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Condensing the rest of Story of the World 1?


Janeway
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Would you consider it to be a bad idea to condense the rest of SOTW 1? We did SOTW until around Halloween. I think we got through chapter 13 but will have to double check. We definitely completed chapter 13, but it is possible we got a little further. With my older children, they just loved SOTW so much that we did a ton with it. It was easy to find videos and books to go along with it (back in the day when we went to the library a lot). This child, however, pittered out when there started to seem to be a long stream of complicated names to keep straight. I admit, I started glossing over too.  

 

Would you attempt to move quickly to SOTW now? Or start taking rabbit trails? Oh yeah, we already did a rabbit trail. I really wanted to do Story of Pilgrims before Thanksgiving and then some around the world Christmas type stuff mixed with some classical music study, but even that did not go the best. I did all the same stuff I did with my olders, but it does not work with my 9 yr old. My 9 yr old has a serious problem paying attention and focusing. A lot of what we do is based on trying to get him to interact to bring him back in to the topic of what we are doing. And 9 yr old zoned out on everything I tried to do with him on Stories of Pilgrims (did not listen to the story, zoned out over and over again) and same thing with the classical music stuff I was trying to have us do.

 

Should I let this become a child led thing for the remainder of the year and maybe try to revisit SOTW next year? Should I try to condense SOTW so we can return to it? Or perhaps jump around history? My husband really wants us to go to a renaissance faire this spring so maybe skip to that time period?

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Following schedules can be comforting or burdensome. If I was PUSHING through skills based textbooks in math and languages, I used to cut myself some slack by doing content subjects by the seat of my pants with the easiest to digest resources possible. Social Studies turned DVD, NIE (newspaper in education), library books, and living museum first. Science followed the same path soon after I was face to face with how efficient "less is more" is for content.

I have noticed that people stay on schedule better when covering the whole history timeline in ONE year, instead of four. Yearly rhythms are about as long as humans naturally keep rhythms.

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Also, take into account that "ancient history" covers a VAST amount of time. Simply Charlotte Mason spends 3 years on ancient history. Even with a young earth timeline, ancient history covers twice as many years as medieval and modern combined. Depending on WHICH topics are most important to YOU, you might need to divide time differently than SOTW.

Young Earth as an example, because it is so neat.

2000 years Beginning to Abraham

2000 years Abraham to Jesus

2000 years Jesus to Now

One option with 3 terms a year is to divide the year like this, and supplement the first term with social studies topics and skills building such as holidays, worldview, character/leadership training, newspapers, map drawing, time lines, ect.

Edited by Hunter
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35 minutes ago, parent said:

Have you ever tried A Child's History of the World?  It is a bit lighter but better story form and might be better tolerated.  It skips a bit so would rather gloss over the rest of your year with ancients.

Why is she trying to memorize names?  I emphasize them but don't try to memorize.  I would drop it if it's the issue.

Or maybe just listen to SOTW audio instead of you reading and doing a lot of activities? 

He isn't trying to memorize the names so much as it is hard to follow the stories when the names are so complicated at the point we were at.

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If a student is reading along, and the names are complicated, I sometimes highlight each name in a different color. Sometimes I give people nicknames. When tutoring another paralegal student about a complicated law case, I highlighted all names for the side of the plaintiff one color. and all names for the side of the defense in another color. This would work for multiple people on opposite sides of any conflict.

Create charts

Act it out with paper dolls

https://makingfriends.com/freebies/paper-doll-friends/

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2 hours ago, parent said:

Have you ever tried A Child's History of the World?  It is a bit lighter but better story form and might be better tolerated.  It skips a bit so would rather gloss over the rest of your year with ancients.

Why is she trying to memorize names?  I emphasize them but don't try to memorize.  I would drop it if it's the issue.

Or maybe just listen to SOTW audio instead of you reading and doing a lot of activities? 

I like CHOW very much! It covers just what a student needs to know to understand common literature references.

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