Why teach American and World history at the same time.

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  • May 25, 2008 at 7:07 am
    7blessings
    Member

    I have been reviewing Living Books Curriculum and notice that they teach world and American history at the same time. Why is this and is this a good approach? I know that SCM doesn’t teach that way…..can anyone help me with the pros and cons of this? I believe Ambleside and Charlotte Mason teaches world and (in her case British) history at the same time.

    Also, any Living Books Curriculum users – did you like it? Is the teacher guide useful or just in the way?

    Has anyone heard of Tanglewood curriculum? I found that link on the Penny Gardner website but it appears that the Tanglewood website is old. I rather like the classical approach with a CM method of teaching.

    Thanks for letting me pick your brains!

    Brooke

    May 26, 2008 at 1:04 am
    Rachel White
    Participant

    I haven’t seen Tanglewood. I have two 7 yr. olds and we use the Truthquest Amer. Hist. level 1 right now. I don’t plan on getting into meaty World History till 4th or 5th grade.

    However, learning about W. HIs. happens the same as geography happens in our house. Since both geography and histry permeate other subjects and movies (for ex: Ten Commandments, The King and I, etc…), when something comes up, we pause and explore that area for a few min. If my children are intrigued by it, then they pursue further reading from library books and the encyclopedia’s. Doing it that way has worked fine so far. They know that other cultures have been paganistic in the past and worshipped manmade gods. We reaffirm our Scripture position without having to go too indepth as actually “studying” those cultures would cause us to do.

    Rachel

    May 27, 2008 at 4:29 am
    live2inspire
    Participant

    This is a great question – I’ve had the same one myself, so I’m very interested in what others will share (about the pros and cons of studying American AND world history at the same time). I hope there are plentiful responses on this. 🙂

    God bless,

    Rebecca

    May 28, 2008 at 1:47 pm
    csmamma
    Participant

    OOO – looks like there is lots of interest with this. 😉 I too would love to know if and how others are teaching World and American History side by side- during the same year as we are considering doing this. Please…..anybody??

    With much appreciation and thanks to all of you – many times over!

    hugs,

    heather

    July 19, 2008 at 5:48 pm
    SueinMN
    Participant

    I teach chronological history meaning when we are studying Ancient History I don’t teach American History too. But that doesn’t stop my dc from reading all the great books about American History. I have 50 Childhood of Famous Americans, all the D’Aulaire books, etc. My dc love history and love to read so I assign books from the history period we are studying but on their own they add in other periods of history. Next year when we formally study 1600 – 1850 we will be studying American and World History at the same time but I suspect my dd will reread books from earlier periods just because she loves to read.

    July 20, 2008 at 6:00 pm
    amy390
    Member

    we did SOTW last year and i decided to switch to AM I Truthquest this year- but I still plan to read the Bible and do some very general history along w/ that. I just did not feel that Andrew was ready yet to tackle some of the early world history stuff. The early American focuses so much on Christianity i think it is a nice place to start. I bought the D’Aulaire books (in transit)…even though we have read Franklin and Washington last year. i think a key to doing this is a timeline..called??? the book of centuries??? i think by CM. I have a ‘timeline’ book i have from the year I bought SL core.

    as for livingbooks…i did see them at a HS fair and I have one of their guides to Apologia (Astronomy.) It is a ‘guide’ for asking questions and such- a great scaffold if you are not comfortable in your role as guiding narrating (I am not)..but if you have narrating down then I think the guides (at least the science one) may be unnecessary. Again- i just have the apologia guide.

    i am a do-it- yourselfer when putting curriculum materials together. I kind of think I am a bit ‘eclectic’ CM (if there is such a thing.) so you may really enjoy Livingbooks… it just didn’t look like my cup of tea. They did have some nice books that went along w/ specific curriculum especially if you were new to CM.

    amy

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