SOTW and Logic Stage

[Guest]

How are those of you who are using this as a spine do it? I tried with vol 2 and the AG. it was a disaster.

[newlifemom]

Would you mind refreshing my memory and tell me what AG is? I am doing SOTW 1 and KF and History of Ancient World. I so far it is going ok. I have dd (5th grade) read SOTW chap on M and she either outlines one section of the chap or narrates. On F she either reads the KF section or AW section. She narrates that or outlines again. So far she is doing well. I think.:001_smile:

[Melissa in Australia]

It is working fine with us.

I presume AG is activity guide.

how we do it is I read SOTW to everyone. we then do the questions out of activity guide. we all go and do the outlining . I do it on the black board with the younger ones, and they copy it down. the older ones do the outlining by themselves. the next history day, I read out of at least 4 history encyclopedias, and the older ones write about the history, and the younger ones do a narration, and then copy it down themselves.

[Peela]

We loved it. We just carried on from the grammar stage to the logic stage and did the maps, narrations, and then we learned outlining using another book (our Australian history book, mostly). We didn't find SOTW good for outlining. Sometimes I would choose a research assignment or essay on one of the week's topics. We didnt read many other books from the library, however we did read a fair amount of historical fiction, and thats what gives joy to this family!

[Laura Corin]

Calvin is still working his way through SOTW. He reads it on his own, as well as reading from Kingfisher, Our Island Story, This Country of Ours and a middle school UK history book. I have most of the reading assignments laid out in a spreadsheet. This is an example. I often assign some historical fiction too, then he'll have a writing assignment. There are some examples of writing topics here.

 

Best wishes

 

Laura

[RhondaM.]

Calvin is still working his way through SOTW. He reads it on his own, as well as reading from Kingfisher, Our Island Story, This Country of Ours and a middle school UK history book. I have most of the reading assignments laid out in a spreadsheet. This is an example. I often assign some historical fiction too, then he'll have a writing assignment. There are some examples of writing topics here.

 

Best wishes

 

Laura

 

Laura,

Where did you get those writing topics? Are there more of them somewhere?

 

Thanks,

[Lori D.]

If you can pinpoint why it didn't work, that will help you plan for history for the next time around.

 

We didn't use SOTW in elementary/middle school, as the volumes came out just a little too late for us. We used factual non-fiction library books and historical fiction to cover history here up through 8th grade. Not the case with us, BUT... some students either don't care much for history or prefer textbooks to "story" presentation to history, so perhaps a textbook or a more factual presentation might be a better fit for your students. I can add that the SOTW activity guide would never have worked here; our 2 boys don't care for crafts/activities. And the tone of vol. 1 would have been way too young for them in middle school. (I haven't looked at vol. 2 or 3.)

 

 

That said, we actually have used some of SOTW vol. 4 this year while covering 20th century history (we have 9th and 10th grade boys), as it makes a clear and simple "intro" into the various events/people of the 20th century, and then we go on and use the high school textbook for more depth/analysis.

 

We never really did narrations; while I see the benefits, it just came across as "busywork" to our boys, so I had them write 1-3 paragraph research papers on various history topics throughout the year. This year, we're also implementing an idea from another lady on this board: once every 3 weeks they have to hand in a page with 20 brief "timeline entries", with each entry containing: date, country/continent, and a one-line sentence about the major historical event/person. Also, the 20 entries must be in a variety of areas (invention, disaster, birth/death of famous person, political event, music/lit./art movement or event, science or medical discovery, explorer, sports event, etc.). This has been really effective in helping them analyze what were key event -- and to see what the overall "climate" of the times were -- the social, political, economic, technological, and arts movements/worldviews and how those were all interconnected and either came from what happened before or led to what happened later.

 

They also turn in a "decade report" once every 3 weeks -- a paper they've researched on some person or event from the decade we were covering.

 

 

BEST of luck in finding what works for your family! Warmly, Lori D.

Edited November 8, 2008 by Lori D.
added info

[mcconnellboys]

Well, I'm not sure what the problem was unless you elaborate a little more, so I'm not exactly sure what sort of help to offer.

 

I am using SOTW I along with ancients study this year, but I'm not using it alone.

 

I open our history study for the week reading from Kingfisher and other history encyclopedias and compilations.

 

My son reads any chapters from SOTW that relate and I have him outline from one of those.

 

As the week progresses, I read more from library books; he may read library books as well - it just depends on what I've pulled, how much time we have, what else he's reading, etc.

 

Our literature is tied in and I read about the mythology of that culture from books at home and add in myths and folklore from books I have at home or library books. He nearly always reads some of these on his own, as well.

 

By the end of the week I try to have him study for and take the SOTW test over the chapter(s) he's read; try to do any associated mapwork and any other art work or word puzzles, etc. from the AG (I don't *do* projects, LOL, and never did); have him do at least one paper, either on some aspect of the history, or on one of the myths he's read; and work on our timeline, although we generally end up lumping several weeks together in doing this (and so it serves as a review).

 

It's working out very well for us.

 

Now, I did change the order of study around some for this year. I thought all the jumping back and forth to and from Mesopotamia in the first half of the book was very chaotic and confusing for a first grader. I know that's the only way to stay in chronological order, but I was willing to sacrifice that a little in order to achieve some continuity in our cultural studies. I think it's been a little easier to perceive the history of a particular people by focusing on them a little more in-depth. And the timeline helps to compare/contrast what was occurring cross-culturally when we fill it in.

[Rhondabee]

I was going to post, then I saw the "Related Threads" box down at the bottom of the page. I think more details than you could possibly want are in those threads. There are so many ways to use SOTW. None of them are wrong.

 

One aside comment: you may find that you have to use SOTW differently, or even at different times, for your two oldest. If I remember right they are 6th and 4th? That doesn't seem like a huge spread age-wise. But if your oldest has hit puberty, and is beginning to think more abstractly, while your youngest is still thinking concretely, then you may find that what interests one simply doesn't interest the other. It's not you, or the subject matter necessarily, just the older one may find the activities in the AG baby-ish, while the younger one isn't really ready for analysis & discussion of why things happened (reading between the lines) or extended writing. Make sense?

 

hth,

Rhonda

[Beth in SW WA]

How are those of you who are using this as a spine do it? I tried with vol 2 and the AG. it was a disaster.

 

This is my plan for logic stage & SOTW this year. It is going very well.

 

SOTW 2, 3, 4

KF readings

OIS selective readings

Famous Men of Middle Ages selective readings

Netflix docs & historical fiction & a bit of period twaddle

TWTM logic stage history reading lists from Middle Ages, Ren, Modern

The Teaching Company World History lectures

 

In the spring/summer, they will read History of Us by Hakim.

 

We're buzzing through these eras quickly and will start the cycle over in Ancients next year for 9th.

[mamaof2andtwins]

My olest dd is in 7th grade. We didn't finish our first cycle of SOTW until last year, so this is the first year that I have actually implemented any of the logic stage strategies.

 

I am having her outline the corresponding section in the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia. We are working on getting our time line up and running.

 

That is as far as we have gotten this year. We had tried to start the year with Mystery of History, but I just couldn't get into it. So, we changed back to SOTW. We still use the maps and sometimes the coloring pages.

[Laura Corin]

Laura,

Where did you get those writing topics? Are there more of them somewhere?

 

Thanks,

 

I thought of a few kinds of writing assignment (essay, imaginative piece, retelling.....) and just put together some ideas to go with the different SOTW chapters. I'll be working on some for SOTW 4 soon (well, maybe after Christmas) if they would be useful. I'll put them on my blog when they are done (see siggy for address). There won't be any for SOTW 1 and 2, because my boys are in Grammar stage at that point.

 

Laura