How do you start a 1st grader into your 4 yr. history rotation?

[TundraAcademy]

I have a 3rd grader on his 3rd year of STOW (Early Modern). Next year I will also have a 1st grader. Should I include the 1st grader in our year 4 or should I start Ancients (1st year) with him separately?

What have your experiences been?


Thanks in advance,
Wendy

[ArwenA]

SOTW 4 is the most difficult book in the series. I tried doing it with my 4th grader and K'er this year and there were lots of tears. I think it would be better to wait for ancients so that you can have a positive start to your history studies. You could focus on geography, your country's history and read some books from SOTW 4.

[ArwenA]

Oops! You were thinking of starting him on the ancients separately, not waiting a year as I thought. I wouldn't do that either, teaching two history cycles can be a lot of work and it can break up that sense of "family learning" that I like to encourage. If they don't start SOTW 1 until second grade it's not the end of the world. If I kept all my kids on their respective cycle I'd be teaching four different time periods, way too much.

[Narrow Gate Academy]

I just folded my 1st grader in with my 3rd grader this year. They are both working on American history this year and next before the cycle starts over. I would definitely try to keep them on the same cycle. We don't use SOTW so I don't know if SOTW4 will work well for a 1st grader. I'd probably just let the 1st grader listen in and maybe try to find some simple biographies and historical fiction that correlate with your studies for your youngest if SOTW is too much.

[Lori in MS]

I focus on the basics in first grade. They participate a lot in the science (we do elementary Apologia) and some of the read alouds and book basket (I get books on their level from the library. ) I don't require them to do SOTW at that age (esp volume 4) I usually include them with our history studies beginning in 2nd grade.

[KIN]

I just fold my K'r into our history studies - we're in SOTW 2. I don't require him to narrate, just listen to the story, color his picture and do his map. :) I figure it is just about exposure now anyway. I plan to have him narrate next year, 1st grade.

[Musical Belle]

This is exactly the situation we found ourselves in this year, and in the planning I wondered whether we should continue with SOTW Vol. 4 or start over with Ancients for the sake of our 1st grader. I decided to go ahead with the modern history, but it has been tough on dd. We have had to scrounge for supplemental materials like coloring pages and age-appropriate books, and much of the information is over her head.

On the up side, SWB said in a previous post that PHP should have a "younger siblings" pack available this summer which will supplement Vol. 4. That would make it much easier on people in our situation!

[Ali in OR]

You're hitting this a year ahead of me, but I plan to do just one cycle with both kids. My youngest has been sitting in on everything from the beginning and doing the coloring pages. I am excited about the pages for youngers that will be coming out for year 4 and I plan to use those. Also we use Biblioplan, so there will be K-2 readers and other sources to focus on if SOTW gets too heavy. Haven't thought too much about narrations yet. If it doesn't seem like appropriate material to narrate, we can do narrations in science or English or just wait until 2nd grade when we're back to Ancients.

[Lori D.]

We chose to focus on famous people, inventions, scientists, exploration, animals, etc of modern times, rather than all the wars, Depression, Civil Rights, violence, etc. in those early grades. Below are some ideas of titles and topics for Modern History (1860-present). The majority are "stepped" readers, which keeps the topic simple for Kinder-1st grade, or allows 2nd-3rd graders to do a lot of the reading themselves. Enjoy! Warmly, Lori D.


1860s
- Riding the Pony Express (Bulla)
- Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express (Coerr)


1870s
- Wagon Wheels (Brenner)
- The Copper Lady (Ross)
- Long Way to a New Land (Sandin)
- The Long Way Westward (Sandin)
- Wagon Train" (Kramer)
- The Josefina Story Quilt (Coerr))
- Snowshoe Thompson (Levinson)
- Daniel's Duck (Bulla)



1880s
- Dinosaur Hunter (Alphin)
- The Snow Walker (Wetterer)
- Prairie School (Avi)


1890s
- The Big Balloon Race" (Coerr)
- If You Lived 100 Years Ago (McGovern)


1900s
- First Flight: Story of Tom Tate and the Wright Brothers (Shea) (1903)
- Clara and the Book Wagon (Levinson)
- If You Lived at the Time of the Great San Francisco Earthquake (Levine) (1906)
- Eat My Dust! Henry Ford's First Race (Kulling)


1910-1919
- Titanic: Lost and Found (Donnelly) (1912)


1920s
- Babe Ruth Saves Baseball (Murphy)
- Man O'War, The Best Racehorse Ever (Mckerly)
- Balto: The Bravest Dog Ever (Standiford)
- Tut's Mummy: Lost and Found (Donnelly)(1922)
- Night Flight: Charles Lindbergh... (Kramer) (1927)
- The Story of the Panama Canal (Cornerstones of Freedom series)


1930s
- To The Top! Climbing the World's Highest Mountain (Kramer)
- Dust for Dinner (Turner)
- The Girl Who Struck Out Babe Ruth (Patrick)
- A Horse Named Seabiscuit (Duvowski)


1940s
- Hill of Fire (Lewis) (eyewitness of birth of Mexican volcano)
- The Little Riders (Shemin) (WW2)
- Twenty and Ten (Bishop) WW2)
- Number the Stars (Lenski) (WW2)


1960s
- Moonwalk: First Trip to the Moon (Donnelly) (1969)
- Race Into Space" (Arnold)
- The Story of the First Man on the Moon (Cornerstones of Freedom series)
- If You Lived at the Time of Martin Luther King (Levine)


1980s-present
- Civil War Sub: Mystery of the Hunley (Jerome) (rediscovered in 1990s)
- Giant Squid: Mystery of the Deep (Dussling)



Biographies:

- Mr. Blue Jeans: A Story About Levi Strauss (Weidt) -- 1829-1902
- Sitting Bull (Penner) -- 1831-1890
- Mark T-W-A-I-N! A Story About Samuel Clemens (Collins) -- 1835-1910
- Story of Thomas Alva Edison: Wizard of Menlo Park (Davidson) -- 1847-1931
- CLICK! Story of George Eastman (Mitchell) -- 1854-1932
- We'll Race You Henry Ford (Mitchell) -- 1863-1947
- Bully For You, Teddy Roosevelt (Fritz) -- 1858-1919
- George Washington Carver (Collins) -- 1864-1943
- Wright Brothers (Reynolds) -- 1867-1948
- Helen Keller's Teacher (Davidson) -- 1866-1936
- The Great Houdini: World Famous Magicia (Kulling) -- 1874-1926
- Helen Keller (Davidson) -- 1880-1968
- Jackie Robinson and the Story of All Black Baseball (O'Connor) -- 1919-1972
- Anne Frank Biography (Martin) -- 1929-1945
- Free At Last: Story of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Bull) -- 1929-1968
- Sadako and the 1000 Paper Cranes -- 1943-1955

[Just a Jen in Mississippi]

I had the same dilemma and I ended up just folding my younger daughter right in. There was so much she enjoyed about that time period, though it does have a lot of war stories. I can't remember, is the Civil War in that volume? If so, that was my 1st graders favorite! She loved reading books on Mary Chestnut (wrote a Civil War diary) Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Harriet Tubman and even kept a journal where she wrote about these people. We took weeks to devour the Civil War and she still remembers it.

I agree with the previous poster......just hit the high lights. They will never remember ALL that information from volume 4, but the important thing is to make history fun and interesting. For my younger ones, I try to always have easier to read/picture type books on hand to read to them. There's just so much to cover in the modern period so you'll have lots to chose from.

I think many of us have been in your situation (easy to do when you have several children!). You have to keep going! Good luck!

[prairiegirl]

I think it depends on your children. I knew that my ds (gr.1) would not be able to handle Vol. 3 or 4 right now, so I have just concentrated on the basics with him. When we read extra books for the time period that we are in, then he listens but I don't expect him to do SOTW with us.

I will start Anciencts with him and his other sisters when he is in Gr. 3.


Julia
mom of 3 (8,7,5)