need advice with history scheduling (x posted)

[blue daisy]

I need some help figuring this out...  We are entering our third year of homeschooling and my oldest, who will be an 8th grader, has not really had any American history (not covered much in PS, then we did a year of ancients and a year of middle ages.)  So my plan was to go through it in 8th grade, then again in greater depth in high school. But I'm having a hard time fitting everything I want in a reasonable amount of work/reading for one year.  (We're using Hakim's concise A History of US and I'm adding documentaries, novels, map work, etc.)  So, do I cut back a bit this year, knowing we'll hit it all again in a few years and expect him to have a deeper understanding the second time around? Or do I do half this year and half in 9th?  And possibly not do US history again?  Also, how would I mark the 9th grade course on a transcript since it would cover the second half of US history?

 

I'm probably over thinking this, but I appreciate any advice.

*** I think this might be my first post on the high school board.  Eek!  Can't believe we're a year away from HS!

[Kassia]

Our ps does early American history in 8th grade and then modern American history in 10th.  I think I like that better than doing all of it twice, which is what we did.  

ETA - the transcript would just say Modern American History or even just American History and you could be more specific in your course description?  

 

 

[BakersDozen]

1 minute ago, Kassia said:

Our ps does early American history in 8th grade and then modern American history in 10th.  I think I like that better than doing all of it twice, which is what we did.  

 

 

I think I'm going to try this for our coming year. I've always covered U.S. History in both middle and high school and found that my high schoolers were bored to tears with U.S. History 1. So this coming year (8th) I'll tackle 1 and take our time covering everything without rushing then finish with 2 in high school. Plus the literature for U.S. 2 I much prefer for older kids/grades. I like the idea of putting World History in-between U.S.1 and U.S.2...kind of a way to refocus on a global level.

[blue daisy]

UPDATE

Well, one of the benefits of homeschooling is that kids can take an active role in making choices about their education. So I asked my son which path he'd prefer and he wants to take two years and go more in depth.  So I guess that's what we will do. ?  Our state requires one year of American History in high school, so his 9th grade year will be modern American history.  If he wants to learn about a specific time period more in depth later on, he can still do that.

 

Thanks for the replies!