Question about the history cycle

[LadyAberlin]

I like the idea of cycling through history 3 times, but I was wondering if anyone does an in depth American history study? I would like my kids to know American History really well. So what do you all do?

[Susie in CA]

Well, we are almost done with our first rotation. I think that American History get covered just fine using SOTW. Instead of doing it all in one year it just gets stretched out throughout the whole 4 years. Obviously, most American History being covered in Year 3 and Year 4. It worked out great for us. Sometimes we did add in extra reading and we did focus on memorising material related to the US.

 

Susie

[Blue Hen]

The first time through our history cycle, when DS was in 4th grade SOTW did not exist. We focused on US History. SOTW came out when DS2 started 1st grade and we used SOTW to guide us through History Cycle 2nd round.

 

We are now in the 3rd round of going through the history cycle and I realized that DS2 needed to know more about US history then what he got from SOTW. For his 7th and 8th grade history studies we are using History of US by Joy Hakium as our spline. He's also reading SOTW but we are focusing on US History.

 

My older DS has decided to for his Jr year to do World History 1600 to present. Next year he wants to concentrate on US history and US Government.

 

Carole

[Lovedtodeath]

We are doing 2 cycles. Each cycle has one year of geography, 2 years of American History and 2 years of World History. We plan to be done before 12 years of school passes.

 

I think that one year of American History thrown in with shortening WH down to 3 years makes sense. I have also seen some with World History spines and American History extra reading.

Edited January 1, 2009 by Lovedtodeath

[Carol in Cal.]

to logic stage world history studies to beef up the American history part of it. That seems pretty good to me.

 

I looked at All American History and tried to integrate it into our march through world history, but we didn't find it nearly as engaging as I would have thought. Bottom line is that we really need an American history spine for logic stage that is really good, and I don't know of one. I like Hakim, but it tries to be both spine and ancillary material, and I would prefer a pure spine.

 

I have added a lot of American history to my DD's education, but in a more haphazard way than I can easily describe. I bought all the Jean Fritz books and we read them and talked about them. I bought a computer program that has maps of the US during different time periods. We did not use that as much as I had planned, but I did try. We tried All American History. DD took a one semester unit study type class that covered the Age of Exploration in depth. I have read loads of other living books in American history, using Stewardship unit studies, Sonlight reading lists, Beautiful Feet reading lists, and the SOTW AG's as guides and jumping off points to find them.

 

It's been great fun, but I still wish that I had a pure spine that was as engaging as SOTW, to tie everything together. As much as I love SOTW, I don't feel that its coverage of American history is adequate for an American citizen.

[Guest Alte Veste Academy]

I like the idea of cycling through history 3 times, but I was wondering if anyone does an in depth American history study? I would like my kids to know American History really well. So what do you all do?

 

Because I want to keep my three kids who are very close in age together in the same historic era and because I also wanted more in depth American history, I'm doing things this way...

 

2 year cycle American history

4 year cycle world history

2 year cycle American history

4 year cycle world history

 

So, I'm only doing two world history cycles but I plan on covering relevant world events when studying American history and relevant American events when studying world history. That sure sounds garbled. Basically, I will focus on one or the other at certain times but will emphasize to the kids that no country lives in a vacuum.

 

Good luck deciding on a plan.

 

Kristina

[sagira]

I have two kids, four years apart. We'll be following this plan, roughly:

 

Ds only:

SOTW 1

SOTW 2

SOTW 3

 

Both:

American History semester (at least, depends on where it takes us)

SOTW 4

Ancients

Middle Ages

Renaissance

Modern Era

 

Then we'll roll up two eras into one for highschool and spend more time on the one(s) that ds/dd are interested in.

[Blue Hen]

In TWTM, SWB suggests adding "Critical Thinking in US History"to logic stage world history studies to beef up the American history part of it. That seems pretty good to me.

 

We did use these when my older one was in 7th and 8th grade. I joined another family with two kids and the four of us (3 kids and 2 moms) went through these books. First we moms found the books very disorganized. Second the books were more a study in Logic then in US history. Sure we talked a bit about the Salem Witch Trials for instance, but the conversation dealt with whether a particular source was Primary or Secondary---did the person have a reason to tell the truth or might they have a reason to stretch the truth. My younger son is now in 7th grade and while I want to go through these books with him he already has a logic course book.

 

It's been great fun, but I still wish that I had a pure spine that was as engaging as SOTW, to tie everything together. As much as I love SOTW, I don't feel that its coverage of American history is adequate for an American citizen.

 

That's how I feel about SOTW too. After going through them I do feel like I know what was going on in the world from ancient times - present but do not feel knowledgeable about US history. It does help to put things in perspective--- the world does not revolve around the US. But I'm with you, as an American citizen something more is needed.

 

Carole

[Narrow Gate Academy]

This is our first cycle. We chose to do just American history for years 3 and 4 using TruthQuest AHYS 1, 2, and 3. It's been great so far. I'll probably do the same with each of the boys during their first time through now that I have the plans for it. HTH

[Laura Corin]

We do two cycles, in order to have enough time to put in a lot more UK and US history as we go along. I have rough spreadsheets to coordinate SOTW with This Country of Ours; they are in the side bar of my blog (link in siggy). We take a year at some point (ideally between cycles) to do a year of Chinese history too.

 

Laura

[swellmomma]

My plan is to do a year of Canadian history after the cycle of 4 yr for SOTW, then do the next cycle followed by a year of Canadian history etc.

 

I would be ideally like to coordinate it all to do at once, but don'thave time for that. EVen better would be to have a TOG canadian version where Canadian history of government are covered without me having to figure out all the substitutions myself.

 

For my big kids that means 2 cycles of World history and 2 years of Canadian history. For my littles is means 3 cycles and 3 years of canadian history.

[Kathie in VA]

I didn't plan to have a year for American History. I planned to just do world history and cover Am Hist within. However when we added in Classical Conversations it became hard for use to do it all. They have a 2 yr world history and one year AmHist cycle. So this year I have my 8th and 7th graders doing Sonlight American History (hist/lit) and my 3rd grader is listening to me read their Hakim spine aloud and he is memorizing the history sentences with Foundations and then reading additional related history and literature books.

 

I'm thinking of bringing all the kids back to Ancients next year for our 2nd cycle. So my 4th grader will do Foundations with related history & literature while my older two (8&9th) might do Omnibus I or Streams of Civilizations (not sure yet what to pick). Our writing is Classical Writing so I don't want anything that will take too much time. If we stay on track and do 2 yrs of world and one more yr of Am then I'm willing to let my 12 grader do something else instead of history... like computer science/programming, economics/finances, etc. I don't see why we would "need" to do yet another year of focusing on history...

 

 

 

hth

[Peela]

I do an ongoing parallel stream of Australian History. Each term, I pick a book for them to read- sometimes fiction, sometimes non fiction. SOmetimes, they have done a course, workbook type thing, or outlining from a "living book" on Australian history. I pick Australian movies and telly series at times. I really like the 4 year history cycle and I didnt want to disturb it with much time taken out for Australian history.

Another possibility I have considered is to take the last few weks of each year for Australian history, but I havent felt the need.

[Haiku]

As much as I love SOTW, I don't feel that its coverage of American history is adequate for an American citizen.

 

I can appreciate that, but aren't kids around 9-10 years old when they complete SOTW 4? To me it seems like there would be plenty of time to hit American History more in depth in the remaining 8 years of school.

 

I know that my kids are young, but at this point I don't plan to tinker much with TWTM's cycles of history. We will take what we can get of American history as we study it according to TWTM, and if I feel we need anything else, it will be in addition to TWTM's schedules, not in place of.

 

I spent most of my school career studying American history. I had World History in 10th grade. That as pretty much it until I got to college. I am rather burned out on American history, and I feel like my education left me with a poor understanding of world history. I feel world history is necessary to understand American history, so I plan to focus heavily on the world history.

 

Tara

[Matryoshka]

We're doing things a bit differently...

 

We did a bunch of ancients and a touch of middle ages in 1st grade, then did a complete switch and started US history - my original idea was to tie it in with American Girl books and take advantage of the many early US history field trips in this area. It was supposed to take 2 years - we're now in our fourth - we've gone quite in depth and had a lot of fun. We're finishing up this year, gosh darn it! Although this year will include a lot of modern world history as well, as we're getting to WWI and II.

 

Then we're going to go through the whole world history cycle starting with ancients, which I'm hoping to get through in 3 years (which will bring us to the end of 8th grade).

 

I'm not sure about high school yet, but we may do 2 years of US and 2 years of world, with the second year of that being an emphasis on current events.