This year, I am using
History Odyssey: Early American History with Emma Grace. HO uses
Story of the World 3 as its spine along with
A Child's History of the World (CHOTW) and the
Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History (UILE). In addition, I purchased the activity book that corresponds with SOTW 3. Because I am never one to use a curriculum as it is written (because that would be too easy), I have tweaked it to fit our homeschool.
Day one of each lesson is typically an independent work day. I have created a work sheet for Emma to use with step by step instructions on all she is to accomplish in that period. She always starts out reading the assigned pages in UILE. I have pre-read those pages and have written questions that she must answer. For instance, one question from this lesson asks her to list three things Catherine the Great did to improve life in Russia. She is to answer these in complete sentences on her work sheet. After completing the questions, she adds to her timeline notebook if we have timeline figures. (See my timeline notes below.) If I can find a video clip on You Tube or a short documentary on Amazon, I have her watch that before we move on. If there is a corresponding chapter in CHOTW, I will now read it. For the remainder of our history period (if any time remains), I have Emma read from her book basket. HO provides a book list as does SOTW. I pull all of those that are available at our library, and add them to her history book basket. She is free to choose any book from the basket that she would like to read. I don't assign them to her.
On day two (and three if there is more than one chapter assigned from SOTW), I do the teaching. I start out reading aloud to her from a book in her book basket. Early in the year, I was reading chapter books. However, the lessons are much shorter than the chapter books are so that it takes me much longer to read the chapter book than it does to complete a lesson each week. By the time I finish the chapter book, it no longer correlates with our lessons. Therefore, for the remainder of the year, I will choose short picture or informative books to read-aloud before I start our lesson. While I read-aloud, either from our reader or from SOTW, Emma works on the color page from the SOTW Activity Book. After I read the chapter, we walk through the narration exercise provided in the activity book. Typically, I ask her all of the questions and have her answer me orally. Then, she writes a summary to be placed in her binder. Once her summary is complete, we work on the mapping activity provided in the same book. She then adds this to her history binder, as well. Sometimes there is a quick and easy project/activity to go along with the SOTW chapter that we may do. These might include coloring a flag or playing a review game. If not, Emma will read from her book basket.
We save longer more in-depth activities for Fridays. These might include writing book reports, cooking activities, building models, or making costumes. If there is a longer movie - Oliver Twist comes to mind - that correlates with our lessons, I will save these for Fridays or for Mondays that follow a long dance-competition weekend.
Timeline Notes: I have printed the timeline pages from
Guest Hollow's website. I hole-punched each page and put them in a 3-ring binder. I use timeline figures from
Homeschool in the Woods. I currently own the first three sets of these figures. I have each sheet in a page protector. As I need them to add to Emma's timeline, I photocopy the page on my printer. Then, Emma can cut out the figure she needs and add it to her timeline. I then put the original back in the page protector, and I place the remaining parts of the copy back in my binder to be used later. I plan to have Emma create a new timeline notebook each time we complete the history cycle so I don't want to cut up the original figures.
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