Scheduling SOTW

[LauraBeth475]

If you use SOTW as your spine, do you do an entire chapter in one session, or do you do just a section at a time? I'm trying to figure out how to schedule in all the additional reading and projects. This would be for third and fourth grades.

[Erica in OR]

We usually split up a chapter into two days, listening to a section (or more, if there were more than two sections) on audiobook, then asking review questions and making a timeline square that related to the section to hang up. We did mapwork on the day we finished the chapter. We typically did projects on Fridays as a third day, for something fun but still related to schoolwork. If there weren't any projects we were interested in that chapter, we skipped that day. I tried to get some of the recommended books out of the library early in the week and made them available, or did one as a readaloud.

 

Erica in OR

[KrissiK]

I have always read a section at a time, did the questions and a narration. Then, after a chapter is done, I'll do the extra reading in the Usborne book, map work and the coloring page. And then take another day if there's anything extra we really want to do. It does take forever to get through it, but I just don't have a lot of time to spend. We eventually finish it.

[nixpix5]

We use the biblioplan schedule (sometimes loosely) and it is often scheduled as a section. We would normally read a section, do a narration exercise or do the questions and at the end of the chapter do map work/coloring pages. Sometimes the chapter is so exciting my kids would beg to hear more so we would do the whole chapter. I would often get a book or two from the library to support the section as a read-aloud or I would schedule a chapter book to read over the course of a couple weeks. It has been my kids favorite time.

[fralala]

Depends on whether I let the kids wheedle me into reading more. But I do like to at least have a pause between sections for a little discussion or to look at the maps before moving on.

[Noreen Claire]

I followed the scheduling this year (2nd grade) from Classical House of Learning.

 

Here's her 34wk schedule for 3rd grade: https://classicalhouseoflearning.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/tentative-book-list-for-early-modern-times/

 

We usually read one section per day from the SOTW. I chose two fiction and two literature books for each chapter of SOTW (from the list in the activity book) and schedule those in during the week. (We haven't done the activities from the activity book, just the questions, coloring pages, and the map work.)

Edited May 9, 2017 by Noreen Claire

[73349]

A section a day. And then when I run out of sections for the week (or sometimes even if we don't), we do supplementary stuff and/or a second chapter.

 

So for example, this week we're doing SOTW 3 Chapters 34 (Freedom for South America) and 35 (Mexican Independence) plus I read aloud most of "This Our Dark Country" (a library book on the founding of Liberia by Americans).

 

We don't do the activity guide, but use a wall timeline, other books as supplements and the occasional video or field trip.

Edited May 9, 2017 by whitehawk

[Miss Tick]

We do a section a day (3x a week) answer the questions and do an oral narration. For the last section of the chapter we also do the map the map-work. After every third chapter we also put together the lapbook pieces for the last the chapters. After every fifth chapter we spend a session putting cards on the timeline and reviewing.

 

Many years ago I counted and added and divided and this all came out to 36 or so weeks.

[Sneezyone]

We also do one section/day, four-five days a week. We read, narrate, answer the test questions aloud and whip out our globe as needed for map work. It usually works out to 2 chapters/week but slow up if I add nonfiction and fiction to match. We usually take 10 months to finish w/36 weeks of instruction and 4-6 weeks of vacation.

[goldenecho]

When we first started (age 7) we didn't even do a full sub-section in one day.  I would usually split each subsection in two parts and do that.   That is very slow going, but I have a child with a short attention span.

 

It goes better now, as his attention span grows.  We do one sub-section each day 3-4 days a week but we don't have to break it up anymore.  We will sometimes do supplementary reading or related videos the same day sometimes BUT I break it up (reading, then activity or lunch or snack or break, then the supplementary reading).  We don't do supplementary reading with every section but I do get library books to look at pictures related to the sections (or look at related pictures online).  It would still be hard to do a whole chapter in a day though, especially ones with 3-4 subsections.

 

 

Edited May 10, 2017 by goldenecho

[LauraBeth475]

Thanks everyone!