American History year: feedback, and anyone used "A Little History of the United States" for this?

[serendipitous journey]

We have been using Memoria Press' middle school American History with my 7th grader: it uses Guerber's American History book and a student workbook/manual, and I would like to try moving us to a more WTM-style history.  This child can do 2-level outlines and has experience writing WTM-style summaries, though those skills are a few months worth of rusty. 

 

I have Davidson's A Little History of the US and my child much prefers it to the Guerber.  Other resources I have available include the DK's
"Children's Encyclopedia of American History", Critical Thinking Company's US History Detective 1, and MapTrek US edition. 

 

I'm a little intimidated about WTM history b/c that has never worked out well with this child, who can be hard to teach and tends to skim his readings.  He has developed a pretty good attitude, though, which encourages me.  He will be motivated to do something other than the MP history ;)  and one thing we've learned with MP is to do paired reading for things he skims, which forces him to slow down and lets me help when he doesn't understand something. 

 

Here are my questions/concerns: 

 

1.  So, I'm wondering if anyone has done a 1-year history with this as a spine?  It is one of the WTM 4th ed. history options for seventh.  I think that the history spine + Critical Thinking US history + Children's Encyclopedia + MapTrek would be a bit of overkill.  Any suggestions for which of these resources are most complementary?  

 

2.  This still leaves us without much in the way of original documents.  I do not have mental space/resources to piece something together; I can just go from the documents listed in WTM?  is there a good resource for this?  How critical is it?

 

3.  History/literature component: I can continue on with our MP literature, or try for the WTM way.  The advantage of MP is that the guides give me a feel for whether or not the child has read carefully/has good comprehension.  The disadvantage is that he hates it.  If we go the WTM route, I thought I could pull books American History books from the Early Modern and Modern lists.  The other option would be trying to build a literature year that really grows his enthusiasm for "literature".  Thoughts? 

 

thank you for thoughts. 

 

(RE literature, I had thought to design a fuller literature curriculum this year, but that fizzled with our puppy being rather labor-intensive)

 

ETA: I thought I'd posted this on the logic board!  so: I'm cross-posting there, too. 

Edited October 29, 2017 by serendipitous journey

[homemommy83]

We have been using Memoria Press' middle school American History with my 7th grader: it uses Guerber's American History book and a student workbook/manual, and I would like to try moving us to a more WTM-style history.  This child can do 2-level outlines and has experience writing WTM-style summaries, though those skills are a few months worth of rusty. 

 

I have Davidson's A Little History of the US and my child much prefers it to the Guerber.  Other resources I have available include the DK's

"Children's Encyclopedia of American History", Critical Thinking Company's US History Detective 1, and MapTrek US edition. 

 

I'm a little intimidated about WTM history b/c that has never worked out well with this child, who can be hard to teach and tends to skim his readings.  He has developed a pretty good attitude, though, which encourages me.  He will be motivated to do something other than the MP history ;)  and one thing we've learned with MP is to do paired reading for things he skims, which forces him to slow down and lets me help when he doesn't understand something. 

I have never followed TWTM for history, so my opinion may or may not apply, but below is my idess-lol.

 

Here are my questions/concerns: 

 

1.  So, I'm wondering if anyone has done a 1-year history with this as a spine?  It is one of the WTM 4th ed. history options for seventh.  I think that the history spine + Critical Thinking US history + Children's Encyclopedia + MapTrek would be a bit of overkill.  Any suggestions for which of these resources are most complementary?  

 

I have not used that particular spine, but everything from the Critical Thinking Company is a win at our house.​

 

2.  This still leaves us without much in the way of original documents.  I do not have mental space/resources to piece something together; I can just go from the documents listed in WTM?  is there a good resource for this?  How critical is it?

 

Notgrass has a very nice compilation of speeches, documents, and various literature to go with upper level literature.  There is We the People with the lower level as well which my children love.​

 

3.  History/literature component: I can continue on with our MP literature, or try for the WTM way.  The advantage of MP is that the guides give me a feel for whether or not the child has read carefully/has good comprehension.  The disadvantage is that he hates it.  If we go the WTM route, I thought I could pull books American History books from the Early Modern and Modern lists.  The other option would be trying to build a literature year that really grows his enthusiasm for "literature".  Thoughts? 

 

You could go with an easy to implement reading program like CLE which is easily done in 5 months per level, and allow the book choices to simply be enjoyed with a simple book report.  You can also just pick one book a semester to go indepth with each semester while encouraging silent reading for a certain period of time daily.  We have alternated with the above type of  reading program until High School and it has worked well.  We are doing TGatB this year and it does both types of lessons that I did with alternating myself, yet integrated; so we are definite fans.

 

thank you for thoughts. 

 

You are very welcome:)

 

(RE literature, I had thought to design a fuller literature curriculum this year, but that fizzled with our puppy being rather labor-intensive)

 

ETA: I thought I'd posted this on the logic board!  so: I'm cross-posting there, too. 

I â€‹

I hope that you have a great year!

 

Brenda