Do you have older kids, Julie? I have an 8th grader, so I only have five years to do the six. What we are doing in our family is U.S. History alongside everything else. So far my kids have been able to keep up.
I have an older daughter that I will only have for a few more years. I am combing all of the ancient history in this one year. This will come out to 4 years total. We are using the SCM family guides. Because I don’t want to miss any of the bible, we have a bible time everyday on our schedule and this is when we do the bible section of the family guides. So far we are finishing up Egypt and will be starting Greece soon. I think this is where we will go a little longer then 12 weeks, I don’t have my papers in front of me but I think it came out to 14 or 16 weeks? Then we will move on to Rome.
I also have my youngest working with us some, but I will have longer with him. He is only in the 4th grade, so he is working on some state historyI am combining them now for ease of my day, but after next year he will be doing the 6 year rotation over again.
Julie, you have littles like me, so I was wondering what your thinking was on this. It’s a great question. I wanted to make sure I didn’t come across snarky asking why. Typing never conveys true meaning. I’ve often wondered if I would like to speed it up to cover history 3 times through instead of just 2 cycles. I also like to sit and simmer too. I think Sonya mentioned her reasons for the 6 year cycle in one of the DVDs somewhere. I think you can just do the lessons five days a week instead of three and you would be able to cover it in 4 years. Okay, rambling now. You got me thinking!
No offense at all. Promise. I guess that my thinking is that most other curriculums use the 4 year cycle, and what if I get into the SCM guides and want more hands-on, or want more meat for the older grades or something? What would I do then? For instance, if I were to stay with the SCM guides through 6th grade using the 6 year cycle, and then want to switch to TOG or SOTW it would be difficult, because then I would only be able to “get in” 1 1/2 cycles of those curriculums. Hope that makes sense. I LOVE the gentle approach of the modules, but may want more in the upper grades. I don’t know. I’m not sure how I will feel when it comes around, but would hate to be limited because of using a 6 year cycle to start out,
It’s a great question. I’m using a 6-year cycle because I’m trying to coordinate Bible history with World history. It seems like the easiest way to try to do the 6 years in 4 years would be to do all the Ancients during one year. But to keep Bible history preeminent, that would mean having to read Genesis through Acts in one year. Doable, but rushed.
I have had some requests to put all the Ancients history lessons together into a one-year book. That would make it doable to cover everything in 4 years, but the emphasis would be on world history with Bible being done as a separate course of study not coordinated with the history lessons per se.
So, long answer short, if you get into the position of wanting to do a 4-year cycle, I think it can be done but the emphasis would shift. Does that make sense?
Coming in with my two cents….I’ve decided to do a 4-year rotation with my son simply to give him more exposure to the time periods. I purchased the Planner and was realizing, as I planned out for the ‘long-term’ that he would be missing lots of great reads in between time periods if we went with a 6 year-rotation. I don’t view this as “rushing” it as there is only so much to cover in Ancient History anyway, in the younger years, but doing a 4-year rotation will put my son in the 5th grade to study Ancient History again, giving him an opportunity to read some of the resources listed on his own. In the 9th grade, when he is ready to study Ancient History once more, he’ll have access to the older reads. Am I making sense?
The same goes for all of the other modules….doing a 4-year rotation will place us in Module 4 in the 2nd grade, allowing for my son to read the books listed in grades 1-4 — I plan on doing the older reads as read-alouds and the younger reads he can do on his own (he is an independent reader now, even though he will be 6 in January). This will also give us time for lots of hands-on acitivities, field trips, cooking with recipes from that time-period, etc. The next time he does Module 4 he will be in the 6th grade, he’ll cover the books listed in grades 5-7, and again in the 10th grade, he’ll be able to cover the older reads.
I jumped on CM when my older kids were in junior high, so they missed a lot of the great reads that are listed in the younger grades. I didn’t want the same thing to happen to my younger son (and little sister coming up behind him) so this is my reasoning for our history rotation.
Okay, that was my history ramble. For Bible, this year we started out on Module 1 but have just read on through and are now on Module 2. I’ve been one of the ones that has asked for a stand-alone for Bible, for this reason alone.
In trying to figure out what to do starting next year (1st grade), I also came to the same conclusion as mamato8. I really want a 4yr cycle because of the reasons she mentioned. I have seriously been looking at TOG but dreading it’s pricetag and intensity (for youngers). I may try doing SCM in a 4yr cycle. I just LOVE SCM’s curriculum guide and had planned on trying to make TOG more CM-like. What to do, what to do??? Time to PRAY!!!!!! I do know that if I ultimately go with TOG, I will be working in SCM resources!!!!!!
I have to admit I would prefer a 4 yr rotation also. I think having the oppotunity to go through history 3 times each at different levels would be great. There is a big differene in what I would allow my 7th grader vs 9 grader read concerning the ancients.
So I have a question! For those of you who are combining ancient history into 1 year, are you using the SCM guide books? If you are, how do you combine them in order to get them all done? More lessons per day?
We are doing Ancient Greece and Rome this year (we started with the Veritas Press flashcards) and now I have found SCM and relaly like the guides but don’t see how I can get them both done this year. I am really looking forward to the Middle Ages guide and think I will use that in 3rd grade!
Thanks for sharing!
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