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4 year cycle or 6 year cycle for history
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I am transitioning some of my classical education subjects into a more CM way of doing things and one area I am wondering about is the whole cycle of world history.
My idea is that because we have been on the 4 year cycle of world history, we would continue with that in the morning during our lesson time, and in the afternoon, my children can learn a specific part of history that interests them in much more detail and with much more time (since CM states -I don’t know where I read it – that it is good to continue in chronological sequential lessons on history and allow them to follow their passions in the afternoon which would give them more time to delve deeply into it, and yet we wouldn’t get behind on the hsitory lessons).
I would like to switch to the 6 year cycel but I don’t want to break up our consistency and plan now that we have restarted the world history this year. I struggled with the 4 year cycle because it does not allow a person to really get deep into learning about a particular topic that interests them or allow them any time for projects and such, but when I read what CM said about allowing for passions for the afternoon, that gave me more hope and something to work with.
Is this reasonable? Anyone else have any ideas? Does any one else follow the 4 year cycle of history?
I no longer do. I decided to “jump” in midstream even if it took adjustment, because I felt like I was on a Cook’s Tour of history “That object off to the side was the Middle Ages. Next stop ahead–the American Revolution!”
*I* wasn’t able to read the living books I wanted to read on a 4 year schedule. There are too many books. Too many fascinating people. Too much to do. For all that, 6 years is actually too short too, but it’s my compromise. Otherwise we’d never get anywhere. 🙂
Yes, 4 yr. is too short, as is a 6-year; so I have to make sure they love history enough to continue reading about it after they leave home!
If you do what you say in the first paragraph, I think you’ll still take longer than 4-years and feeling more pressure. My advice is to “jump ship” off the 4 yr. cycle and go to 6 yr.; adjust where necessary. You’ll still be hitting a time period 2x and the children can make their own associations with people and events between the time periods, even if they aren’t perfectly lined up.
Rachel
I’d advise to jump ship also. Four years is just too short to be able to linger over anything and like the others said, six is too, but it’s a good compromise. For us, the afternoons are for handicrafts, life-skills, the outdoors, not really more “book” subjects. It’s not that my kids don’t love to read, it’s just I want them to enjoy other things as well.
If your education was anything like my ps one, you received 1/2 year state history, 1 year world geography (a joke), 1/2 US history, 1 year world history. That’s it. I’ve learned astronomically more history in teaching my kids (and the oldest is only 10) than I did in highschool and 2 years of college combined. Bonus, I actually LIKE history now – the CM way has made all the difference.
Blessings,
Christie
Well, I think I am hearing something that I have been strongly contemplating the last two weeks. I was just seeing if I coud revive the last remaining pieces of the 4 year cycle we have followed so far iin some good and inspiring way, but I think it is not a good idea.
It sure would ease up our schedule and make our learning more meaningful for this presnet year as we could slow down. My oldest did say recently that he finds the history lessons going too quckly and not very interesting. I know he would like to linger more on our present topics and do some projects etc, but we are too full of information and lacking time in our day (as I also think there is more to life than studying like hobbies and life skills to learn and enjoy) to stop and linger on a subject. I have been feeling like the 4 year cycle wasjust too much to cover lately especially since I find as they are getting into the higher grades (for a lack of a better word),t hey have much more detailed and heavier works to read through and comprehend.
I think I will discuss this with my hubby tomorrow as he is a real historian. I will have to review my recently created 6 year history plan again to see how we would cover it for the next 7 -9 years for my first two children (and then integrating my two youngest children in in the next 2-4 years).
I was just wondering if they will get enough out of the 6 year cycle over the 4 year cycle (yes that is still my “quantity over quality” mentality speaking. I am trying to get out of that thinking.
)By the way, you want to know something, for history or social studies, I was only ever taught my Canadian history twice in my teen years (which was utterly boring, poorly explained, and I retained nothing of it) along with snippets of different cultures when I was in elementary school (and it too was boring. And franky the most vivid memory of this subject during this time are two things: the fact that the Aztecs sacrificed people and how they did it, and that I had to spend all my grade 5 social studies class copying notes off of 4 blackboards repeatedly as my teacher wrote on them for the whole entire class. That is it.) I never covered world history, so I agree with you! I am learning way more history and really only begun to enjoy it this past year (as I think the ps influence has just left me in my late 30’s – cna you beleive it!)
Thankyou for your advice.
Okay Ladies,
This is not what I was initially thinking of doing for our history, but I am loving it! I spoke with my husband (who knows world history like the palm of his hand) about our dilemma of too much to cover in 4 years and such. After much discussion of what about this, or what about that, this is what we have come up with.
We will essentially be covering world history in about 2 years or so which allows us to spend one year on Canadian history and government (since we are Canadians) and then I have 1 year for flex or we do something else or start the repeat again. Now I know this appears to be too fast, but the neat thing is he has cut my children’s writing workload to half! And we will be able to do much more reading of history and literature – story or narrative style along with times of oral narration/discussion (where I guide and prompt them in helping them make their connections if need be). (He sat down with mje and told me what the main ideas were for history, what are the most important aspects for each period of history, and what I should look/listen for when we discuss their history, and what few questions I should ask to help them think deeper into what they are learning. Hurray! I needed this as history is such a weak subject for me, and I never was taught how to make connections. It wa a crash course, but honestly terribly enjoyable!) He will also be discussing history and their literature with them every week. Now we do use a narrative spine for history which helps us keep things chronological along with our literature and living books related to the time period. We are doing only one timeline together. There is more to it, but that is the basic juste!
Well, I just had to say thankyou for listening!
Okya–it is me again. I know my last post was something of a crazy idea! I looked at it and loved it, BUT it looked like it would go so fast that I would not have any time to order books and read them, narrate etc and get everything else done in my home. SO I reveiwed it again.
I saw that what my husband shared with me and that I liked was the fact that now I know what is most important to cover and what could be just read and basically passed over. Furhtermore, he did decrease our workload to what is most important which meant less writing! Hurray! Lastly, he helped me understand and gave me questions and concepts that I need to look for when narrating and discussing history. The only thing was the quickness of the process, so after discussing it again with him, I will be going back to the 4 year cycle which I really did like. It will give me sooo much more time to read through everything and do all that we need to do. We will be able to spend time on a certain topic if we need and speed up where we can’t. We will have enough time to read living books and not get behind….and I will be able to plan and prepare for our homeschooling and home life with decency.
We will also be learning Canadian history/governement/geography etc along side World history. The neat thing is we can do each of them in little chunks instead of big chunks. Well, that is all for now. Thanks for listening.
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