History

I’m sure there are others more experienced than I who could chime in, but I’ll bet if you list your time period, resources, etc. we might be able to help you out a bit!  🙂

I always buy too many books and have put mine together and organized them for 3 years now.  I’m no expert, but I might be able to help…

I usually pick one overview-type book to be my spine. We read that together. Then I just choose one biography or historical fiction book and assign that for independent reading until it has been read, then I choose another for them. 🙂

So my advice – pick one book, read it, wring out every drop of goodness, and then pick another one.

I have found that reading in perfect chronological order isn’t a “have-to” as long as they are all in the general time period my kids put it together. A spine resource does help the chronology to be more apparent.

Tara

Nina, off hand I would say there is no way you’ll read all those spines and main books in one year at a CM pace (slow so they can digest it and live with the book).

Okay, here is what I would do. Choose the books you absolutely want to do, then put the rest out in a book basket for browsing.

First, choose a spine for the whole family. Just one. This is one you will read aloud from each day, about 1 section or chapter. I know, for example, that Story of the World Vol 1 is divided into short chapters, so it would be easy to do. Then look to see how many chapters it has. A 12 chapter book could be done in 12 days (1 ch. Per day) or in 12 weeks (1 chapter per week). With the spine, if it covers the whole time period we want that year, we make sure we read just enough to finish in a year. So a 34 chapter spine I would read just one chapter a week.

Next you start matching up books to the chapters in your spine. For example what chapters does Story of the World (to continue my example) discuss Noah and the flood, Egyptian writing, mummies, etc? If you do 1 chapter of your spine for the week with the theme of mummies that would be the week that you would read or look at Cat Mummies, Tut’s Mummy Lost and Found, etc.

Look at when your spine begins talking about Egyptians and choose an Egyptian themed chapter book to read 3-4 days per week (a chapter or section at a time). You will actually choose 1 to read aloud to younger grades (up to 3rd or 4th?) and a separate one for the older grades to read on their own or with you. For example Boy of the Pyramids is for younger grades and has 9 chapters. It would take you 3 weeks to read at 1 ch/day for 3 days per week. When that one finishes where will you be in your spine? Will you have moved on to greeks? Then it’s time to choose some chapters out of The Story of Greece to read aloud to kids (or have them read on their own).

Hopefully this is making sense. Basically you want a spine going all year (or two spines in a row). It is your family read aloud. Then each week you want at least 1 book going for each age group, younger and older. I always read aloud the age group book for my younger kids and they narrate to me, but my older child reads her own book and narrates to me. You try to line up these ‘independent/chapter book reads’ to loosely match up with the family read aloud. Then you can add to your weeks any picture book that fits the spine/family read aloud topic for that week. If you want to do activity pages, art, lapbook pieces, etc then jot a note down for each week of the spine where they fit in topically.

A Made Up example:

Week 10:

Family Read Aloud: 1 chapter in The Story of the World. We’ll pretend this chapter is our first introduction to Egyptians and talks about pharaohs, while next week will talk about pyramids, and the third week will talk about mummies.

Younger Grades: Begin reading aloud Boy of the Pyramids, 1 chapter at a time, 3 chapters this week. They will finish this book in 3 weeks of reading.

One day pull out The Pharoahs of Ancient Egypt to look at together for fun, and begin MacCauly’s Pyramid.

Older grades: They’re going to read The Golden Goblet on their own. They read 1 chapter per day. Because this has 16 chapters and you want them to finish it in 4 weeks they need to read 4 chapters this week. They can look at the nonfiction books on pharaohs this week too.

Week 11:

Family Read Aloud: 1 chapter in The Story of the World, this one on pyramids.

Younger grades: Read the next 3 chapters (ch 4-6) of Boy of the Pyramids and look at the rest of Pyramid by MacCauly.

Older Grades: They read the next four chapters (ch. 5-8) of The Golden Goblet this week.

Week 12:

Family Read Aloud: 1 chapter in The Story of the World, this one on mummies.

Younger Grades: Read the last three chapters of Boy of the Pyramids (ch 7-9) and look at any mummy books you have.

Older grades: Read the next four chapters in The Golden Goblet (ch 9-12) and look at mummy books.

Week 13:

Family Read Aloud: 1 chapter in The Story of the World. This one is about some other culture during the time of the Egyptians. Maybe Moses and the Isrealites?

Younger Grades: learn more about Moses with a book or the scriptures each day this week.

Older Grades: Finish their last 4 (ch13-16)chapters in The Golden Goblet. Also read the story of Moses in the scriptures this week.

Does that make sense? You are slowing down and living with books longer this way. Yes, we could read Boy of the Pyramids a few chapters every day and finish it in a week. But then my children would not have really lived with the characters for long. We rushed through. I know some who only read a single chapter per week of these and choose to have a few chapter books in the time period going for a few months. Find what feels right for you.

Questions? Thoughts?