Rachel Tyson Posted August 20, 2020 Share Posted August 20, 2020 I am starting homeschool for the first time this fall and my oldest daughter on this curriculum in 4th grade and I also have a first grader. I would like to go about the curriculum the way it is designed as far as “the story of the world” goes, but she needs to learn the first and second time periods first. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to get her up to speed and at her grade level with this? Since Covid interrupted her 3rd grade progress I am willing to bring her down to 3rd grade level for this year since she needs to work more on grammar, spelling, and math. I know her situation won’t be perfectly smooth like my first grader, but I would like her feel like she is at her age group. I’ve attached a photo of the curriculum progress by grade of student and what time periods they study for reference as to what I am talking about. Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brehon Posted August 20, 2020 Share Posted August 20, 2020 First, welcome! Second, I’m unclear if you’re planning on homeschooling for this year or as a long term plan. If you’re planning on your 4th grader returning to B&M school next year, I’d generally stick with whatever scope & sequence the school has for history/social studies and use SOTW and other resources as bonus/fun activities. However, if your plan is continue homeschooling long term (defined as beyond this year), then you can just jump in at the moderns. Or you can just start at ancients. In elementary grades it truly doesn’t matter because the plan repeats the levels at least twice. If, however, you feel strongly that you’d like your 4th grader to start at “the beginning” of SOTW, then just start and choose books/activities that are more at her level. There are myriad booklists for the ancients at the upper elementary level that she might enjoy. Then go at her speed. She may want to delve deeply into this or that topic or she may have more of a git ‘er done mentality about history. You could even formally learn Moderns and also just let her read through the other time periods. Also, if you post on the General Board and/or K-8 board, you’ll receive a lot a great ideas. Speaking as one who has been at this for over 15 years, I’d like to assure you that your daughter isn’t “behind” in history and she has plenty of time to learn all the different time periods. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rachel Tyson Posted August 20, 2020 Author Share Posted August 20, 2020 Yes I am planning on homeschooling from now on every year. This is great info, thank you. I’m trying not to worry about it. I know she will be just fine. She is very smart and absorbs info like crazy. Thank you for the support. I am so excited for my girls and for myself to start this new journey! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katy Posted August 20, 2020 Share Posted August 20, 2020 Welcome! It's totally fine to start with Ancients in Grade 4, that will get you through all 4 before high school, when you might find yourself deviating from this plan to fit your state's high school requirements (Civics, State history, Economics) or the ideal plan of colleges she might be going to (including AP's, etc). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Tick Posted August 20, 2020 Share Posted August 20, 2020 I would suggest keeping both your students in the same history time period, one fewer ball to mentally juggle. As a bonus, if you do read aloud that are history related everybody has similar background. If you are doing SotW with your younger you could have your 4th grader do additional reading and perhaps additional writing. If you don't feel like you can bump the text up to her level with supplements you could have her read middle school texts like K12's The Human Odyssey or Oxford University Press' ancient history series that would be just roughly aligned. In our house history is a subject to be "enjoyed" which means low stress and not a lot of output beyond discussion. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brehon Posted August 20, 2020 Share Posted August 20, 2020 Since your plan is long term I’d recommend that you think about where you’d like your daughter to be at the end of high school/what you’d like her to learn/study. Basically, choose your goals and plan backward. You don’t and shouldn’t(!) plan curriculum to high school; however, thinking about where you want to end up and planning backwards can help you achieve your goals. Write all this down somewhere so you can reference it. This isn’t to say that your plans won’t change or even that your goals won’t change. If homeschooling long term has taught me anything, it’s taught me that well laid education and life plans will change depending on the kid, the season of life, whatever. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brehon Posted August 20, 2020 Share Posted August 20, 2020 13 minutes ago, SusanC said: I would suggest keeping both your students in the same history time period, one fewer ball to mentally juggle. As a bonus, if you do read aloud that are history related everybody has similar background. If you are doing SotW with your younger you could have your 4th grader do additional reading and perhaps additional writing. If you don't feel like you can bump the text up to her level with supplements you could have her read middle school texts like K12's The Human Odyssey or Oxford University Press' ancient history series that would be just roughly aligned. In our house history is a subject to be "enjoyed" which means low stress and not a lot of output beyond discussion. Really great idea!! I don’t know anything about Human Odyssey, though I’ve heard good things about it, but OUP’s ancient (and medieval) series is outstanding and perfect for upper elementary/early middle school. It won’t perfectly align with SOTW, but that’s probably fine. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Tick Posted August 20, 2020 Share Posted August 20, 2020 5 minutes ago, brehon said: Really great idea!! I don’t know anything about Human Odyssey, though I’ve heard good things about it, but OUP’s ancient (and medieval) series is outstanding and perfect for upper elementary/early middle school. It won’t perfectly align with SOTW, but that’s probably fine. 👍🏼 I really liked the OUP books, but it quickly became apparent they weren't going to work for us so we switched to Human Odyssey, which is more of a standard textbook. If you head that way I have an excellent spreadsheet that aligns the readings between SotW and Human Odyssey (although it really isn't necessary, I was just very gung ho). If you like OUP, Collier's Drama of American History would be a good follow-on. Sigh. We couldn't pull that off either. 😀 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
domestic_engineer Posted August 20, 2020 Share Posted August 20, 2020 I would argue that you do NOT have to catch your older up on the first 2-3 time periods. And in fact, I would suggest that you start them both on Ancients, assuming you're going to keep them both in the same era. If it's too easy for your 4th grader, there's always lots to supplement or research. (I like the idea of SOTW1 as the main program with OUP's Ancient History as a supplement, if you need it.) But the main reason for advancing your 4th grader 😉 in my mind, is that the topics covered in the Modern Era are tricky to teach to a 1st grader. And if you're using SOTW, book 4 is really aimed towards older kids. But also ... remember you don't have to start with Ancients. You can jump into whatever era you want; it's ok!! 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted August 20, 2020 Share Posted August 20, 2020 Another vote for not starting with modern history. Ancients is fine and your fourth-grader will go through all the volumes once before high school. The Story of the World activity books have stuff for different levels and also advice on multilevel teaching. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melissa in Australia Posted August 20, 2020 Share Posted August 20, 2020 When I first started home schooling, many years ago I started with a grade 5, 3 and prep students. We did history together, starting with ancients, using SOTW. It was everyone's favourite subject. Everyone was at their own level for all other subjects. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pen Posted August 20, 2020 Share Posted August 20, 2020 (edited) 7 hours ago, Rachel Tyson said: I am starting homeschool for the first time this fall and my oldest daughter on this curriculum in 4th grade and I also have a first grader. I would like to go about the curriculum the way it is designed as far as “the story of the world” goes, but she needs to learn the first and second time periods first. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to get her up to speed and at her grade level with this? Yes! Though not a perfect fit with the WTM sequence: My son went through all of Story of the World as audiobooks (multiple times!) in order books 1-4 all in one year around age 9. I agree that you can start anywhere, but the whole series was a good introduction and having it in order was very helpful to his understanding IMO. He was more of a get understanding then memorize facts type kid. We also used documentaries and other materials that leant themselves to his age and stage. He has dyslexia so the audio version of SOTW was great for him. (Good for me too to be able to both listen and discuss it.) He listened at home and on car cassette player and got a great general intro to world history. Some parts were partly memorized. I don’t think it would have been any better for him to have done it year by year. (Also it was great when a relative against home schooling was being a little critical and my son said he was studying the history of the world from the earliest nomads to the fall of the Soviet Union and started explaining the history of the world from nomads on and asked questions like what critical relative thought about the Boxer Rebellion...etc. sort of caused a jaw drop 😁) [ETA your 1st grader could do just book 1 and more projects and your 4th grader could participate in those projects or not. If your older child reads well enough she might also be able to read book 1 aloud to the younger as reading practice and helping cement the history. ] Later son did a writing class through Brave Writer (which I would also recommend to you) and wrote about an aspect of Vikings which included a bunch of sources including a Thor story he had first learned on SOTW. I think for a slightly older child that’s s good way to do it, otherwise if you go a book per year it is likely to seem too babyish. It also doesn’t fit the WTM history rotation, but if you do all of SOTW with 4th grader this year or even over two years, if you are in USA, strongly consider Joy Hakim’s History of US to follow that as it would be about right stage then as a good intro to US history, but likely to feel babyish if waiting much beyond 4th - 6th. We did not keep all reading and science following along with the history curriculum. We did each thing to fit stage and needs of child I was dealing with, and adjusting for dyslexia etc. I started trying the plan as a late arrival to it, but had to adjust for my actual child We more often found fiction books led to other materials rather than history being the center. Quote Since Covid interrupted her 3rd grade progress I am willing to bring her down to 3rd grade level for this year since she needs to work more on grammar, spelling, and math. I know her situation won’t be perfectly smooth like my first grader, but I would like her feel like she is at her age group. I’ve attached a photo of the curriculum progress by grade of student and what time periods they study for reference as to what I am talking about. Thank you! I’d suggest you consider Biology, Human Body for both children this year (with more probably expected of the older one, but you can have fun with science) and also add nature study and gardening. It would probably be a good start on homeschooling science and fit well with pandemic situation too. Nature study might also be a good basis for some art and writing for both. They could also have some physics oriented toys like marble runs and so forth. Building Foundations in Scientific Understanding (some such name —- is a good science program, but probably too intense for the very start. ) My son liked some human body books and videos a great deal around that stage. What are you thinking of for math? Edited August 21, 2020 by Pen Earliest nomads to fall of USSR ! Oops! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwik Posted August 21, 2020 Share Posted August 21, 2020 (edited) I think you are letting the curriculum control you rather than using the curriculum. Just start with ancients. Don't worry about catching up - it isn't essential to do 3 4 year cycles. If you really want 3 cycles history odessey is 3 years. We did ancients not using SOTW1 last year, SOTW 2 and 3 this year and are doing moderns next year. Our first cycle we did SOTW1 then two years from 500 AD to 1850 AD then went back to ancients. Edited August 21, 2020 by kiwik Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted August 21, 2020 Share Posted August 21, 2020 Welcome to homeschooling and best wishes for a good year. Many moons ago, we started homeschooling when our daughter was in seventh grade. She began her studies with ancient history, and we ended up doing a chronological sweep of world history in three years. Regards, Kareni Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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