I thought I had next year all figured out, but I need your thoughts on history, pleas

[dorothy]

DD will be 11/5th grade. We will have completed CHOW with lots of additional reading on each stage of history by May. My plan for the new school year was to work through the entire series: FMG, FMR, FMMA, FMRR, FMM in one year with a daily read-aloud and have dd do the Memoria Press student workbook. That would be about 150 lessons.

In addition she will be doing:

Latin Prep 1, workbooks A & B
Writing Tales 2
Calvert Spelling CD grade 5
Rod & Staff Math 5
Piano
Tennis/Gymnastics
Ceramics

The thing I am unsure of is the history. Will it work? Is it too much? Not enough? Is Memoria Press better or Greenleaf? ALSO, should I spend a year on US History rather than revisiting everything else?

In the past we have done SOTW 1, 2, 3 with AG and now CHOW. We have not spent much time on the modern age and only know basic US history from 1620-1849.

DH says to keep focusing on learning the ancients, med, rennais, etc. and US history can be taken care of later.

Please help me gain clarity. Many thanks!!!

[OhElizabeth]

Well I'll go out on a limb and say that makes ME feel tired! I'm not sure how much you'd retain from doing the Famous Men books so fast. Is that basically reading a section each day?

[dorothy]

I know we could. I just do not know that we should. But, a whole year on just FMG or one of the others seems really slow.

[8FillTheHeart]

I don't think you'll be able to create a realistic view or even a real feel of history from FM. It really isn't intended to be a base.

I think the program works well as a supplemental type program. When we are studying a period of history and we have read about a specific person, I might pull out FM and read its selection to simply give more info on that individual and their contributions.

Retention of info at that pace would also be extremely low.

Sorry to be so opinionated. :( FM is ok.....but that about sums it up.

[OhElizabeth]

Our experience is about like momof7's. The FM books are good and my dd enjoys them, but they're better when connected to something else that fleshes them out, adds the context of the time period, tells you what the major events were, the architecture, etc. Otherwise it's just a bunch of names and stories. They complement the VP cards really well btw and would work well with Guerber, which would be right at her level. You would just need to slow it down a bit to do all that. :)

This is just my personal opinion, but I wouldn't cycle again, as you just finished, until she's ready to do it again at a deeper level. Doing a year or two of american might be nice because it would bring you back to ancients when she has another year or two on her and can see it with new maturity and perspective. I also wouldn't want to get to 7th or 8th grade and not have done much american, learned the states, etc. But that's just me. You didn't sound totally convinced though by your dh's argument. Do you know where he's coming from wanting to focus so much on the ancients? Maybe it could be satisfied by doing american and just doing one of the FM books with the MP guides each semester on the side?

[dorothy]

Is there a history program like CHOW but more in depth? Or should I just start SOTW all over again? It would kill dd to do TWTM and outline history.

She loves to read, write, draw about it and wants rich stories and illustrations.

[dorothy]

They know ancients - rennaissance really well and he thinks we can do it again and just go deeper. But I also have my dd 8/3rd along for history. It may be too much.

What would I do for US? Should I go on to do SOTW 4 now?

[nmoira]

Is there a history program like CHOW but more in depth?Van Loon's The Story of Mankind or Gombrich's A Little History of the World would probably be the closest.

[nmoira]

I don't think you'll be able to create a realistic view or even a real feel of history from FM. It really isn't intended to be a base.Even at a gentle pace I wouldn't recommend it. These books are personality driven, not event driven, and there are huge gaps and not much of a sense of flow.

[Laura Corin]

We are going to use Van Loon and Gombrich as spines, then add in Suzanne Strauss Art for depth. There are separate books for Egypt, Greece, Alexander and Rome. We are skipping Egypt this time (and just skimming it with the spine texts). The Strauss Art books are just black and white, but they have projects at the end of each chapter. I've only seen the China books, but they had both written and hands-on ideas.

Best wishes

Laura

[Stacia]

Van Loon's The Story of Mankind or Gombrich's A Little History of the World would probably be the closest.

These were 2 that I was going to mention, though we haven't personally used them (yet).

Also, if you wanted to go more in depth on particular cultures, I think "The World In Ancient Times" series by Oxford University Press looks like a great series. Here is an amazon link that shows some of the books in that series:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/002-5798487-7183227?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=world+in+ancient+times+%2B+oxford+univers ity+press

[Wendy in ME]

We are enjoying The History of Mankind this year. We are also doing the MP guide for FMOR as part of our Latin with LC and the guide for Greek Myths. I like the guide for purposes of practicing written answers with complete sentences as well as the vocabulary. They include a few discussion questions and picture studies as well. That being said, I wouldn't have them do a lesson a day because every lesson is set up exactly the same. We do on mythology and one FMOR lesson per week.

[Nicole in MD]

reading "Our Island Story" aka "An Island Story" by H. E. Marshall. I think you can find it online at mainless.com. It tells the story of Britain from legendary times to WWI. This could be a great lead into American History.

It basically tells the highlights of each ruler of England in story format.

Nicole in MD

[Julie in GA]

I like the idea of history being about people and not events, especially for young children. I did FMOG and FMOR in the same year, and am doing the next two books this year.

I use the Greenleaf Guides with them, which often reference the Cultural Atlas of the Middle Ages (that is, for this year). We also use the Medieval History Portfolio and the Homeschool in the Woods timeline figures.

We're getting a good feel for the history of Western Civilization, and my boys are actually remembering things from one lesson to another. My younger son is assigned copywork passages from the FM book, while my older one often writes short essays on the people we're reading about and puts them in his portfolio.

When they ask questions and need to know more, I pull out SOTW and read the corresponding chapter.

We read about Justinian today, and covered all of the same things that were covered in SOTW, if not more. My boys remember that he:
1)regained territory that had been conquered by the barbarian tribes,
2)built the Haggia Sophia (and we looked at pictures of this)
3)compiled the Code of Justinian (we talked about what this was, and why it was so important)

Okay, can you tell I really like the Famous Men series? I'll be quiet now. :D

[Julie in GA]

So far, we've had a good sense of flow with these. And -- gaps are okay with elementary children -- we need good solid pegs to hang more details on later.