history plan

Hello, Grace:

Our family began 3 years ago with scm. Our family started with the ancients then, ds,11, dd,7 and ds, 5 and I think that it worked well for my oldest. My youngest is narrating nicely, but in history, we are not exclusive SCM and her products.
We started last year and are continuing this year with oral and picture narrations for ds, now8. This is what my history looks like. For the dd, 10 and ds, 8 I read through the 4th grade Abeka American history (mostly we like the pictures and it is an overview of her grade level requirements)and ask for an oral narration for example of the housing that the Native Americans lived in.

In SCM,we all read Bible. Today, we read Daniel Ch 2 fully and narrated it. My youngest with my help reads the first 4 verses and he narrates what they are. THE CHILDREN ALL TAKE turns reading and then we are silent for narration. DS, 8, sits to listen and then picture narrates while the rest of us narrate what happened to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon when he had his dream? We have a running competition. The best detailed narration gets to put 25 grains of rice in our little glass, 1 more glassful will give us the opportunity to spend the night in a hotel with an indoor pool. Swimming indoors in Feb. in central NY is a huge treat. We get all you can eat breakfast next am included.
The 4 of us vote, none for themselves and sometimes my narration is read after the voting, since I win a lot! Today, dd, 10 won. Their narrations are getting good. My ds,15, has a record of 252 lines for a single narration!

I just remembered we read the “Boy King” from A Child’s History by Hillyer to hear how Alex the Great was as a King and what his priorities were. We put a timeline of Daniel, captive in Babylon in 605 AD and Alex the Great died in 323 at 33 YO, away from home. We put 0 on and their birthdays so they could see how BC and AD dates sit on the timeline. We compared the two men as they had very different priorities. Also, the DS, 15 is reading a chapter a day of the Young Macedonian in Alex the Great’s Army.

Also, we read a chapter of The Reb and the Redcoats by Savery. Reminding them that this is a very different book as it’s takes place in England and a “Rebel” American is taken prisoner there. Our family started American Revolution studies in Sept. and I stumbled across this book and thought I’d include it as the English’s perspective.

This may seem overwhelming and confusing, but I’m known and admittedly teach US history along side the Ancients and plan to continue it into the future, since there are many wonderful books about our heritage and I feel I can only do it justice by completing them simultaneously. We are at the cusp of starting Rome and with our heavy reading schedule, it takes us 18 mos. to complete a history guide. If there is much Bible content, I also will only complete a chapter a day and no more and read slowly with special attention to reviewing their narrations from the day before with reteaching it either from my teaching resource Bible or with Pearl Buck’s summarized Story of the Bible, after a certain topic is concluded, like Isaiah.

I hope this did more good than harm!
Blessings,Martha

PS, we oftentimes have many books being read at the same time. As many as 8. I always reread the last page or two to bring them back into the story along with their past narration, they’ve learned that’s just what I do and in How to Read a Good Book, it states that reading several books without completing one first has many benefits. If there is confusion, I go back more to reread or I say, let me read awhile and you see if you can fit the pieces back together in your mind.. Many times, it’s worked.