Starting in history with first grader (new to HS)

I don’t know if this will help or not, but as I was trying to decide the direction to take for history, I read Catherine Levinson’s take on chronological history. She recommends starting with the history of your country first, just going chronologically. So that’s what I did. I didn’t use the SCM modules, but if you did you would start with Module 5 and do only the US history portions (I think that would be 2x/wk) and the Bible if you wanted to use it for that, as well.

HTH,

Karen

For your summer, I honestly wouldn’t worry too much about it. If you really want to cover history, I’d just buy a few history readers, maybe American (module 5) if you think he’d be more interested and ask him to tell you about it after you read it too him.  Maybe some coloring pages to go along w/it if you wanted…but I’d keep it very simple! Blessings, Gina

Sounds like we are in a similar situation. I will have a 1st grade girl next year and we are considering using module 1. i noticed in the front of the book, it mentions that you might want to skip a lot of the books for a first grader, so it looked mainly like you would use the Bible, boy of the pyramids and the Oxford book. I was also thinking of a timeline on a wall b/c we have a space for it and it seems to make more visual sense for a child that age. I really like the idea of taking history more slowly and lining it up with the Bible historically, however I am wondering if Module 1 alone will be interesting enough for my young ones. I am thinking of taking the short portion about ancient Egypt from Story of the World and maybe doing some of their hands on projects. This blog has some great hands on ideas to go along with story of the world like mummifying a barbie, etc.

http://creeksidelearning.com/story-of-the-world/

I also have to keep in mind that I have two younger ones and sometimes doing too many hands on things gets to be too much for me, so I will have to find some kind of balance.

We used WinterPromise last year and they have a neat curriculum called, “Hideaways in History.” It’s too fast for me, but I was thinking of also taking the portion on Egypt and incorprating it at some point during the year. The part I like is where you make an Egpytian Pyramid out of a large cardboard box. Again, I have grand ideas and thoughts, but I’ll have to see what will actually work for us as we go, I think.

I think Magic School Bus and Magic Treehouse might have some Egyptian books as well. I’ll be intersted to see what others say, too.

One thing that threw me off first thing with SOTW is that she used secular dates instead of BC and AD. Surprised me but gave me a heads up that the books may not have been written from a Christian worldview.

I had similar concerns to you when I started my first grader in module 1 last year but I went ahead anyway because I want to go through all 6 modules chronologically (we are not from the US) over 2 rotations.  My ds was 6 when we started and my dd was 3, so too young to listen in. 

I’m so glad I went ahead as we are loving it!  He has done SO well with the bible readings, including the longer commentary readings, which I split up over 2 readings per day because the chapters can be long.  We also use the Oxford book and he understands it just fine, I don’t expect detailed narrations from him on it but he can still give me the big picture.  There are not vast amounts of readings from the Oxford book and Sonya has worked it out perfectly to support the Oxford readings with other books.  I did also get the optional book, “Growing up in Ancient Egypt” (listed on links & tips page), as well as “Pharoah’s Boat”, both of which he enjoyed too.  

A more difficult book was “Pyramid” but we just read it slowly and discussed the main points while looking at the pictures, which he really enjoyed. And of course, he just devoured “Boy of the pyramids”, there was no way we could only read one chapter a week, especially when it got near the end LOL!  It was wonderful how this story re-inforced everything we had already learned from the other scheduled books.

Oh, I also decided to do a simple wall timeline with him which is working well.

At the end of the day, you know your child best, but I just wanted to point out that I had previously underestimated what my son could understand and enjoy.   

We are like Noelene.  We have been going through Module 1, but I left out the optional books for 1st grade.  I ended up getting the Numbers commentary after realizing I missed some precious nuggets from the Exodus commentary.  One, maybe two lessons, used only the commentary, so I had to fill in the gaps on my own.

Module 1 was difficult at first, esp. with the Oxford book, but after several months DD was doing SO MUCH BETTER!  We are taking it a little slower since she also is in a Bible study on Wed. mornings with homework, and it can be too much some days to do both Bible lessons.  By the time we finished the first term in November I was amazed at how well she did on the exams.  She retained a lot more than I expected.  Her narrations have improved a great deal over this year.

Oxford is not our favorite book, but we are learning to enjoy it more.  “The True Story of Noah’s Ark” and “Boy of the Pyramids” are our favorite books hands down!

The only thing I wish was that there were more hands-on activities.  We opted to do a lapbook for Ancient Mesopotamia (using History Pockets) for something extra and fun.  We’ll do one for Egypt as well.  We also borrowed a mummy kit from a friend, and we are going to use a hieroglyphic template for learning to write DD’s name as our kick-off for beginning the study.  Recently I saw a link on this forum for a kit with lots of fun activities to do.  If we were not over 2/3 through this module I would buy it.  I will def. get the kit for Ancient Greece!  Here is the link:

http://handsandhearts.com/handsandheartshistorykits.aspx

We also watched videos on Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, the pyramids, etc.  I just had to be careful about the pyramid videos to make sure they were not too graphic with mummies.  If you have Netflix it is not difficult to find various videos.

Like you, Laura, we did a trial run over the summer.  We read some living books about our nation’s birth since it was late June/early July.  We also did a little math and handwriting.  Thankfully, I was able to count those days toward our 180 days for this year.  (Some umbrella schools would not allow that, but the one we ended up choosing did even though the days we did were before we enrolled with the school.)

One thing I want to warn you is that if you are leaving a private school that you not wait too long to withdraw.  We learned that the hard way.  It cost us a lot of money.  Still, I would not trade this year of homeschooling for the world!

I can’t remember exactly.  Many of them were through National Geographic I believe.  You just have to watch for any mummies to skip over them.  Ancient Civilizations for Children are great!  I found them at our local library.