SCM history guides — thoughts?

I have gone through them several times (reading them to myself to get a good feel).  We used Module 1 and loved it. I am excited to use the others because our experience has been delightful.  

Sonya has scheduled 3 days of Bible, 1 day of Geography and 1 day of History for at least the first three Modules.  I know that it would be pretty simple to substitute a different spine by simply choosing your spine, figure out how many pages you will read and divide that by the number of weeks you need it, in this case 36 weeks. 

I don’t see why it has to be any more complicated than that.  All the additional reading would still be valid, since they are books that can stand alone.

I agree you could easily substitute a spine, and often the Famous Men books are read a chapter at a time. So if the one you substitute has the same (or similar) number of chapters, you just read Chapter 1 of the substitute when it says to read Chapter 1 of the Famous Men book.

And to that, I TOTALLY understand. We mustered our way through Famous Men this year with Module 4 (The Middle Ages and Rennaisance and Reformation), but we will NOT be using the next one. Our children just were not getting anything out of it and honestly I was struggling too at the end.

We all LOVED the Geography book (Around the World) and we don’t use the Bible plan b/c we go to a Bible Study that is 9 months long from Sept. to May but ironically it was the SAME book suggested in the guide so that worked out well. We just follow the plan in our Bible study rather than the one in the guide.

The guides are VERY USER-FRIENDLY. VERY user-friendly. At the beginning of each section they have a list of all suggested books along with author right beside so easy to find on-line or at your library. Then the next page has a type of chart with the books broken down by age/grade. I copy this actually for each of our children’s assignment notebooks and highlight their column. Super easy to use this for your DC to follow along as well.

The books they suggest for individual reading are the best of the best. All of our DC have thoroughly enjoyed the one read this year.

We read each morning together; me reading and 3 oldest reading as well which is a great way to access their reading ability for emerging readers and build their confidence too; I don’t stop them but they often will stop and ask which is great!

To give you an idea of the amazing reading your DC will do in a given year, this is what I recorded our children reading this past year:

READ ALOUD AS A FAMILY (5 DC, ages 13, 12, 9, 6 and 6, and ME!)

• Famous Men of the Middle Ages, Rob Shearer, Ed.
• Ink on His Fingers, Louise Vernon
• Around the World in a Hundred Years, Jean Fritz
• Castle, David Macaulay
• Christopher Columbus, Bennie Rhodes {Read separately}
• Cathedral, David Macaulay
• The Man Who Laid the Egg, Louise Vernon
• The Beggar’s Bible, Louise Vernon
• Famous Men of the Renaissance and Reformation, Rob Shearer, Ed.
• Thunderstorm in Church, Louise Vernon
• The Bible Smuggler, Louise Vernon

READ INDEPENDENTLY BY MY 9YO SON:

• The Vikings, Elizabeth Janeway
• Adam of the Road, Elizabeth Janet Gray
• Night Preacher, Louise Vernon
• Various Thornton Burgess Books {free on Kindle}

READ INDPENDENTLY BY MY 12YO SON (He is reading on a lower level b/c he just began learning English 2 years ago):

• The Making of a Knight, Patrick O’Brien
• Leif the Lucky, Ingri Daulaire

• Classics in Mandarin (he still speaks and read it fluently, and we intend to keep it that way! 🙂

READ INDEPENDENTLY BY MY 13YO SON:

• White Stag, Kate Seredy
• The Shining Company, Rosemary Sutcliff
• The Magna Charta, James Daugherty
• In Freedom’s Cause, G.A. Henty {Kindle}
• The Prince and the Pauper, Mark Twain {Kindle}

• He also reads voraciously about WWI and WWII (needless to say he can’t wait for this next year when the module will actually be in the time period he loves to study).

Without the SCM guides, there is NO WAY IN THE WORLD I could compile a list of books like the ones above. I am just not that knowledgable about GREAT books, and the guides make it so easy for me to figure out a plan and to execute it. The guides are in my opinion some of my best homeschool budget money spent. Really are affordable. I do buy the printed book but even those are VERY reasonably priced.

HTH

I completely agree with 4myboys. For an older student, there is alot that is asked of them, if you want to do it. And, there are plenty of other “readers” that can be added in if you want to add them.

We are using the Mod 1 guide this coming year and can’t wait (well, I can’t, not sure about the dc). It is packed with lots of reading and projects that hopefully we’ll be able to cover. I also have a TQ guide with lots more books to choose from, but I doubt we’ll have time for them. I’ll have a basket of “extras” for my dc to choose from on loan from a friend, so we’ll have plenty.

And, I may purchase the Story of the Ancients, by Christine Miller, so that would be alot as well.

HTH

From the books scheduled in Module 1 it does not seem enough for a high schooler on its own for a history credit. What am I missing that you are referring to as a lot asked of them?

Interesting discussion regarding high school, thank you. I was thinking of using Biblioplan the same way this year, perhaps alongside the SCM module 4 for the younger children. Missingtheshire, what did you use for MA and R&R time period as a spine for your older children? We’re considering AO’s recommendation of Birth of Britian.

I know that there is a “formula” of sorts that constitutes what is considered a credit or highschool level work (even college prep work) and then what is considered what’s important to each family, maybe even within the family, etc.

But for my family, most of the reading material will be new (may not be for my younger boys as we go along), as we weren’t homeschooling from a CM perspective from the onset (meaning no living books going on, sad, but true). I know that for my kids, even if we did the SCM guides exclusively, they would be getting more reading in than they would in ps or if I had not chosen the CM method. I also know that for most families they add in more here and there based on interest, abilities, college plans, etc.

I don’t know what we’ll add in for hs, as my oldest is still in jr high, but I still know that he will be getting more than what I can put together or if he were in ps. Obviously we could use a completely different program, if we felt that SCM wasn’t enough, but like I said, for *us* it would be more than what they would’ve had.

Hope that makes sense as I still feel new to all of this and am feeling rather discouraged right now with my abilities to “do” high school to begin with.