Combining children?

[Eupatobe1]

Hello. I’m a WTM newbie and would love your advice. I will have rising first and third graders next year, and am changing our homeschooling plan. With my older child, we did SOTW ancient history in first grade, then are working through medieval this year. I have combined history and science for both girls up to this point, then do separate language arts and math. 
 

 My younger daughter listened to ancient history when we did it with my older daughter, but she was quite young at the time. For next fall, would you recommend doing separate history with both children, so that my younger  can have the full experience and be on the appropriate level? 

With the WTM model, do you do completely different homeschool sessions with each child? I’ve always done one room schoolhouse style, as above- combining everything except language arts and math, but not sure this will continue to work. 
 

Thanks
 

[Lori D.]

Welcome!

The usual recommendation is, unless there are special needs or circumstances, to just blend in each younger child into the cycle where ever you already are with the older child, and the younger one will get the earlier time periods of history "on the next go-around". 

It is MUCH easier on the parent to keep as many children as possible on the same subject areas, just for the parent's sanity. 😉 When there is just a 1-2 year age difference, history, science, and a few other subjects are so flexible prior to the high school years, that it's easy to keep children together in the same time period and use the same materials.  When there is a big age gap (like 3-4 years or more), you can still all stay in the same time period, but each child tends to need their own age-appropriate material and have age-appropriate assignments or "output". If you have to move to all different time periods for each different children, it is a LOT of balls to juggle for the parent, unless some of the children are late middle school/high school and are working fairly independently.

As a side note: it is totally okay to change what you do and when. 

For example: some families find that they want to step out of the 4-year cycle for ALL of their children in the early elementary years for one of several reasons:
- desire to spend a year on American History to take advantage of all the great books and resources that are geared for grades 2-5
- decide to skip Modern history in the early elementary grades since so much of it is dark, intense, and violent than what they want to cover with those ages
- desire to go at a more leisurely pace through history, and expand from 4 years to 6 years to cover one "cycle"
- want to enjoy some "bunny trails" on different topics -- a cultural geography year; a unit on your state; a semester on Civics to coincide with a big election year; deep dive into a history topic of high interest to the student; etc.


Again, welcome! And BEST of luck as you decide how you all will best enjoy your History adventures! Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

[Quarter Note]

6 hours ago, Eupatobe1 said:

 I’ve always done one room schoolhouse style, as above- combining everything except language arts and math, but not sure this will continue to work. 

This is exactly how we have done our homeschool from the beginning, and my kids are in fourth and sixth grades right now.  For us, it works very well.

Good luck!

[Eupatobe1]

I agree with trying to keep things simple for the sake of sanity! Are the story of the world volumes written with increasing difficulty level? My concern is for the history content in SOTW level 3 to be over my first grader's head and/or not age appropriate? It seems like I will always be doing the history component above her level- the same issue the following year when my older would do SOTW level 4, and my younger would be in second grade. Wouldn't I be doing my younger daughter a disservice? Or are the SOTW books more interchangeable among the grade levels? I'm thinking of all the supplemental texts, too.

Thanks for the input, I really appreciate the help. 

 

[Lori D.]

23 minutes ago, Eupatobe1 said:

I agree with trying to keep things simple for the sake of sanity! Are the story of the world volumes written with increasing difficulty level? My concern is for the history content in SOTW level 3 to be over my first grader's head and/or not age appropriate? It seems like I will always be doing the history component above her level- the same issue the following year when my older would do SOTW level 4, and my younger would be in second grade. Wouldn't I be doing my younger daughter a disservice? Or are the SOTW books more interchangeable among the grade levels? I'm thinking of all the supplemental texts, too.

Thanks for the input, I really appreciate the help. 

 

Yes, the SOTW volumes were written at increasing difficulty (but the world events also become increasingly complex and complicated). I believe SOTW was originally written for these age ranges:
vol. 1 - ancients = gr. 1-4
vol. 2 - medieval = gr. 2-5
vol. 3 - early modern = gr. 3-6
vol. 4 - modern = gr. 4-7

A lot of people wait to do SOTW vol. 4 later -- like grades 5-8. Or, they do vol. 4 with older elementary ages, and then with the early elementary ages they do lots of biographies and focus on the inventions, arts, sports, etc. of the modern era rather than do SOTW vol. 4 So, still in the same era, but with a different focus. Yes, some of the supplemental books will work fine for all ages, others you may need to substitute.

Susan Wise-Bauer, author of the WTM, repeatedly stresses that her book is meant as a guide-only, and that families should definitely adapt to best fit their students' needs and the parents' goals.

And, a large amount of learning happens when there is high student interest. What are your 2 children interested in learning about in the Social Studies areas or History time periods?

Also, bear in mind that in the early elementary grades -- really all the way up to middle school -- ANY history you cover is icing on top of your home studies, and is going to be much more than what most of your child's age-peers are getting in public schools. Not trying to suggest you *slack*, but just saying that you could skip SOTW vol. 4 with your younger child and enjoy reading widely about all kinds of 20th century people, events, etc. that you just pick up from the library at your regular visits, and it would be a great history year.

My personal experience: As someone who started off thinking we'd do the 3 four-year cycles, and rapidly moved to 1 six-year cycle so we could do American history, and tons of really interesting bunny trails and short units, followed by a year of NO history in middle school so we could have a great year of World Cultures/Geography & Comparative Religions as fantastic prep for high school History... I can personally say that it can be GREAT to NOT do the 3 four-year cycles, too. 😉 

[caffeineandbooks]

Hi, and welcome to the forum!  You'll find there are as many versions of "WTM homeschooling" as there are boardies, so hopefully someone will share ideas that resonate with you.

My homeschooled kiddos are currently in 2nd and 4th, with a young pre-K tagging along.  We're on our second loop of SOTW, having begun when my 4th grader was in K in order to form a co-op with another family.  I would do that again - having friends to do the activities with and just share the experience with has been worth it, and we're still doing it together - but I would say that the kids now in 3rd, 4th and 5th are getting more out of it than the 1st and 2nd graders, and more than they got out of it their first time around as well. 

We still tend toward one room schoolhouse stuff other than for math.  The preschooler colors or builds Lego or whatever right along with the big kids while I read books, and often chips in answers to questions that were directed at someone older 🙂 Everyone wants to be part of the science experiments, although their understanding and narration is at their own level; the same is true for art.  This year, we're even doing language arts together, using CAP's Writing and Rhetoric: Fable, which is not too much for a second grader when a lot is done orally, as we are doing (though 2nd grade is too young to begin that program if you plan to continue doing 2 books per year as scheduled).  I might be able to fold them all in together for foreign language when the preschooler is older, but for other subjects she will need work at her own level, though perhaps on the same topic: in future, for instance, she will do SOTW 1 at the same time as her brothers do something like OUP's World in Ancient Times - same era of history, but they will need a middle school spine by then.  We will continue to do some projects together - mummifying a chicken is fascinating whether you're 6 or 60 - but they will do more and harder so that everyone is appropriately challenged.

I don't think you're doing your younger daughter a disservice by letting her join in with the older and be exposed to the same great stuff - especially if you plan to loop around and start over with ancients in a couple of years.  View this partial loop as exposure only for your younger girl, remembering that her primary tasks the next two years are to get a solid grounding in reading, math and handwriting in approximately that order of importance.  She'll likely enjoy the same great picture books as your 3rd grader, but history is pretty optional at this stage.  You will want to preview SOTW 4, though, and consider either separating them for that year or doing something different - Lori D gave you some classic suggestions for a year of US history or world cultures or something similar.  Then the following year, when they're in 5th and 3rd, you can loop right back to ancients and start again. 

You keep the challenge appropriate by assigning extra reading and written output at their individual levels: this year, your first grader might draw a picture and dictate a caption for you to write, while your third grader might write her own 3 sentence narration for each chapter.  On your next loop around, one child might be reading a picture book while the other is outlining a nonfiction chapter, but it's the same content and it helps you keep your head in the same space.  They can continue to work together for projects and activities.  It will evolve to fit your specific family as you go, and it probably won't look like you thought it would!

[Quarter Note]

13 hours ago, Eupatobe1 said:

I agree with trying to keep things simple for the sake of sanity! Are the story of the world volumes written with increasing difficulty level? My concern is for the history content in SOTW level 3 to be over my first grader's head and/or not age appropriate? It seems like I will always be doing the history component above her level- the same issue the following year when my older would do SOTW level 4, and my younger would be in second grade. Wouldn't I be doing my younger daughter a disservice? Or are the SOTW books more interchangeable among the grade levels? I'm thinking of all the supplemental texts, too.

Thanks for the input, I really appreciate the help. 

 

Hello again, Eupatobe1.  I'll just second everything that LoriD and Caffeineandbooks said, but also add one thing:  It's not just about keeping mom's work sane, but keeping the kids together for history will give them the opportunity to have great discussions with each other.  It's wonderful hearing my own kids interact with each other during our combined subjects.  

In our family, Daddy always asks our kids about their school day over dinner.  The combined subjects are always eagerly presented for discussion.  Because the kids (and I) are studying the same thing, we have great discussions as a whole family that we wouldn't otherwise have if the kids were separated.

One more thing:  I, also, thought about holding off on SotW4 when we finished volume 3, because of the difficult content.  (There are a lot of assassinations in the 20th century!)  But when I mentioned it to the kids, they nearly mutinied!  We've had so much fun with history that they really wanted to continue, so we did and it was fine.  You'll have to see what will work with your own kids, but keep it flexible - they may be ready for more than you think.  Kids are like that!  

Have fun!

[Eupatobe1]

Thanks so much for the responses, I now have a sense of how to move my homeschool in a better direction. I truly appreciate your insight.

[2_girls_mommy]

Your kids are the same ages as my olders were.  I kept them in the same history sequence for all three four year rotations all the way from the beginning to graduation.  My odd started SOTW1 in first grade, did Medieval, SOTW2 in 2nd grade, and did SOTW3 in 3rd grade.  

The next dd was very young for the first two volumes.  But it didn't matter.  She did fun projects about the Egyptians and Greeks and Romans and all of the cool medieval stuff that she wanted to.  Usually in preschool and kindergarten she just scribbled all over a coloring sheet as I read the stories aloud. But she was also there for all of the great picture books I read.

I didn't require any work of her until she was in 1st grade.  By that time we were in vol. 3.  So she got her first official WTM style SOTW binder in 1st grade.  She did color sheets, narrations, mapwork, just like older sis.  I just wrote her narrations for her while the 3rd grader could write her own by then.  We just progressed.  When we started the four year cycle over again, odd was in 5th grade ancients and the other was in 3rd grade.  I read SOTW vol. 1 aloud to both.  The 3rd grader did regular SOTW work.  The 5th grader had a different book for maps (the Geography Coloring book from WTM suggestions.) The older one read from the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia and did outlines from it and wrote papers for her logic stage WTM notebook instead of SOTW narrations.  So the younger one didn't miss out on SOTW1.  She got it in depth when she was a bit older.  When they were both in middl school, I did not read SOTW straight through.  They used the Kingfisher Encyclopedia and did readings from WTM reading lists and did work from the logic stage.  I did keep  SOTW around.  We actuall did some projects from it all the way into high school.  Volume 2 especially has some great projects for medieval that we adapted into high school projects for art in 8th and 10 th grades.  (I made them do a huge illuminated manuscript page with motifs, printed in calligraphy, and using foil leaf.  We made life size castles out of giant cardboard boxes.  We had a medieval feast and cooked dishes we researched and made elaborately, etc.) 

High school, we switched things up some.  My odd did WTM high school history assignments and readings for three of her high school years, then we switched to an online curriculum her senior year. But we kept them on the same rotation.  I added in economics, state history, and government for each, so each ended up with a ton of extra social studies credits, but that was our goal. 

Edited March 23, 2021 by 2_girls_mommy

[wendyroo]

I've always kept all the kiddos on the same history (and science and poetry and art, etc) cycle. 

We read a lot of pre-history when my oldest was in K and the youngers were 3 and 1.
We read SOTW 1 when the kids were 6, 4, 2 and newborn. All non-baby kids had coloring sheets and did narrations and crafts.
Next, SOTW 2 at 7, 5, 3 and 1. All kids had coloring sheets and did narrations and crafts. 7 and 5 year olds did map work.
Part SOTW 3 + extra American history. Same work load as previous year.
Part SOTW 3 + part SOTW 4 + extra American history. Oldest (now 9) started outlines in SOTW 4. New 5 year old started map work.
Finished SOTW 4 + extra American history. Same work load as previous year.

This past summer we read some really interesting book about paleontology and anthropology, and this year we are back to ancients.
I am reading the Oxford University Press books aloud to all the kids - now 11, 9, 7 and 5. Everyone narrates at their level.
My oldest is also reading Kingfisher, reading primary sources, watching Great Courses, doing mapwork, writing narrations/notebooking and doing some Reading Like a Historian projects.

[BusyMom5]

Mom to many- we all do the same history and science every year, regardless of age.  That means my 4th grader and 10th grader are doing the same time in history (currently Early American).  As they get older,  we get different materials,  but having them all together means they watch the same movies, I try to pick a few read aloud everyone will enjoy, and they do similar mapwork.  The older ones get much more in-depth, and the younger ones do much less and get to skip a lot of discussions if its over their heads.  I think you will be surprised by your younger one!  There are lots of picture books for American history!  Just keep the output at age level and don't stress about it.  I always start by getting stuff for my oldest, then find stuff the younger ones can do alongside.  

You didn't ask much about science,  but I do the same thing.  Plan out the oldest, figure out what the little one can do with us, look for a few extra fun books, tv shows (PBS has lots).  If its something that the little one really isn't ready for, then I pick a different topic for that week or month for the little.