only do the ELTL ones. I would love to hear what ones you have picked out!

 

Sent from my Nexus 9 using Tapatalk

[SebastianCat]

Another place to look is Guest Hollow's American History curriculum.   Much of what she uses was readily accessible at our library, and the reading level was lower and less intense than Sonlight.

 

I put together a year-long study of FL state history.   I found a spine, found a publisher that specializes in books about or set in Florida, added other well-known historical fiction about Florida, and googled things like "Florida history reading list" or "Florida 4th grade social studies."    It was a lot of work, but my kids' favorite year of school.    We are long-time Sonlight users but they enjoyed the break.

[PentecostalMom]

Another place to look is Guest Hollow's American History curriculum.   Much of what she uses was readily accessible at our library, and the reading level was lower and less intense than Sonlight.

 

I put together a year-long study of FL state history.   I found a spine, found a publisher that specializes in books about or set in Florida, added other well-known historical fiction about Florida, and googled things like "Florida history reading list" or "Florida 4th grade social studies."    It was a lot of work, but my kids' favorite year of school.    We are long-time Sonlight users but they enjoyed the break.

 

I'm from Florida, want to share?  I did look at Guest Hollow, cannot recall at the moment why I rejected it.  Possibly because I need picture/early readers and it was a higher level?  I'm not certain but I will take a look again.  Thank you!

[Chelli]

So if I was designing a study of American history for those ages, I would start with a spine. It could possibly be something I read to the kids or it could just be a reference for me to know what topics to cover in which order. If you want two years of American history, right before or right after the Civil War is the general halfway point. A nice spine book that you could purchase in a digital format would be Stories of America by Simply Charlotte Mason.

 

Once you have your spines in hand, then you can figure out pacing. For example, in the first volume of Stories of America, there are 29 chapters. However, when scanning the Table of Contents I notice that Native Americans only get one chapter and the book jumps from War of 1812 straight to the Alamo. With that in mind I would probably add in at least an extra week or two on Native Americans and some other topics that are skipped.

 

Now that you know what topics you are covering, you begin to find books for each child at their level. You K and 2nd grader could easily overlap a lot of books. I would look at Beautiful Feet Early American primary for some great suggestions at those ages. For your 6th grader, you could do an internet search for American history book lists for that age and also search the forums here.

 

At this point I like to make a spreadsheet or a table and put the topic/chapter of the spine in one column, then supplementary reading for each age in another column, and finally any supplementary documentaries, videos (Liberty's Kids would be great for the Revolutionary time period), field trips, etc. in the last column. Print it out and you've got your subject pretty much planned for the year.

[ktgrok]

 

At this point I like to make a spreadsheet or a table and put the topic/chapter of the spine in one column, then supplementary reading for each age in another column, and finally any supplementary documentaries, videos (Liberty's Kids would be great for the Revolutionary time period), field trips, etc. in the last column. Print it out and you've got your subject pretty much planned for the year.

ell

 

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