American history question.....

[Kate in VA]

Okay.... i am working on putting together my own thing for Am history next year (2nd/3rd grade..... my dd will be 8 by then) I want to do history once a week.... It may end up to be an all day thing.... However I know very little about History especially American History (you can thank my PS education for that):D So I was researching what to use for a spine..... I'm looking for something simple to keep my dd attention but I will dive more into each topic my other book from the library, etc..... and then do projects......

However my main question is what year or event should I teach up till? I don't want to have to rush to get all the way to 911 or anything...... Should I make it a 2 year plan so that we can dive more deeply and have time too and not lose my mind or should I just focus on more important events and more on? Ex. "pull out" the chapter that i wnat to cover and leave the rest? If I do 2 years we would take it slow and break from time to time to focus on something and then maybe come back to it......

Also do you all timeline your events..... at what age do you find that your children grasp this the most..... we tried last year and my dd just wasn't interested at all....... And if I should do this, would it be good to get a book timeline type thing like at Homeschool in the woods and the software pictures? .......

You all have been such a help so far.... please keep holding my hand through this!;)

Thanks so much,
kate

[Narrow Gate Academy]

Some common US spines that people seem to like are:
The History of the US series by Joy Hakim
This Country of Ours (http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=marshall&book=country&story=_contents) by H. E. Marshall (cover up through Woodrow Wilson
The Story of the Thirteen Colonies and The Story of the Great Republic by Guerber (available at nothingnewpress.com) which goes up through the assasination of McKinley

We have the Guerber spines which my 3rd grader enjoys, but this time around I chose to use the commentary from TruthQuest's American History for Young Students series along with books from their book lists.

I don't think that I would try to cover all of history in 1 year. A 2 year plan would give you much more time to enjoy things along the way. We're planning to go through the War of 1812 this year and then finish next year. Other plans I've seen break around 1850 at the Civil War.

We do use timelines. I made our own timeline books using the directions at the Homeschool in the Woods website. Their HTTA figures are excellent and definitely make things much easier. I recommend the CD version. That said I think the strength of timelines is in showing how while one thing is happening in one part of the world another event is happening in another part of the world at the same time. Since you're just studying American history, you could probably skip it this year if you chose. I consider our timelines to be long term projects that the kids will add to for several years.

[OhElizabeth]

When you say you want to do projects, what kind of projects? Papercrafts? Sewing and more involved stuff? Have you seen the Childhood of Famous Americans series? Your dd is a great age to enjoy them. My dd became more interested in sequences of events and timelines in 2nd, but we still haven't bothered with a timeline. I wouldn't unless YOU are willing to make it happen.

You'd think there'd be a lot of great spines for this, but they all have flaws. Some are too detailed, others dry, others are older and don't go up to the present. If your dd likes papercrafts, you might consider WP and their recommendations (DK Children's Encyclopedia... is the spine). Abeka4 will work for that age on up through 4th or 5th grade. I'm fiddling around with it trying to decide how I want to use it to make history happen for us next year. I'm probably going to spread it out over a couple years, doing a chapter then doing activities and whatnot, letting her read TQ books, etc. I think Angela in Ohio also did this and said it worked out well. Tami around here has a blog with the schedule she used with her dd. It had readings and activities. I've found that activities really mean different things to different people. My dd thinks if you don't build it or re-enact it, it wasn't worth doing, lol. She doesn't color, papercraft, or anything like that. But that might suit someone else's dc. Some books are too young or the projects are vague and don't really reinforce anything you're covering. Maybe that suits some people too, I suppose. I found this book http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0876285892/ref=sib_dp_pt/103-3353509-4043013#reader-link as I was looking through the TOG year 2 samples last night and it looks like the type of thing we like. Also, don't know if you can now, but it used to be you could buy just a cd of the activities pages from TOG for really cheap ($10). TOG has a great sequence, but it crams a lot into one week that I'd rather spread out. The activities they list though are right on for what I've been looking for to use with my dd. It's really pathetic that with as many project books as I have, so many of them don't suit us or seem to be what we were looking for. Other people like them though, so just see what suits you.

Another thing to consider is a state study as you go along. There are some fun cookbooks and things to go with state studies.

Whether you do a survey or multi-year study is up to you. You could easily spend 2-3 years studying it in-depth. You might like to have her use the VP cards for memory work, to learn the sequence of events. They'll give you a sense of how to space things and divide your time. Or for instance with Abeka4 as the spine, you could spend almost a month on each chapter, which sounds like a lot until you consider a Time Travelers kit from KQ would take that long. Sometimes I like doing my own thing and other times I crave a pre-planned thing. Hope you like whatever you end up doing! :)

[Debra in CO]

We're using Sonlight, and their American history (Cores 3 and 4) has you breaking around the Civil War. It isn't strictly chronological, but it worked out really well for us. Core 3 ends around the 1870s, skipping virtually everything related to slavery, states rights, and the Civil War. Core 4 starts around 1850, kicking off the US history part with issues related to slavery and North vs. South.


We're right around the turn of the century now, and I'm really looking forward to actually learning about WWI - my public school classes always had textbooks that ended with WWI, and we NEVER got that far. Only once or twice did we actually get as far as Reconstruction, and only in my state history year did I learn anything about the time period from 1870-1910 (we learned about Teddy Roosevelt, specifically, and by default learned a bit about US history of that era). And my 20th century history class started with the Roaring 20s, so we didn't cover WWI there either. I know virtually NOTHING about WWI. Don't know why I'm going off on that tangent except to say that I'm finding it fascinating to learn about a time period I knew almost nothing about before this year. And my kids are having fun too.

[Kate in VA]

Some common US spines that people seem to like are:
The History of the US series by Joy Hakim
This Country of Ours (http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=marshall&book=country&story=_contents) by H. E. Marshall (cover up through Woodrow Wilson
The Story of the Thirteen Colonies and The Story of the Great Republic by Guerber (available at nothingnewpress.com) which goes up through the assasination of McKinley

We have the Guerber spines which my 3rd grader enjoys, but this time around I chose to use the commentary from TruthQuest's American History for Young Students series along with books from their book lists.

I saw all these spines, if I chose one of them I would lean towards The Story of the Thirteen Colonies. However I saw these at Yesterday's classics (http://www.yesterdaysclassics.com/catalog/displaycatalog.php?catalog=history) and I may use them as a springboard to other read-alouds and picture books (like the ones in TQ) They are the ones at the bottom titled
American History Stories by Mara L. Pratt vol. 1-4

[Kate in VA]

When you say you want to do projects, what kind of projects? Papercrafts? Sewing and more involved stuff? Have you seen the Childhood of Famous Americans series?

I was leaning more to papercrafts.... like Time travelers..... to incorportate into a notebook... But sewing and things can also be incorporated....


Another thing to consider is a state study as you go along. There are some fun cookbooks and things to go with state studies.

Now why did you have to go and say this! :rolleyes: Now my head is spinning again!:D hhhhmmm lol

Thanks,
kate

[Another Lynn]

You might want to take a look at Beautiful Feet's Primary Literary Guide to American History. You don't necessarily need the guide to take advantage of the book list they use. In my experience (limited!) at this age it's a lot easier to find great books related to American History and a lot harder to find a great spine. This Country of Ours *might* be too old - but you can read it online (as you mentioned - yesterday's classics) and decide for yourself. (Do I remember Tapestry of Grace listing it in their Dialectic resources? I could be wrong about that). There are also some older books by Edward Eggleston you might consider for a spine.

As far as where to stop - it seems like a lot of curriculums divide American History at the Civil War.

As far as timelines go - you could try it, but I wouldn't be too upset if it falls by the wayside at this age. Maybe just keep a notebook of drawings, projects, narrations, etc. and let it serve as a reminder of topics studied - it would logically be in chronological order.?

I would maybe just stick to great children's books on American History and not worry too much about a spine. If you have All Through the Ages it is a great resource of good books by historical period and by grade level. It also gives you a timeline of important events which would help you make sure you covered what you wanted to without worrying about a spine.

Just a few thoughts, HTH.

[ABQmom]

When my oldest dc were that age, we used Beautiful Feet to guide us through the first year of American History. The second year, I just made up a booklist of books I wanted to read to take us through history from the Civil War to modern times. We read so many great books that year, and learned so much--we only made it to the 1960's. I used abookintime.com to help me choose good books for my dc's age level and to put them in the right order. We used the Draw Write Now books for projects and maps and the kids had a nice notebook of American history when we finished.

The things I learned from this:
1. Reading from the abundance of great American history literature for little ones fueled a love for history in all of us.
2. We didn't really need a spine at this age.
3. You can't cover it all, so be choosy about the readings.

I think the WTM recommends timelines during the logic stage. That's been good advice for us.

[BarbaraL in OK]

My younger ds is a 2nd grader and turned 8 this month. This is our first year doing American history and we're using a spine and additional readings. I am doing this with both my 8yo son and my 12yo son, and we do few if any projects. To plan, I followed LCC/The Latin-Centered Curriculum-style of American studies one day a week, with my Charlotte Mason/Ambleside Online twist of reading the main text slowly in little bites over many weeks.

The spine for both my kids: This Country of Ours, 1-2 chapters per week. The kids read them in their assigned-reading time, once a week. If we're lucky, we'll get to the American Revolution by the end of the school year, and do most or all of TCOO next year.

Other books: I looked through what we would probably cover in TCOO this year, and found likely books in our library's catalog. I referred to The Artner Reader's Guide to American History, and the LCC suggestions for my younger son: American famous persons and folk tales. I made notes so I would remember what to request when the time came. Then I request one or several books (chapter, nonfiction, picture-story) around the time the kids get to the related topic in TCOO.

Due to the presidential election cycle, this year we're also doing some election and presidency study as it comes up.

We don't do projects, other than Thanksgiving prep, our Independence Day party, and that kind of thing :)

We don't do a timeline either.

With this approach, we just read a bit in the spine and enjoy additional books relatively often, all year long. We keep moving along, 30-45 minutes of reading, one day a week, and we'll get to the present day someday :)

[hsm]

have you looked at ourlosbanyos.com the free curri. there has links by topical "weeks" to paper and other crafts, notebooking sites, etc. It may give you some good ideas to spring from...