A Vision for the Mundane

Amy, I sure hope you get some good responses to your question. I am having a similar issue with both of my kids. After working on the habit of attention, carefully choosing books I really believe they’ll love, and keeping our readings short and concise, I am still struggling with getting them to pay attention when we read from our history spines. I have used so many different ones, thinking that it was just a certain book that wasn’t working for us, but alas, I think it’s history period. It’s been so hard for me, and I find myself lecturing them about it more than I’d like to. It’s one of those things that is, as you put it, necessary for their educations, so throwing it out isn’t an option. I’m very interested in this topic as well. Thanks for posting!

From the All Day Charlotte Mason Seminar:

fortitude – bearing up under pain or discomfort

We are on mod 4, and I opted not to use the Famous Men books recommended. I did want to use Foster’s Colombus and Sons, and at first, it was great. Now, not so much. I’m learning a lot from it, but my kids got NOTHING out of the reading this morning, and I walked out frustrated because I wasted my time in reading something that they could not narrate one lick of, nor did they really care about. I made them both re-read it without me and do a written narration instead. I also plan to repeat the modules, which I remind myself of often, but I still feel like our history is missing something. I don’t know what it is, but it feels like something just isn’t there. We had a talk at lunch about having a strong will and making ourselves do something that is necessary even when we don’t want to. That discussion has worked with ds, who strongly dislikes dictation. I hope that it has the same effect for this history reading. If we don’t read from the spine, then all we have are the independent readings, which then means history is no longer a family subject, but becomes an independent study with even bigger gaps. That is why it is important to me to have a spine–just not sure I know which one. Christie has recommended CHOW to me, which I am looking into today. We may not incorporate it into this year, but I’m definitely looking into it for next year.

Child’s History of the World. It’s another history spine, and Christie says it’s her favorite. Christie and I are a lot alike and communicate often via text and phone, and usually if she likes a resource, I like it as well. We spent over an hour today texting about my history woes.

What helps us love history is field trips that make the books more meaningful. Museums, re-enactments, festivals, and films help bring history to life for us. I, too, used to not like history much. But we all love it now.

I would recommend sections of CHOW to correspond with whatever time period being studied. The first couple of chapters talk about cave men, but I skip those. It goes through the end of the Cold War. It’s simple enough for ages 9+ to read independently. I intend to return to this book next year. I used it with my oldest very successfully for grades 1-4. I have a friend who added it to her high schooler’s reading list one year for a simple overview when the rest of his load was heavy. Yes, it’s a simple book, but I’ve learned a lot myself as an adult. I like it bc it’s Christian friendly, chronological, makes a good reader or read aloud, and I learned and retained from it as did my oldest.

I just stumbled on this page when looking for something else. I haven’t read at length yet, but I see we share reasons for liking it. I thought if put it here to add to the CHOW discussion – http://harringtonharmonies.com/2012/06/10-time-periods-for-a-childs-history-of-the-world-reading-list.html

Going forward, I will likely skip the spines as family reading, but have my dd13 complete on her own. She does well with them on her own. I find my kids prefer the majority of their work independent.