Advice needed for implementing Ancient History

I will be teaching a grade 9 and grade 6 boys this year also.  We will be doing SCM module 3 (Matt-Acts & ancient Rome).  We enjoyed a modified version of mod 1 & 2, but this year I plan to stick closer to the guide rather than substitute, add or push the schedule to complete it quicker.  There is plenty in the guides as is.  I know what you mean by looking overwhelming, but they really aren’t.  Take a highlighter and highlight only the books/lessons that apply to your children and you will see how very manageable they really are.  It makes so much sense to use only one guide to teach both children if they are going to be covering the same time frame anyway.  Why spend the extra money or prep time on two?  Both children would have independent reading and assignments geared to their own level.

While I don’t have to start counting credits in my province until 10th, I feel comfortable that SCM will be sufficient. If you search the sight you will find a break down of how the courses would translate.  I think you would seperate the three subjects and earn a portion of a credit in each.  Remember that you can accumulate credits over the course of several years.  For example, the ancient history portion of mod 1-3 may each count as 1/3 credit, allowing you to accumulate 1 full credit in ancient history.

The best place to start is with your state requirements for graduation, if their are any.  If not, you may still consider trying to follow the general expectations of your state public schools as those are the general expectations of potential colleges.  Also don’t forget to consider courses that will be required by potential colleges for specific programs your child may wish to study.

If your older child would need to have a credit in US history at the high school level, you should figure out when you wish for him to complete that.  If you are good with that happening in his final year, you may want to do all ancient history in one (either by using only that portion of SCM or another program), double up two mods in one year, skip an era or two later in the rotation if you feel they have been sufficiently covered in your previous studies or you don’t feel he requires them for graduation.

Funny, I had a 6th and 9th grader last year and we did SCM Module Genesis-Deut. and did part of Joshua-Malachi (which we are finishing this year).  I debated using MFW but decided on SCM and I loved how we could do the majority together with SCM.  They both had their reading to do as you can see on the list based on grade but I felt it was VERY easy to implement.  Here is my blog and you can see the other stuff we covered for the year.  Granted I expect a LOT out of my kids.  But it can give you an idea.  I also made a few changes throughout the year particularly with my 6th grader.

Additional reading for my 6th grader was:  Story of the World volume 1, Tirzah and we also used the Kingfisher Encyclopedia where we read additional topics to where we were studying in the time period.  I found that there is not a whole lot of extra reading for this short time period so we moved at a bit faster pace and starting working on the Greeks since that covers a lot of material.  So he also did:  Black Ships Before Troy, The Parthenon, The Book of the Ancient Greeks, Wanderings of Odysseus which is covered in Joshua – Malachi.

9th grader was:   History related that we added:  The Archaeology Book, Unveiling the Kings of Israel, Unwrapping the Pharaohs

For Literature:  Epic of Gilgamesh, The Iliad, Odyssey, Plato: Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, The Republic, Aristotle: The Metaphysics, I & II, The Ethics I & II, The Poetics, Screwtape Letters, and Holy War by Bunyan

Hope I didn’t confuse you more.  😛  Maybe this could give you some other books to pull from to add to the time period.  Good luck!

Hi Jennifer;

Please remember that we used the Egypt Module a few years back, before the revisions.  Others may have more recent and helpful suggestions that would relate to your situation.

My boys were also a few years younger when we did Gen-Deut/Egypt (3rd and 6th at the time).  They both enjoyed Boy of the Pyramids then, but it would be a bit young for your boys.  I enjoyed The Golden Goblet, though my oldest didn’t so much.  My budget was limited so we didn’t buy many of the books but used what we could find at the library.  I would have to dig out my notes, but I remember one book in particular which was called something like The Diary of a Young King (probably not the exact title) which offered lots of detail on Egyptian life through the fictional journal entries of young king Tut.  We used A Picturesque Tale of Progress volume 1 as well as Story of the World to some small degree, but not the extent we could have.  This was just before SCM put out Egypt and Her Neighbours.  We substituted Sojourn in Africa: Travels with Aunt Laura for Letters from Egypt.  We watched a few documentaries about the pyramids, and found a 360 tour of the Valley of the Kings and other interesting website to explore about Egypt and Africa in general.  I found keeping my tablet handy during lesson time great because we could google images of the artifacts, animals, landscape, natural features etc. when we came across them.  Sometimes I’d be ready ahead with an image or video, other times not.  A tablet is easier than a computer for this because we could pass it back and forth as we sat on the sofa, and I could slip it out of sight when we were finished with it so it wouldn’t be as much of a distraction.

We didn’t use the recommended Bible commentaries that time around, partly because they weren’t in my budget, partly because I knew we wouldn’t be able to get to everything.  I work outside the home until at least noon Monday to Friday, and that means I have to be extra careful as to how many resources I schedule or else we end up getting to far behind.  I schedule ten weeks worth of work to be completed in 12 for most subjects, thereby giving me lots of room for catch-up.  I love that SCM history mods leave room for catch-up at the end of each term.  I also love that most lessons are short enough to double up on occasion.  You could easily schedule the model over 3 or 4 days instead of 5, making it possible to complete the 3 ancient history mods over two years instead of three if you were so inclined.  You might choose to drop a book from each of the reading lists to make that more comfortable if your students are not voracious readers.

It’s important to recognize that the guides are just that – guides, and not meant to tie you to a specific schedule or set of books, but I find it really helpful when I am looking at substituting a book to know how the one I am substituting it for was scheduled and attempt to fit the new book into that slot.  I may have to adjust the number of chapters/pages read per week, but as long as it remains reasonable, perfect. Otherwise I may have to schedule the book a couple extra time throughout the term.  I can also adjust our reading schedule for other subjects if necessary so that the heavier books are spread out more and there is a good mix of fiction/non fiction, etc.  Occasionally I come across a book that I would love for one of them to read, but can’t fit it into our schedule so I will put it in our reading basket as an option for their leisure reading time.  Eventually they may get to some of them, but no problem if they don’t.

It really helps to be super clear as to what the goal is.  It is not to cram every possible bit of knowledge into their brains that we possibly can.  We need to offer enough to make them hungry for more, but not so much that they get stuffed or bored of the fair and lose their appetite for learning.  I don’t care to use fill in the blank workbooks as I feel they give a false sense that they are providing everything that is essential to the topic and they don’t create a hunger to look for anything beyond their pages.   Others may have a different perspective on them.

We’ve not used the book of centuries yet — will be starting that this year, so I can’t help you much there.  Sorry.