America's Story by Angela O'Dell

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  • psreitmom
    Participant

    I would like reviews on this, if anyone has used it. I am looking for a gentle way to cover American history with my struggling 8th grade daughter (this would be used in 9th). She is working at a remedial level, so I think it would be a good fit for her. Any feedback would be appreciated.

    lettucepatchkids
    Participant

    hummm, I used all 3 of these volumes with my girls when they were in k-2 (they are now in 6th and 7th grade) and while I have fond memories of the books when I re-read a chapter or two with my son I was pretty underwhelmed. Maybe because I’ve had many years since under my belt with wonderful living books but I just wasn’t impressed looking at them again.  I think I’d recommend these books for the younger elementary set at most… so no not a high school student, even at a remedial level.

    Have you looked into SCM Stories of America?

    psreitmom
    Participant

    Okay. I thought if these were geared for up to 6th grade, or thereabouts, they may work for my daughter. So, you would not consider them living books?

    I have looked at SCM a little. I will look closer at it. I am going to meet with my evaluator to come up with a plan for high school, so I have been looking at different curricula to put on my list of possibilities before I meet with her. I want to challenge my daughter, but I need to make sure we give more attention to areas of study that will benefit her in her adult life. History is NOT one of those areas. So, I need something that does not require a lot of time. Good living stories, and maybe some gentle map work would be what I’m looking for.

    lettucepatchkids
    Participant

    I think it depends on how you evaluate living books

    the author definitely has a passion for the subject … however it is not what I’d say is high literary quality

    psreitmom
    Participant

    I don’t know about literary quality, but looking at samples, it looks like the level of reading would be good for my daughter, due to her problems with receptive language skills. I also looked at SCM samples and I do like those as well. Since it seems there is as much world history as American, how do you determine high school credit for that? We have to show 3 different areas of history/social studies on the high school transcript. I know we could call it Early American history, but it seems there is just as much world history. Just curious about that.

    sheraz
    Participant

    If you do only one year of the SCM American/World history guides, you would get 1/2 credit of American history and 1/2 credit for World history. If you do both guide 5 & 6, you would get 1 full credit of American and 1 full credit of World history.

    Sonya has laid out the credits in the back of each of these guides. If you download the sample, the last page explains it in more detail.

    So if you did both SCM American/World history guides and included a government class, you would potentially have your 3 credits…

    psreitmom
    Participant

    sheraz – Thank you. I was thinking half credits, but wanted to be sure. Having it planned out is what I need. SCM would be a good way to take care of that. Will add this to my list of possibilities.

    sarah2106
    Participant

    The other positive with SCM is that if gives suggested books for reading/grade levels, so of you wanted to assign your DD a book at a different level that fits her best, while reading the family books, the options are all scheduled in.

    psreitmom
    Participant

    The more I look at the samples, the more I like the idea of SCM. Thanks for the recommendations.

Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
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