History decision help

[Nam2001]

Hi ladies! 

I’ve been all over the place the past few months regarding our history plans for next year. I’ve narrowed it down a lot and am trying to make a decision this week. We want to cover Medieval history. What I seem to be choosing from is Easy Classical (the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation guide) or The World’s Story put out by MasterBooks - the Middle Ages Book. Easy Classical has tons of books assigned and other projects and activities. The World's Story has a teacher’s guide with some ideas and the author has a list of suggested books that aren’t scheduled. They both seem quite simple to implement. That’s my goal. Simple but deep and room for rabbit trails. The ages of my children are 14,11, and 8. The 14 year old is taking a world geography class locally so she doesn’t need crazy hard work for this. It’s extra.

Have any of you used either of these? I’d love to hear opinions. I have also considered Biblioplan but I think it has more than I’m looking for this year. I’ve considered just MOH and just SOTW but that didn’t sit well. 

Thoughts? 

Thanks!  

[PeterPan]

Have you looked at Story of the Middle Ages  You could probably use it with activities from SOTW2 and books from TOG, the VP catalog, etc. 

Fwiw, your kids are also a good age to enjoy the VP self-paced MARR class.

The O'Dell text you listed is a hot mess of narrative, endless detail, complex syntax, and high school level page layouts. You're going to be stuck reading the entire thing aloud and wading through it, seems to me. And she's not a subject expert, which means she's not bringing the analysis you'd get in say a BJU Heritage Studies 7. If you like it and want to wade through that, great. Just seems to me it's not flexible or appropriate for the 8 yo. I'd probably target the 8 and 11 yos, with say the CLP spine or a flexible spine like that VP cards or TOG where you could go up/down for each kid while staying on the same topics.

Edited March 20, 2019 by PeterPan

[Nam2001]

4 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Have you looked at Story of the Middle Ages  You could probably use it with activities from SOTW2 and books from TOG, the VP catalog, etc. 

Fwiw, your kids are also a good age to enjoy the VP self-paced MARR class.

The O'Dell text you listed is a hot mess of narrative, endless detail, complex syntax, and high school level page layouts. You're going to be stuck reading the entire thing aloud and wading through it, seems to me. And she's not a subject expert, which means she's not bringing the analysis you'd get in say a BJU Heritage Studies 7. If you like it and want to wade through that, great. Just seems to me it's not flexible or appropriate for the 8 yo. I'd probably target the 8 and 11 yos, with say the CLP spine or a flexible spine like that VP cards or TOG where you could go up/down for each kid while staying on the same topics.

Thanks for this. I really appreciate your thoughts on the O’Dell text. One other spine I thought about was the one from SCM called A Castle With Many Rooms. But I’ve never heard of the CLP book you mentioned. I took a look and it seems really short. I guess I can just add plenty of books and activities. 

My youngest is doing VP self paced now and we want to take a break from that and do more reading and discussing. But I’m sure I’ll go back to it eventually for her. That’s also a good idea about the VP cards. 

Have you done the CLP spine? If so, did you just spread it out over the year and just add fillers? 

[PeterPan]

I think I found the CLP book late and probably just threw it at her. Yes, I'm suggesting it as a spine. Won't be flashy, but the supplemental books you can get through VP, etc. are wonderful. Also check the TOG listings. You might like to do a church history spine or something alongside to give that extra discussion you're wanting. You could have a list of lit to do through movies, hehe.