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Do you have to have a spine for History? If so, SotW, SCM volumes, or Pratt's???
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After using a spine last year for Mod 1, I have concluded my boys (7 and 5) and myself don’t like reading from a spine book. We don’t retain anything – the stories are such short snippets there isn’t much of a connection and just much prefer living books for history. What you do think? I am planning on doing Early Modern Times this year since we already jumped into reading all about pilgrims this summer, utilizing the booklist here with some others from Read for the Heart from that time period. I was going to get the SCM Stories of America/World volumes I since it looked very conversational and enjoyable. Then it was recommended to me to use The Story of the World series, I looked at it and liked the narration questions ideas but that was all. Now I am back to trying to decide! argh.
Anyone have and use American History stories/World from SCM and have also used/looked at SotW to give some feedback? Is it worth buying a conversational spine to read from, just to become familiar with names/events even if much isn’t retained at this point? There is also Mara Pratt’s American History stories which are Free at the Baldwin Project online (although I really hate reading online!). I just love getting great books and am so dissappointed when it isn’t as great a read as I was hoping – and would rather spend our school $ on whole books.
I feel your pain! Here at our house we really don’t like spines either. I fought it for a long while, but Sonya set me free! 😉 Seriously though, she did tell me that if it wasn’t working for me and my kids to just STOP. Yay! I don’t have any experience with SOTW, so all I can say is go with your gut. We are starting Module 5 next month with Stories of America (& World) Volume 1. I’m looking forward to it! HTH
We are in module 5 and so far many of the stories in the SCM spines are followed up with a living book on that topic. Not all the stories are, but many do have other books to go deeper. My only experience with SOTW was with volume one and we skipped around. It was okay. I like SCM better.
As far as Mara Pratt, they are available as free audiobooks read by volunteers at LibriVox. I have not listened to them yet, but have downloaded Vol. 1 & 2 and burned to a disc to use in the future.
http://librivox.org/american-history-stories-volume-1-by-mara-l-pratt/
We have enjoyed Stories of America and Stories of the Nations this year. We enjoyed Mara Pratt’s books a few years ago. We did not like the Famous Men series so much. Do what works for you.
We find that using a spine as an audio book works must better for our family. My son is listening to Mara Pratt’s volumes 1&2 at bedtime (yep, he likes that stuff. LOL). We listen to the SOTW CDs in the van. Each section has been approximately 10 minutes, which worked really well for us.
I like using SOW for the most part. I use the chapters that relate to the time period of whatever SCM module we are studying. There’s no set rule to say you have to use all of it, but just what you find interesting or beneficial to know. I make a yearly history outline for this reason. I like knowing which pages I need to read and when, and it also helps to prepare me for upcoming content.
Do you like Hillyer’s A Child’s History of the World? My kids have all loved this book for shorter, engaging stories too.
These spines are just springboards to deeper study. Adding extra living books with narrations is key to retaining.
Thanks ladies for the feedback! Ok, going to stick with my original plan of using the SCM volumes along with the list of living books I made, and maybe check out Pratt’s audio for fun (we also didn’t care for Famouse Men, and I have looked at CHotW from the library – it looked alright). And then I’m going to stuff cotton in my ears and not do anymore research on my already-made term/year plan for this year! Thanks again.
You can get Mara Pratt’s vol 1-4 from Yesterday’s Classics on Amazon for only $9.95 a book. Here’s a link:
I checked Amazon and the Kindle editions are only $1.99 each, so I may do that for vol. 3 and 4 that are not on LibriVox.
We have loved SCM’s Stories of the Nations Vol 1 (only read part of it), and plan to use it along with Stories of America Vol. 1 this year. As far as the spines, we use the ones the SCM guides suggest, but I have to agree that we don’t love the Famous Men books. My kids dread it when I pull those out, and I am going to admit here and now that we’re putting the Famous Men of the Ren. and Ref. away even though we have about 9 chapters left. What is the point if they are not getting anything out of it? I figure we’ll pull it back out again when we revisit Module 4. In the meantime, we read a lot of living books, and we did love the Around the World book and the Famous Men of the Middle Ages was enjoyed more than the latter one.
I did buy Hillyer’s book recently as I found it for $8 in like new condition at a used curriculum sale here in town. I also saw the Handbook of Nature Study for $10 and passed on it. I am having major regret as it was in like new condition as well. Live and learn. I think we’ll use the Hillyer’s along the way especially with my two 1st graders. I know the first 4 chapters give some people pause, but I can skip that and I feel our children need to be exposed to and discuss these other views anyway (though not necessarily in 1st grade!).
@Sarah and sheraz, thanks for the Pratt info. I just downloaded the kindle versions and they look to be a great edition to our kindle library!
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