Bookshark/Sonlight History Questions

[displace]

I have quite a few questions about Bookshark/Sonlight as a history curriculum.  DS is in 5th grade and enjoys history and knows quite a bit.  We used Acellus for 4th grade, which is a video lecture course that covers typical fourth grade topics about American History.  The fifth grade Acellus is a mix of American History from early colonization to modern wars.  I have been using Acellus because I needed a hands off curriculum, which I can likely amend to more hands on as of now.

DS would prefer a literature based curriculum, and I pull from Book Shark frequently for audiobooks and I'm considering using it for DS.  We're off schedule and will be starting fifth grade social studies in the next few weeks.

My questions: 1) can we do just the history part of the Book Shark curriculum in 30 min per day, if we're doing 5 days per week?  We will need to read aloud everything so the reading portion will take us longer than other students reading silently to themselves.

2) If we decided to do the second half of American History with Book Shark (level 4), would that be easy to understand since we didn't do level 3?

3) Is the curriculum set up such as: read X pages and then answer questions, or is it questions peppered throughout the readings (read a few paragraphs, stop and answer questions, continue)?

4) Are books read all the way through before the next book or are you reading multiple books at once?  If they are read concurrently, would it be easy to read one at a time and then move on to a different book?

5) Do students learn typical facts through this program?  Since I use the Book shark lists for some audiobooks, I feel some of the books are great, but we don't discuss them much, and I'm not certain how I feel about learning all of history for the year just with literature.  This is my main concern (after level to choose), is a lot of the stories will not leave a factual impression but at best only a general understanding of only some topics.

6) Some of the books seem difficult to understand, even at grade level.  DS is bright but he has dyslexia so his reading level is about fifth grade.  

7) Do you supplement with documentaries or anything else?

Even if you don't have exact answers, any general thoughts about the history curriculum (good or bad) would be appreciated as I try to decide if we'll switch or not.  

[ghcostafamily]

Is go straight to sonlight or bookshark. They are helpful when picking levels of their curriculum 

[Lori D.]

DS#2 has stealth dyslexia, so we did a *lot* of the reading as "buddy reading" ("you read a page, I read a page"), which helped with comprehension. Neither DS ever had troubles in understanding content of books that I read aloud to them that were written above their reading level, but they did find some books were more subtle or mature in content and so not as engaging to them in the elementary grades.

We used a lot of the books in the Book Shark list with DSs back in elementary grades, but I never used Book Shark (or the original Sonlight that Book Shark spun out from) "as written", but always "made our own" with our own spines, supplements, documentaries, etc. Frankly, I never cracked into the teacher guide or schedule for the History, and mostly used the Sonlight cores for gr. 1-6 for the booklist ideas, plus I used some of the dictation ideas in the LA portion of the program. So I can't help with your questions #2-4.
 

8 hours ago, displace said:

...DS is in 5th grade and enjoys history and knows quite a bit.  We used Acellus for 4th grade, which is a video lecture course that covers typical fourth grade topics about American History.  The fifth grade Acellus is a mix of American History from early colonization to modern wars.  I have been using Acellus because I needed a hands off curriculum, which I can likely amend to more hands on as of now.

If Acellus + Book Shark books is working for your History lover, I don't think I'd change that, other than to add in some fun hands-on things if you now have time for it AND if you both would enjoy that. But I tend to be of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mindset, lol.
 

8 hours ago, displace said:

1) can we do just the history part of the Book Shark curriculum in 30 min per day, if we're doing 5 days per week?  We will need to read aloud everything so the reading portion will take us longer than other students reading silently to themselves.

That's easy:  just do as many or as few of the books as fits your schedule. ?
 

8 hours ago, displace said:

...5) Do students learn typical facts through this program?  Since I use the Book shark lists for some audiobooks, I feel some of the books are great, but we don't discuss them much, and I'm not certain how I feel about learning all of history for the year just with literature.  This is my main concern (after level to choose), is a lot of the stories will not leave a factual impression but at best only a general understanding of only some topics...

Even if you don't have exact answers, any general thoughts about the history curriculum (good or bad) would be appreciated as I try to decide if we'll switch or not.  

Well, other than the Landmark History book (which we ended up not using because I thought it was both dry AND rather opinionated when I previewed it), you're not getting any kind of organized presentation of history, and yes, it's mostly stories that give a sense of the times/people/places.

For a history-loving student, that might to be disappointing (to only have 1 formal factual spine resource), so you may prefer to stick with the Acellus as your "factual spine", and add in the Book Shark books, as you have already been doing.

Or, another option might be to add another "spine" to the Landmark -- perhaps something like The Complete Book of US History, which is secular, geared for gr. 3-6, is inexpensive, and runs from Native Americans to New World Explorers to Colonial times, through 20th century. What I esp. like about this resource is that the 20th century focuses on some very interesting but less-frequently discussed topics. The writing style is interesting as well.

Whatever you decide to go with, I'll also throw in the idea of another addition to your US History -- a 2-volume set that used to be a part of the Sonlight/Book Shark booklist that we found highly interesting, and would likely be of high interest to your History-lover: American Adventures: True Stories From America's Past. Vol 1 = 1770-1870, and Vol 2 = 1870-2000. Each entry is just a few pages long and focuses on a real person in the midst of one of the key events of US History.

We also really enjoyed doing the Beautiful Feet Geography Guide & Map Pack that goes with the 4 Holling C Holling books, as 3 of the 4 books (Paddle to the Sea, Tree in the Trail, and Minn of the Mississippi) provide US History factual info along with US geographical info. (The 4th book, Seabird, touches on 100 years of whaling / clipper ships / steamers and a number of countries in the world.)
 

8 hours ago, displace said:

6) Some of the books seem difficult to understand, even at grade level.  DS is bright but he has dyslexia so his reading level is about fifth grade.  

Most of the books in Book Shark level 4 would be great for a 5th grader as far as typical reading level and interest level. There are several very easy books that would help a dyslexic student have success in solo reading. And there are a few titles that would also probably be better for waiting on due to a more advanced interest level for the subject matter.

Below is the Book Shark level 4 list of books. Of the books in that list that we read, I have indicated on each book what I would consider to be the optimal "reader" level, as far as reading difficulty AND optimal interest level. And I marked with ** a few of the books that were high favorites of DSs.

Hope something there is of help, and esp. hope that someone with actual Book Shark experience will speak up and answer your questions. Warmest regards, Lori D.

______________________

History 4
----------  = The World Wars
----------  = The Landmark History of the American People, Volume II
----------  = William Wilberforce

Read-Alouds 4
(gr. 5-7) = The Great Turkey Walk **
(gr. 7/8+) = Across Five Aprils
----------  = Oxford Illustrated Book of American Children's Poems
(gr. 4-6) = Caddie Woodlawn
(gr. 6-8) = Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
----------  = Miracles on Maple Hill
(gr. 5-8) = Little Britches
(gr. 5-8) = The Great Wheel **
(gr. 7-10) = Moccasin Trail
----------  = A Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt
(gr. 5-7) = From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler **
(gr. 4-7) = In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson **

Level 4 Readers
(gr. 2-4) = Helen Keller
(gr. 4-7) = The Perilous Road
(gr. 4-7) = By the Great Horn Spoon **
(gr. 4-6) = Freedom Train
(gr. 4-6) = Shades of Gray
(gr. 7-10) = Turn Homeward, Hannalee
(gr. 5-8) = Old Yeller
(gr. 3-5) = All-of-a-Kind Family
----------  = Thimble Summer
(gr. 4-6) = Plain Girl
----------  = Gone Away Lake
(gr. 6-8) = The Seventeenth Swap -- started very slow and dry, but everyone eventually got into it
(gr. 3-5) = The Wright Brothers
(gr. 7-10) = Sing Down the Moon
(gr. 4-6) = Hero Over Here
(gr. 2-4) = The Story of Thomas Alva Edison
----------  = Lawn Boy

Edited October 11, 2018 by Lori D.