Help with history!!!

[Mari]

Hi. I am trying to schedule a plan to teach history for my children who are 3.5 years apart. I'm trying to show my husband how history will be taught for both kids from now all the way through graduation. I really need advice on how to implement SOTW for multiple children.

My son will begin 3rd grade and my daughter will begin Kindergarten next fall. I've missed the boat in scheduling DS into the 4 year cycle but there's still time for my daughter when she begins first grade. I think I might still be able to give him the benefit of 4 full years of the cycle rather than rushing through 2 volumes per year. My plan is to teach Sonlight Core K next year (grades 3 & K) emphasizing cultures and geography, then begin SOTW cycle for the next 4 years.

Can I simultaneously teach both children the 4 year cycle using the SOTW books? Are these books just for the grammar stage? I'm trying to make it easier on myself by using the same spine but perhaps adding extra resources for my son who in the middle of the cycle will be moving from the grammar to the logic stage.

One of my problems is while I enjoy the concept of SOTW, I don't believe there is enough American History thrown in the mix. If I follow the above plan, how would I add in more American History? One idea I had was to stretch out WinterPromise's American Story 1 and 2 over those 4 years and just teach it slowly alongside SOTW as a separate "American Studies " course. Would this work? Would it be too much?

Any advice thrown my way would be greatly appreciated!

--Mari

[Sue G in PA]

For your age range, the program would be perfect. It is biblical (is WP Christian or secular?) so that is a consideration if you were looking for secular. Anyway, MFW starts the cycle with a study of World Geography starting in 3rd gr. (unless you have younger sibs who just join the olders!) and then continuing on w/ the typical 4yr. cycle of History. For 2nd gr. they have an Adventures program which studies basic Amer. History. Year 4 and 5 in their History cycle is mostly American w/ some World thrown in. MFW also schedules SOTW in w/ the history studies.

Another option is MOH (again, it is Christian so forgive me if that isn't what you want!) which is good for your age groups. A Ker might not get a ton out of it...but at that age History is so totally not mandatory. You could always add the Ker the next school year when he/she is in first.

[Cadam]

I went with MFW (mfwbooks.com) because I wanted more US history in the world history cycle. If you used MFW it would put your ds in "Adventures in MFW" which is US history for 2nd/3rd graders.

If your dd isn't reading I would suggest MFW Kindergarten. If she is already reading then you could do K for the Science and Bible or just do her own things for math and phonics and let her work on the Adventures projects and stuff at her own level, for fun.

So far I have let my younger ones do their own thing and then listen to read-alouds and do projects with the older ones as they want to. This has been plenty of history and science for the little ones. This year my first grader hasn't done MFW 1st but she has done her own math,& Latin (she is finished with phonics) and joins us for reading, experiments and projects. I don't expect her to analyze the experiment or have a big discussion about what we have read, but it's enough for her.

MFW main cycle is a year of geography and culture study and then 4 years of world history with an emphasis in US History. The Bible study is all integrated and they do use SOTW except for ancients when the Bible is your main spine. If you used all MFE this is how it would go....

DS/DD

3rd/K
Adventures in MFW (US history)/MFW-K
4th/1st
ECC/MFW 1st
5th/2nd
Both do "Creation to the Greeks"(with the 2/3rd supplemental books for dd)
6th / 3rd
Both do "Rome to the Reformation"(with the 2/3rd supplemental books for dd)
7th / 4th
Both do "Exploration to 1850"
8th / 5th
Both do "1850 to Modern times"

After this your son starts the MFW High School cycle and your dd would start the cycle over with Exploring countries and Cultures since she was only in first grade when you did that one with your son. She will continue the cycle and re-do CtoG and R2R at a higher level before joining your ds in the High School Cycle.

It might be worth a look. They have message boards too where you can ask questions.

[homewithtrinity]

Your thoughts sound good to me. If you do not want to add another program to cover US history, try spending every Friday discussing library books relating to US history. That is what I did when our kids were young. This allowed us to follow the 4 year rotation while still grounding the kids in US history. The kids always looked forward to Fridays.