How much time do you spend on...

[wehave8]

... History for 7th-8th grade?

 

 

*You (preparing &/or teaching)...

In a day?

In a week?

 

 

*Your child?

In a day?

In a week?

 

 

Pam

[Momto6inIN]

We do a short lesson as a group in 5th and 6th, but by 7th and 8th they are reading independently and doing their own assignments (usually a weekly summary). They also do a little bit of geography or civics daily. Probably an hour total each day 4x/week.

 

For me, prep/planning is all done before the school year starts. I do discuss with them during random times throughout the week as stuff comes up, but that's not scheduled at all. A few minutes weekly to read and grade their summaries and assignments.

 

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[happypamama]

My seventh grader spends 45 minutes to an hour a day on history, pretty much every day.

 

I spend almost no time on his history. I look over anything he’s written, and that’s about it. He’s a very independent worker and likes history a lot.

[2_girls_mommy]

I love history, so I spend a lot of time on read alouds with them. I am also teaching a co-op history class this year, so I spend time reading my chapters and lesson planning for that. It is mostly project based, which is nice, so they get that in there. I am using SOTW2 as the base for that. I read a couple of chapters a week on my own to prepare for that. I choose a ton of library books and look through those on my own. And I read a ton aloud to the kids during the week. They'll be working on their projects as I read or on art. On their own, they each have a spine at their appropriate levels to work through when I am not doing a specific read aloud or project with them. We probably spend on average about an hour a day if not more on history. This week instead of working from their spines, is the week they each have a monthly writing assignment. They pick a topic from something we have read about currently, and dig deeper. So this week they are spending a lot of time in research and preparation of that plus finishing up a couple of their bigger projects for the semester, so even more history than usual.  We encompass their writing, art, and a chunk of reading and lit wrapped around history, so it is hard to separate it out. 

 

We also do two strands of history simultaneously much of the year. We are in our current year of history for our WTM chronological history, plus we review Roman history for the NLEs ongoing with Latin. 

[2_girls_mommy]

Today: Read Themistocles from Plutarch's Lives and researched more on the battle of Marathon and the Pelopennesian wars online so far- Classical Strand that we do year round to keep fresh for latin exams. 

 

Lit: one is reading from King Arthur right now. One is answering questions for me from Beowulf. Both have had to write history papers on these to talk about when they were written and why they were significant. 

 

History/writing. One has an outline ready to write a paper on female ninjas in Medieval Japan today. One has her notes ready to start her outline and hopefully start her paper on Eastern Religions in the Middle Ages. 

 

Art: they are preparing a poster presentation board on their topic which is due by the end of the week when they will present it at co-op. And both just completed a page of an illuminated manuscript after learning about how they were made back then (and going to an art exhibit last year to see many in person knowing this was coming up this year...) This involved many books on how books were made, art books of examples, learning to write calligraphy (trying it out anyway,) and an art lesson on motifs, using carbon paper to create a border, colored pencil work, work with gold leaf, and so forth. 

 

I think we do a lot of history some days. :)

Edited November 15, 2017 by 2_girls_mommy

[hollyhock]

I don't have my kids do history independently until high school. So my 7th and 8th graders listen to me read the lesson with the group 3x a week. On the third day, we also add things to our timeline and sometimes make a map. Each day's worth is probably about half an hour, but if we do timeline and map after the lesson, it might be closer to 45 minutes. If they decide to write a narration or an outline from history (they get to choose which subject they write about), that is done on their own time and would be an additional 20-30 minutes.

 

I do all my prep in summer so that I have a nice schedule to follow during the year, and don't have to do any prep from week to week, except for printing maps. Our text has a timeline at the beginning of each chapter so we just follow that, and I don't have to do any prep work for the timeline either.

[deerforest]

History is a critical content focus for us, and I accidentally created a high-school level history class for my 8th grader this year, but it's appropriate for her level of understanding and capability. I use a variety of sources, but the ultimate class design is completely my own.

 

I spent a lot of time over the summer doing initial prep for 36-40 weeks of work--first time I did it like this. Then, I spend at least 2-3 hours a week doing additional prep. She spends at least 5 hours on it independently, and we spend about another 3-5 hours together discussing, watching documentaries, deep analysis, comparison to current events, etc. 

 

This year we are focusing on contemporary US history (1950s-present) and spending about 6 weeks per decade. We both absolutely love it!

Edited November 15, 2017 by deerforest

[MinivanMom]

My current 7th grader spends about 30 min per day on just history. He reads history chapters, outlines chapters, and adds events to his timeline. I also assign him literature that dovetails with his history readings (currently reading Anne Frank while studying WWII), so that's probably another 30 min per day. He also watches movies and documentaries that go along with his history - maybe 1-2 per month.

 

The only thing I do is look over his outlines, discuss what he's read in his history book, and discuss his literature books with him. I spend maybe 30-40 min per week, but it's usually spread through the week in 10-15 min increments. At the end of each section in his history book, he takes a week off from his regular work to read primary source documents. During those weeks, I spend a lot more time reading and discussing with him.

 

I have read his history book before, but it's been a few years. I read it the summer before his older sister started 7th grade and chose literature & movies to go along with the readings. I know I looked through the textbook again last summer, but I haven't done any preparation other than that. I'm familiar with the topics already, and I've read all of his literature books multiple times.

[mytwomonkeys]

I’m only homeschooling my son in 8th grade. He does everything independently. For history, we use books, videos, online resources & then once a week he writes a summary of what he’s learning. I read it. That’s it.

 

He does history 4x week & Id say he spends 30-45 minutes a day on it.

 

ETA- I spent time putting his assignments together before school started, so I really spend very little time each week doing anything for history now. Maybe 10 minutes a week, plus any trips going to the library.

Edited November 15, 2017 by mytwomonkeys

[Lori D.]

Similar to Hollyhock, and the summer research of Deerforest:

 

My time:

1. in the previous summer = 25-40 hours (plan topics, and research and schedule topics resources for the school year)

2. daily = approx. 45 min./day, 3x/week  (we did a large amount of our History aloud/together)

3. weekly = 10 minutes, 1x/week (Sunday evening prep for the next week)

(jot down titles and pages we'll cover, check if I need to place any new library resources on hold, and check if we have all the supplies for any hands-on project)

 

So, weekly for me, about 2.5 hours.

 

Student time:

1. in a day (3 days/week) = about 1 hour (approx. 45 min. together time + 15 min. of solo reading/writing)

2. in a week = about 3 hours/week (we mostly alternated History & Science, and did both on Fridays, so each = 3x/week)

 

So, weekly for DSs, about 3 hours.

 

Not counted into that time above: about once a month, we added an additional supplement of a documentary or feature film set in the time period.

Edited November 15, 2017 by Lori D.

[ScoutTN]

I do all my prep in the summer. During the school year, I order library books, discuss lessons and go over any writing assignments weekly. 1-2 hrs.

 

Dd spends about 45 minutes 5x a week on history. Some is reading a spine, some is reading accompanying literature, and some is discssion with me.