WTM History/Literature

[Holly]

If you are following WTM for history/geography/literature, would you mind sharing how you structure your week?  We've always gone with a more Charlotte Mason approach to history, and I'm trying to figure out how WTM's history methods could be carried out in the "real world".  

 

[2_girls_mommy]

This year my high schooler reads the History of the Medieval World and takes notes on it directly from the four questions from WTM rhetoric history chapter. She also reads from the WTM Great Books lists and does the history context page ala WTM using a history encyclopedia and the Timelines of World History book for each lit book that she reads. I have had her write one paper a semester on a history topic of her choice, and she did a history presentation at a co-op presentation night. She made a poster and had to practice public speaking (giving her a speech credit this year too ala WTM and the Workbook for Arguments book. All subjects overlap here. ) She also works through the Geography Coloring Book, though not as much this year as she has in the logic stage years. Around here we also do a Thinking Tree journals which have geography pages that we do occasionally. So she gets more there.  I have a British Literature, a Chronological Approach textbook that I have her read through sometimes instead of just books. For some books the selected chapters it has are enough for me. For other books, I am having her read the corresponding info in the textbook, but then read from the actual book, not just selected works.  And I am not just having her do British Lit. We do all kinds. I just got it used, and it is good for the historical info it gives on each author.  Mine is reading through Rod and Staff Grammar 9/10 which covers a bit of everything including some literary stuffs. Then we have the Well Educated Mind which she reads a bit from each year. We are working on having her take proper notes as she reads to write a response paper. She has to write something after each book ala WTM. But in reality this has happened about twice a semester. The rest she reads with no paper, but maybe some discussion (especailly from read alouds we do as a family or audio books.) 

My logic stager, uses the Kingfisher History encyclopedia. She reads a couple of page spreads a week, puts dates on her timeline, color coded ala WTM. She reads books using the old website, Classical House of Learning Literature's book list. It is a good list for middle grades, but she will move up to WTM Great Book lists next year for high school, and I also bought her an old PS lit book to work through some too. She is still only in R&S 6 this year and won't likely get to 9/10, so this book will cover some of the literary stuffs. We will ease into straight Great Books for her. I have her do one outline a month from the KHE. And she writes one paper a semester too. She is supposed to write a paper on every book she reads and add it to her notebook too, just something small. She did the presentation night too. She also has the Geography Coloring Book and a Thinking Tree Journal too. 

Both of mine have done a lot of hands on/artsy projects ala SOTW this year even for middle school and high school. We did some for art class at co-op, and I found lessons to go with hands on projects online that included challenges for thinking on their own and designing, not just researching. So those were fun. Many of the SOTW activities were actually really good for older kids, because they could really focus on them. Callligraphy for instance was a long process. We spent many weeks practicing it and then creating our own illuminated manuscript pages. That was a big project for us.  We keep large stacks of Dover Coloring Books on our theme around. We use them as references for some of our topics. Mine use them more for reading and copying out of for their own drawing, not so much as coloring books. The heraldry one, for instance, taught a lot about heraldry, and we used it do design our own coat of arms. But it was more than just a little kid project. We learned what a lot of actual symbols meant. When we built a giant castle out of giant cardboard boxes, we used our Castle Dover Book as a teaching guide to the architecture and defenses along with other library books. 

I don't know if next year we will do much hands on. We tend to do a "big" history year every couple of years. So we did a lot of projects this year. Our co-op theme was history this year, so lots of our classes and field trips were around the theme. 

We always do a lot of read alouds and audio books. And I still get great picture books on topics too.