This year we added notebooking pages that I found on line, and I have added in tests that I often just go through with them. Tobin sits in and doodles while we do this. Sophia and Bella both started this series early, at 6 and 4, but we have kept going and will repeat all the info in another cycle through either with SOTW or another curriculum with similar cycles.
It is superbly written, covers the breadth of what is going on all over the world at the particular time period and has enough extra activities to make it fun. The first year we just read and did coloring pages. The second year we got into trying to recall information (using all of our CC 'pegs'). This year we are trying, for Sophia, to do more narration back and writing her own summary info. Bella does copy work.
I had planned to have them listen to me read it through and then Friday re-listen to the audio while drawing, so far this has happened 2x. Every Thursday or Friday is our project day. SOTW has lots of great projects to choose from.
We go through 1-2 chapters a week which is a decent pace. Almost all of our read alouds for the year go along with history. Right now we are reading 'Huguenot Garden' to go along with our chapter on France in the late 1600s. Earlier, we read 'Escape Across the Wide Sea' which were also Huguenots escaping but was a great intro into the slave trade and 'middle passage'. When we get to an area that may not have a novel to go with it we read 'Stories from around the World' or Barefoot Books stories.
I also have Sophia (and Bella some) reading their own history read alongs. Not every book assigned goes along with the history but some do.
The other thing we do during most read aloud days, is spend the first 5-10 minutes reading from 'A Child's History of the World'. We have read some of this before, and didn't start at the beginning, but it is a super fun read that keeps them interested and covers the whole span of history with really short chapters. It is just added reinforcement.
I lesson planned all of my read alouds, their read alongs, and our projects for the whole year which makes me not have to scramble around!
Here we built a paper replica of London and burned it down in 'The Great Fire'. I enlarged the buildings and they made toothpick signs to stick on all the storefronts, (lots of fun with this)
All of the buildings were so close together. Our one alley way was very narrow and we littered the street with trash. They made lots of bakeries (which incidentally was where the loan coal dropped out of a fire and started the whole thing that burned down 4/5 of the city).
Our fire started in a bakery on the corner and quickly burned down the street:
It started to taper out at the corner (we had to re-light once, but no more)
Tragedy. Dust and Ashes left.
