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If you like SCM but want to do Ancient History in one year instead of three…
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What do you do? Pick another program for the one year and then go back to SCM for years 2-4? Buy the three guides and skip over alot to squeeze it all into one year?
I really like the look of the SCM history modules and feel they would be a good fit for our family but I just can’t see doing 3 years of ancient history. Plus my dd and ds are four years apart so a four year cycle would work out very well for us.
Can we just talk Sonya into publishing another module that has the ancients in a single year? 😉
Well, my3boys and I have a similar situation:
http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/history-rotation-problem-again
You didn’t mention the ages of your children now. Mine are grades 2 and K and we started ancient history for grades 1 and the pre-K went along with it. We are doing 2 years total of a first rotation of an elementary history with some SOTW1 and lots of picture books: Usborne Time Traveler, Bible history, Beautiful Feet American history guide with D’Aulaire books and some step into reading American history books. Some have used Hillyer’s Child’s History of the World that is used in Sonlight.
Then the plan is to combine module 1 – 3 into 2 years and modules 4 – 6 in 3 years, as normal. This gives me 12 years of history in 3 rotations at 2 + 5 + 5. My thinking on this was a combination of 2 things: the classical approach has 3 rotations and many of the resources in SCM modules are geared more for grade 2 and up. By the time we get to SCM, my youngest should be ready.
The problem that I see with it is that the SCM history modules also include the bible history. Going through ancients in 1 year would mean doing Genesis – Acts and Romans in 1 year. You also couldn’t use the the SCM guides like Genesis-Deuteronomy etc. because they also include the geography and I don’t see how to do 3 Modules in 1 year. If you choose to do a different bible history and geography program anyway then I would just go with a different history, too. Like you said, you can always do Modules 4-6 after that one year. Just my 5 cents:)
Christine
Well, I’m one of the crazy ones that’s going to try to condense it into 1 year. We’ll be starting in another month or two. My boys are 11, 11, 8 and 5 right now.
I’ve gone through the first guide book and there are several days where the only lesson is to read from the Bible, sometimes only 13 or so verses. On days like this, I’ll do 2 things – First, I have 15 to 20 minutes set aside for “scripture” reading. We’ll use that time to read as many Bible readings as we can… maybe 2 or 3 lessons in one day. Second, I have 25 minutes of “history” each day. Again, I’ll probably read some more Bible or from the chapter books listed. From what I saw as I went through and marked my book all up, I’ll (often) be able to do 2 to 4 lessons in one day. My older boys will be reading some of the books on their own. Others we’ll read as a family. Also, we won’t be using the Bible commentary books and there are many days when that is the main reading.
For geography we’ll be reading Letters From Egypt and once a week we’ll work on map drill of Africa. Then when we switch to Greece and Rome we’ll focus on that area. They might not have it perfect when we switch, but they’ll at least have worked on it for a while. Next time we hit it, they’ll be even better.
I don’t really worry about making sure I get a specific history done in a certain time. As long as we are learning something I’m good. It took us almost 3 years to finish American History, but we sure had fun and learned a lot. I want them to learn to love history (and learning in general) so we explore more if we want to, or move quickly through something that bores us. As they get older will be able to read more on their own and pursue their own interests or make up the areas where they may be weak.
Heather
Well, I am also crazy, I guess. I am planning to do a 3 year cycle starting in Sept with our dc who will be in 6th and 3rd. My plan is to get through 2 CM mod a year. We are going to do 1 and 2 in the 2012/13 school year. A 3 year schedule allows my son to get through the cycle twice with a year for an elective, and our younger will repeat the cycle 3 times with a year for an elective. My goal is not for them to learn everything there is to know about history, but to create a real love of history and appreciation for it’s relavence to our lives today. I believe that is my goal for most subjects — not for them to learn everything there is to know, but rather instill the desire to learn and the skills that make learning possible.
I am looking to see which fiction I can carry through the summer months as enjoyable read-alouds that we wouldn’t necessarily have time to get to during the school year. It’s also a good time to watch a video or two that may relate to what they will be studying later during the school year to give them a point of reference. (My dh and boys are not on board with the year round schooling, but I am hoping to continue a light schedule of skill subjects through the summer — personal reading & devotions daily, math 2x, copy work 2x. They are stuck coming to the office with me every morning for the summer, so they might as well make use of the time to accomplish something.)
Thank you for the replies so far. I should have mentioned that my dd is going to be in first grade and ds is just 2 years old now. I am trying to keep in mind that what I really want in for them to enjoy learning and especially enjoy history and find it interesting. Having said that, I know if I don’t have some kind of guide or checklist I’ll end up letting it slide too much. Maybe at this age just alot of bible stories and fun pictures book with a couple chapter books mixed in?
I know we wouldn’t be able to hit every bible lesson she has planned but it seems like if we read 1 bible story per day (from the actual bible or maybe from our Catherine Vos story bible) we could hit many of the main stories in 180 days.
I also counted the ancient history lessons in year one and there are 34 so doing 3 days of history per week would finish that off in the first trimester. I haven’t looked into Greece and Rome yet though…
We generally school year round, with lighter schedules as needed. What that does is gives us 3 extra months of ‘school’ for any subject we want/need to keep moving in. Over the course of 3 years that means we can pick up an entire extra school year (9 mos) of time and work finished. That means in 3 years we would finish 4 full modules with no extra readings assigned. It also means if we want to double up one extra lesson each week we can finish all 6 SCM modules in 4 years (using the extra months gained with summers and the extra leeway from doing an extra lesson each week. Or so it works out in my head….LOL!
Are we actually going to do that at our house in history? No, probably not. But it would work. We usually alternate our summers with different subjects as the focus (science one summer with basics, history the next with basics, etc).
I think that it *can* be done. I had planned to do Mod 2 & 3 this year at the request of my 17 yo. I had it all planned out, and it was possible to put it all in. However, in practice, my girls felt overwhelmed. They were not enjoying the learning process. If we wanted to take a moment to look at something a bit more, there was not any wiggle room, really. My youngest was especially bothered by the speed of our plan – she simply shut off for a bit as I mentioned in another couple of posts on here. The girls did not have the time to ruminate on information they were learning, and reminded us of the rushed feeling we had with SL, which was NOT what any of us wanted at all.
It might be different for younger learners; perhaps the information you would be covering would be small enough bits that the overwhelmed feeling wouldn’t occur. Also, maybe we were trying to cover too much at one time; keeping too many books, though my eldest had several that she *needed* to cover to count it for graduation purposes. That wouldn’t really be the case with the younger ones, necessarily. The youngest, though, turned off because there was less time to schedule in fun/ additional learning opportunities, not to mention opportunities that arose spontaneously. Because of all of this, we are not working on 2 modules at this point, but will be starting module 3 in June and working at a relaxed pace during the summer and finishing it up in the fall, allowing my senior high student to graduate in December, hopefully.
My intention is not to be a negative Nelly, but wanted to let you know what I ran into on our quest to cover more in one year so that you can have a heads-up in your planning and work your schedule out so that your plans work out much better than mine did. 🙂
Pax,
~jacqleene
I tried to speed up as well, and have doubled up on the lessons every day, which usually is not a problem. However, I also tried to leave space for some additional activities. I found that going any faster, like Blue J said, that the retention and rush was defeating my goal of our loving to learn. So I average about 2 lessons a day, and it works pretty well. My kids are almost 12 and 11 though, so it does makea big difference. Yours are still very young, so you have to adjust for that.
I think you mentioned just using a Bible commentary for children since you just wanted familiarity with the major stories at this age. Doing that would probably speed things considerably. I prefer to stick my kids in the actual book though, so they can feel the power of the words.
I think it’s very manageable because of the age of your child in school. That age group has very light reading in my opinion for the first three modules. We just read faster to get through Greece in three months. We also school year round with shorter days. Right now we are in Mod.5, and when we get back to ancient history, I will combine Mod.1-3 then spend a long time in Mod. 4 which we’ve never covered.
For younger children I would just read a Bible Storybook like the Golden Bible. You can easily read the whole Bible in one year with that.
As Sarah mention, I’m trying to tweak this to work for our family…so, this is my plan, maybe….We are almost finished with Module 6 (we’re schooling year-round, so may finish in June, if all goes well), but I have a few more months and several more books I want to get through. Now that Mod. 6 has been updated I’m struggling with NOT buying new books (that’s hard for me, LOL), but I know that there are several things I still want to do for history.
So, I am planning to start Ancient Egypt (Modl 1) Aug. 1 and work until the end of Jan (with Dec. off), then pick up again in Feb. and work until the end of June in Mod 2. My oldest doesn’t want to spend a whole year in Ancient Egypt (but I don’t want to cheat him, either, so we’ll see) and I really want him to hit certain books in his last year of highschool that he didn’t get this year for Mod. 6.
Now this is a plan, in theory. Once reality hits I know it may not be that exact and my kids may find that they want to spend a little more time in a given Module, so we’ll see.
Any thoughts??
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