Radley
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Post by Radley on Aug 24, 2021 13:16:33 GMT -6
Hiiii y’all. I’m trying to find a 3rd grade history that is good. So many are really very sub par and I’m overwhelmed with options. For now I’m kinda winging it but I prefer an open book curriculum.
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Post by bunnyfungo on Aug 25, 2021 18:17:11 GMT -6
Hiiii y’all. I’m trying to find a 3rd grade history that is good. So many are really very sub par and I’m overwhelmed with options. For now I’m kinda winging it but I prefer an open book curriculum. I’ve heard good things about Blossom and Root’s A River of Voices. Especially if you want something that isn’t white washed. I haven’t used it though so I’m not sure how open and go it is. We’ve been kind of lacking on formal history 😬 We have done a bunch of documentaries on Ancient Egypt because that’s what they’ve been into but we mostly follow their lead. I know I need to start filling in gaps though.
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Radley
Sapphire
Posts: 3,266 Likes: 13,745
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Post by Radley on Aug 25, 2021 21:35:54 GMT -6
Hiiii y’all. I’m trying to find a 3rd grade history that is good. So many are really very sub par and I’m overwhelmed with options. For now I’m kinda winging it but I prefer an open book curriculum. I’ve heard good things about Blossom and Root’s A River of Voices. Especially if you want something that isn’t white washed. I haven’t used it though so I’m not sure how open and go it is. We’ve been kind of lacking on formal history 😬 We have done a bunch of documentaries on Ancient Egypt because that’s what they’ve been into but we mostly follow their lead. I know I need to start filling in gaps though. Thanks for the rec! I’ll look into it. Somehow history just fell out of my brain this year when planning. I don’t know how it did, but we started and I thought shiiiit I totally forgot to plan any history at all. And then I got to looking for curriculums and got quickly overwhelmed.
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hawkward
Global Moderator
Loss, Infertility
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Post by hawkward on Aug 27, 2021 6:43:57 GMT -6
We use Story of the World and fill in with primary sources and documentaries as much as possible for a less whitewashed version of history. We also fill in US history with the kid version of A People’s History of the United States.
My kids are super into history so we are very heavy on history, incorporating it into other subjects/incorporating other subjects into it.
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Post by oceanblue on Sept 10, 2021 22:31:15 GMT -6
History is one of the subjects I’ve struggled with homeschooling on. I feel overwhelmed doing it without an actual curriculum because there’s just so much to choose from that I don’t know where to start. I also wavered back and forth on if we should start with American history or go chronologically through the history of the world.
I ended up choosing Blossom & Root’s River of Voices specifically because I wanted something that was secular and not white washed. As for it being open and go, it kind of is and kind of isn’t depending on how in depth you choose to go with it. The curriculum comes as a PDF then you buy books separately to go along with it. We haven’t done enough of it for me to have a full opinion yet but here’s some of my initial thoughts on the curriculum. I really like the way it’s organized. There are three different “pathways” depending on grade level and they have it split up according to the path you’re on. They also split it up where it tells you what to do if you want to do the bare minimum, then it has a section of additional things you can do if you want to expand on the lesson.
We started on the lowest level pathway, which they advise for either k-2nd grade or k-3rd grade. I’ll preface this by saying I do like the books and they contain good information. But it’s a lot of information for this age level. There’s a lot of detail, which is nice, but to me it takes away from the main ideas when they’re just starting to learn about history. My second grader typically likes wordy, plain books and reads encyclopedias for fun, but she really struggles to focus on the readings. I think this curriculum would be better for a kid who already has some base knowledge on American history but it’s not as good if you’re starting from scratch.
At this point I think I’m going to put the Blossom & Root on hold. I like it but I just think it’s a bit above my kids levels right now. I think I’m going to spend some time giving some basic informal history lessons then revisit the Blossom & Root after that.
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Post by bunnyfungo on Sept 16, 2021 22:10:01 GMT -6
History is one of the subjects I’ve struggled with homeschooling on. I feel overwhelmed doing it without an actual curriculum because there’s just so much to choose from that I don’t know where to start. I also wavered back and forth on if we should start with American history or go chronologically through the history of the world. I ended up choosing Blossom & Root’s River of Voices specifically because I wanted something that was secular and not white washed. As for it being open and go, it kind of is and kind of isn’t depending on how in depth you choose to go with it. The curriculum comes as a PDF then you buy books separately to go along with it. We haven’t done enough of it for me to have a full opinion yet but here’s some of my initial thoughts on the curriculum. I really like the way it’s organized. There are three different “pathways” depending on grade level and they have it split up according to the path you’re on. They also split it up where it tells you what to do if you want to do the bare minimum, then it has a section of additional things you can do if you want to expand on the lesson. We started on the lowest level pathway, which they advise for either k-2nd grade or k-3rd grade. I’ll preface this by saying I do like the books and they contain good information. But it’s a lot of information for this age level. There’s a lot of detail, which is nice, but to me it takes away from the main ideas when they’re just starting to learn about history. My second grader typically likes wordy, plain books and reads encyclopedias for fun, but she really struggles to focus on the readings. I think this curriculum would be better for a kid who already has some base knowledge on American history but it’s not as good if you’re starting from scratch. At this point I think I’m going to put the Blossom & Root on hold. I like it but I just think it’s a bit above my kids levels right now. I think I’m going to spend some time giving some basic informal history lessons then revisit the Blossom & Root after that. Thanks for this review. This has been my main struggle with history so far. We tried Story of the World and then Curiosity Chronicles but any sort of in depth history seemed to fly right by them. I’m not sure at that age they can truly grasp the amount of time since early civilizations. My second grader still sometimes mixes up yesterday and tomorrow 🤣 We’re kind of working more on global citizenry type social studies and I think we’ll wait on much more history. At least for my younger two. I might buy some of the books they use for the B&R and read them myself though. As I’m realizing my own history education was severely lacking. That way I’ll also be able to help them through it when we do finally go in depth on US history.
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Radley
Sapphire
Posts: 3,266 Likes: 13,745
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Post by Radley on Sept 19, 2021 18:02:46 GMT -6
History is one of the subjects I’ve struggled with homeschooling on. I feel overwhelmed doing it without an actual curriculum because there’s just so much to choose from that I don’t know where to start. I also wavered back and forth on if we should start with American history or go chronologically through the history of the world. I ended up choosing Blossom & Root’s River of Voices specifically because I wanted something that was secular and not white washed. As for it being open and go, it kind of is and kind of isn’t depending on how in depth you choose to go with it. The curriculum comes as a PDF then you buy books separately to go along with it. We haven’t done enough of it for me to have a full opinion yet but here’s some of my initial thoughts on the curriculum. I really like the way it’s organized. There are three different “pathways” depending on grade level and they have it split up according to the path you’re on. They also split it up where it tells you what to do if you want to do the bare minimum, then it has a section of additional things you can do if you want to expand on the lesson. We started on the lowest level pathway, which they advise for either k-2nd grade or k-3rd grade. I’ll preface this by saying I do like the books and they contain good information. But it’s a lot of information for this age level. There’s a lot of detail, which is nice, but to me it takes away from the main ideas when they’re just starting to learn about history. My second grader typically likes wordy, plain books and reads encyclopedias for fun, but she really struggles to focus on the readings. I think this curriculum would be better for a kid who already has some base knowledge on American history but it’s not as good if you’re starting from scratch. At this point I think I’m going to put the Blossom & Root on hold. I like it but I just think it’s a bit above my kids levels right now. I think I’m going to spend some time giving some basic informal history lessons then revisit the Blossom & Root after that. Thank you for the information! I really appreciate it! It’s so hard to find a good history curriculum!
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DGM
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Posts: 2,649 Likes: 5,579
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Post by DGM on Sept 26, 2021 12:23:05 GMT -6
Cloth Diaper board semi-regular here popping in to say Heart of Dakota's Beyond and Bigger Heart curriculum are American History geared for 6-8 year olds and 7-9 year olds respectively. The author purposely chose to not focus on the Ancients until age 9 or 10 after seeing her oldest son's struggle to comprehend a time and place so.far.away.
*Full disclaimer, it is a faith based curriculum*. Some of the older language in the living books for Beyond has already opened up conversations with my 7 year old of terms/names used when America first started but how we don't use them now. We use everything Heart of Dakota recommends except math. Edit: other moms on my FB pages say Heart of Dakota is very open and go compared to other curriculums once you've purchased the living books. Most activities related to the History use basic household items but occasionally you need like vegetable shortening or corn syrup.
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