Malenki Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 Our son is 8 yo and will be 8.5 in the fall. He loves variety and loads of books. "Book" was his first word ("mama" was sadly 12th... so depressing). He is reading just about everything he picks up at this point but still loves being read to. He loves science. Loves it. We're never doing enough science for him. He's enjoyed the Apologia Zoology books (we'll do #1 and 2 this year) but they are almost too in depth. Variety of topics is more interesting to him then depth. He also loves language. Words and what they mean. He's finishing two years of Latin and is finishing his first year of Greek. He delights in both languages. He's been asking for another language but I'm holding him off on that front for now. Math and history. Eh. Could leave them both far, far away and he'd be happy enough. We've done TruthQuest American History for Young Students I, II and are finishing up III any day now. He loved the reading and variety but I felt there was nothing sort of tying it together. (Neither one of us liked the commentary by the author so we didn't read that and none of the spines seemed right for him at age 6 when we started.) SOTW hasn't worked. We've tried it twice and both times he gave it a thumbs down. It just doesn't appeal to him. He *has* loved American history, however. Sonlight may appeal but we'd have to add more books (we have a good library so no problem there). Not sure if we'd be happier with Core 1+2 or Core 3 at this point and not sure he'd want to do more American history right away. (But he has and does love it... so maybe?) MFW Creation to the Greeks *may* work. But the only part he mentions thinking he'll like is the dinosaur book. And I look at it myself and think "eh" so I'm having a hard time getting excited about it. Tapestry of Grace may work but I see so often not to use it with younger children. So I'm hesitant. We could move on in TruthQuest but it's not recommended to do the Egypt/Greece guide until 5th grade (around 10 years old) so I'm hesitant on that as well. We could redo American history but we'd definitely need something driving our studies a bit more than last time. So what would you study next year? (or even now... we're winding down and it's only the end of March) And if you read this far, thank you. History has been the thorn in my side with him! He doesn't mind it but isn't excited about it exactly either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 Check out VP. We started with TQ, so I know what you mean about it creating a book lover. Think of VP as TQ with more structure. The cards are the spine, and you fill in with books from their catalog, books from the TQ guides, etc. You can even do OTAE and NTGR in one year if you want. There's also a yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vp_elementary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littlebug42 Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 What about Winter Promises's theme "Sea and Sky". It is a science/history combo that is a one year tour through world history. That might be something to spark an interest in history in your science lover since they are mixed together. :auto: (My 5 year old added the smily for you). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melinda Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 We really like KONOS. It can fill in for any subject you would like it to, but does require a lot of planning/organization. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MIch elle Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 It's fabulous! Does your dc do narrations? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alison in KY Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 How about Heart of Dakota? Beyond or Bigger? We bought it just to use for the history because she has great selections and it's all planned out for me. The left side has history planned out, plus Bible, geography, science, poetry, and art. Then from the right side we do storytime. I do my own LA's and math. There would be plenty of time to add in more science if you wanted to. Alison Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AudreyTN Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 I don't know if there's a curriculum that does this... but maybe you could study scientists and throw in some history around them. "This is what was going on when Marie Curie was alive." (women's rights in the US... ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielle Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 What about just doing it the WTM way? My dd is now older, but we just followed WTM, reading the Osborne World History, then using Kingfisher and reading historical novels, watching movies, etc. Now in 9th grade, I'm really seeing great results from WTM--altho when dd announced to some other high schoolers that her favorite read this year was Herodotus, they were befuddled. Anyway, now and back then, I decided how many books seemed reasonable to read, and let her choose from the list (drawn from WTM, with some Newberry and books from other "Great Books" lists). It was really my desire to foster an "independent scholar" and I thought choice would help. She has always been free to propose another book, stop reading a choice if she really hated it (there's a lot of scholarly adults who never get through Moby Dick or Don Quixote) or read only parts of it (never has). Way back when, I kept the books in chronological order. Now in high school, I just keep them all in the same historical period, but she can read them in any order. this year it's been Gilgamesh, Genesis, the Orestian cycle, Herodotus, the Ramayana, Trojan Women, Antigone, now the Mahabharata. JMTC Danielle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malenki Posted March 31, 2009 Author Share Posted March 31, 2009 Thanks for all the responses! I'll definitely look closer at Veritas Press. I was thinking that a whole year on Egypt and OT history may be hard on us, though, so haven't looked too closely at it lately. I will check out the old version of WTM from our library as it had suggestions pre-SOTW and see if that might work for us. Audrey - that's a great suggestion! We've definitely done that with American history with TQ by reading all about scientists and inventors as we've gone along. We studied flight and sailing extensively with Konos (unit studies were a disaster for him... we tried FIAR as well) so WP's Sea and Sky program has a lot of duplicates. I thought of that too earlier and looked but we've read a bunch of the books already and he's just not that interested in flight or sailing when it comes down to it. Especially to spend a whole year on it. Hmm. Thanks so much for the suggestions! I'll look further into some of them. Any others? As far as DH is concerned, he doesn't think we have to do history until high school (!) so he's not much help in this particular subject area. LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrsrevmeg Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 I think you should go to the Tapestry of Grace website and get a free three week that they offer. We have recently bought Tapestry and love it!! There are so many great book suggestions for the younger ones and a lot of hands-on projects so that they do not get bored. I have heard several people say that they do not recommend it for young children, but I think it better to start them early so they can study each cycle more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnTheBrink Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 I don't know if there's a curriculum that does this... but maybe you could study scientists and throw in some history around them. "This is what was going on when Marie Curie was alive." (women's rights in the US... ) Beautiful Feet Books has a great history of science program. My dd used it at about that age. http://www.bfbooks.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovedtodeath Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 Beautiful Feet Books has a great history of science program. My dd used it at about that age. www.bfbooks.com I didn't know about this. Saving for future reference.:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yslek Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 Another Idea: You could use get the SOTW audiobooks and listen to those when you're on the road, at bedtime, or whenever it works for you. Then, since he loves books, use Ambleside and/or Sonlight and/or other lists to find good books to read together. If he's listening to SOTW he'll have some "hooks" to hang things on when they come up, and it will also leave time to focus on those things her really loves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovedtodeath Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 There are books (VP has them) that are about the science of ancient civilizations, egypt and etc. We are using SOTW very informally. I am reading SOTW, but dd is only picking up the books that interest her (which turns out to be more than half). You can read more about how it is working for us in the classical unschoolers social group. Using SOTW in a laid back home... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laylamcb Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 I'm a big Ambleside fan. If you've got a kid who loves to read/be read to, AO fits the bill--it really is a literary curriculum. They also take a very narrative approach to science, too, which your son might love. There's no reason that you can't revolve your curriculum around science if that's his love. History does not have to be the center of the curriculum. Really. :001_smile: Check out the AO curriculum here. For additional narrative science, check out the nature and science stories at The Baldwin Project (the link takes you to the books by genre; just scroll down to the genres you're looking for). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malenki Posted March 31, 2009 Author Share Posted March 31, 2009 That might work with the SOTW audiobooks. We usually have one checked out from the library for our longer trips (we have to do a five hour round trip twice a month for medical reasons). I'll have a captive audience at the time. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malenki Posted March 31, 2009 Author Share Posted March 31, 2009 Just do WTM... I would not spend a bunch of money on a laid out program like WP or MFW or TOG when history is not your thing. Perhaps I just need permission to not make history the core of our studies! Three or four have mentioned just doing WTM but tweaking it. I'm leaning heavily that way right now as it seems cost-effective and I can try to make it more interesting to him. I'll also look at the AO readings since there are fewer history books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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