Curriculum Reviews: History & Geography.

Just quickly before I get to today's reviews...

• Yes, I've tried Easy Grammar with the boys. I *thought* it was going to be a great fit...not too much handwriting involved, quick easy lessons each day, only five questions each day, etc. Unfortunately, the boys disagreed. They found it ridiculous to only have five questions a day and couldn't retain the "rules" from one day to the next enough to not need a full review/lesson each time. Sigh. (I'm thinking that they might fare better now, having had more of the basics for a year...when I tried Easy Grammar, we'd not really done much in the way of grammar yet.)
• I forgot to mention another math resource that we use. It's called Times Tales and it's for helping to memorize multiplication tables. Noah and Micah don't really see the point (as they memorize things pretty easily and know their times tables) but Asher finds it incredibly useful, as having a story to associate with each math fact greatly increases his odds of remembering it. It's great and definitely more engaging than simple flashcards!
• Noah thought up another science unit idea he'd like to do...earthquakes, specifically building model buildings (out of a variety of materials) and testing their earthquakeproofness (yes, I know that's not a word, lol). Any leads on how to make a table to test that? :) 

Now on to history and geography...

(Previous overview posts about these subjects can be read here, here and here.)

HISTORY: History, like math, is another of those subjects where we've used basically the same thing since we got started back in the fall of 2005 (the year before Noah would have "officially" been kindergarten age). Though we've had rough patches where life with three young boys took precedence over schooling, lol, we've managed to continue to progress through the Story of the World. We'll finish book 4 this summer.

In a nutshell, I love that Story of the World travels chronologically through history. I love that the activity books offer supplemental reading suggestions along with potential activities. I love that the chapters are short enough to hold young boys' attention yet long enough to impart significant information.

Right now, we don't do all of the activities in the activity books (though I have them all and think they're great resources and do still check out a number of the supplemental reading suggestions each chapter). We've been reading two chapters a week as we're aiming to finish our first go-round through all four books by the end of the summer.

After that, my plan is to go back to book 1 and go through each one more slowly, delving more deeply into the areas of interest and creating our own timelines as we go. (I ordered these timeline books last year but haven't started using them yet. I plan to rectify that next year.) I plan to do book 1 next year, book 2 the year after that, and so on. (The program is set up to begin at first grade with book 1 and finish book 4 in fourth grade. I figure we've followed the "schedule" in keeping with Noah's age and now will repeat it for Micah. The hope is that going through it all a second time will help it sink in even more...and will allow us to follow some of the threads that we didn't the first time around.)

Now. Next year, I'm thinking that I may also add another day of history. Right now we do history one afternoon a week. The boys, though, have requested more US history, as that's not been overly covered in Story of the World, being as US history is a relatively small slice in the grand scheme of things. I'm currently toying with the idea of adding another afternoon session just for US history and roughly following America: The Story of Us by the history channel. The program is a 12 part documentary about the history of the US. Since we homeschool year round, taking a part each month will work. I'll use that section of the documentary as a starting point and supplement with additional reading and activities. Or at least that's the plan. ;) We'll see...

GEOGRAPHY: For geography, this year, we've done a mish-mash of things. I've talked about layers of the earth, landforms, oceans, natural disasters, the breakdown of city/state/country/continent and the like. I've started quizzing the boys on continents and countries and bodies of water. We've completed a number of Junior Ranger programs at national parks. We've created our own countries.

(That last one was my favorite part and isn't quite finished yet. Each of us created our own country, complete with flag, motto, form of government, specific laws, economy, currency, etc. based on the awesome book How to Build Your Own Country. I'm still working on actually documenting all the stuff we've come up with.)

For next year, I'm planning to use Expedition Earth and learning about all the different countries. I'm also planning to use more maps in our history studies (now that I finally bought the corresponding maps on CD so that I can just print out three rather than trying to convince three boys to share or buying three whole Story of the World activity books for each level). I'm toying with the idea of also doing a unit on the US states, using The Little Man in the Map and The Star-Spangled State Book as starting points.

Whew. You still with me? ;) Almost wrapped up with these curriculum reviews. Come back tomorrow for the last one... 

(Note, Knowledge Quest is having a June sale right now...only until this Sunday. They're my source for many geography and history materials, so check it out! (Again, not affiliated in any way. Just think they're cool.))