The "If you lived" book series

[LemonPie]

I'm thinking about buying several of these and using them to cover US history this fall with my kindergartner and second grader. We've read "If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620" and my kids really enjoyed it. I'm just wondering if anyone else has done this and if they're enough for this age level. I think they're both a little too young to jump into a full comprehensive history curriculum.

Ideas? Thoughts? Suggestions?

(BTW, if anyone else is interested, Amazon is running a 4-for-3 deal on these books along with many, many others)

[SundayCrepes]

Based on your post, I just looked these up. I ordered the If you lived 100 years ago. It was a penny plus $3.99 postage bought used at amazon. If we like it, I'll probably buy more in the series. We unschool, so it'll just get read when it gets read.

[elizawill]

we love this series. i also love "you wouldn't want to be..." series. it's very good too!

[Teensy]

I think that's a good idea.

I would add in making a timeline (you can just use a roll of easel paper, that's what we did). I think it was very helpful in helping my kids understand the context of how long ago certain things happened in relationship to each other (especially when we compared from people first living on the North American continent to the "discovery" by Europeans).

[NightOwlwithowlet]

Originally Posted by elizawill

we love this series. i also love "you wouldn't want to be..." series. it's very good too!

Yup, we love both these series, especially the "you wouldn't want to be..." series. Note of caution, my 7 year old completely rewrote the end to the "You wouldn't want to be Greek slave" which he found very upsetting when he was able to grasp the concept of slavery (i.e. it involved real people with families).

I have to try a time line.

[kittywitty]

Originally Posted by NightOwlwithowlet

Yup, we love both these series, especially the "you wouldn't want to be..." series. Note of caution, my 7 year old completely rewrote the end to the "You wouldn't want to be Greek slave" which he found very upsetting when he was able to grasp the concept of slavery (i.e. it involved real people with families).

I have to try a time line.

My 8 and 9 year olds love this series, too. We get all of these from the library sometimes, but Rainbow Resource had the "You Wouldn't Want to be..." series on sale super cheap and we bought the box set of Horrible Histories. Their favorites!

[LemonPie]

Great! So, then at what point DO I transition into more of a history curriculum? I'm also interested in SOTW, but I don't want to confuse them by doing both American History and ancient history at the same time.

[aprons_and_acorns]

I can't answer your question about introducing a history curriculum but I just wanted to thank you for jogging my memory about these books. I chose If You Lived in Colonial Times for my free RIF book when I was a first grader. It really, REALLY sparked my interest in learning more about everyday life in different historical periods. I would love to find more of them.

[kittywitty]

Originally Posted by LemonPie

Great! So, then at what point DO I transition into more of a history curriculum? I'm also interested in SOTW, but I don't want to confuse them by doing both American History and ancient history at the same time.

We tend to do ours chronologically. You can start SOTW pretty much anytime they seem ready. My kids think it's boring, but we get lots of books (especially Maestro) and the books like are discussed here and we use maps and anything we can find to talk about a subject. My problem with SOTW was my kids get SO into a subject. A short chapter on Egypt would turn into 6 months of Egypt books and projects and I didn't want to be like "well, I know you like Egypt, but we're doing Greece now so we can finish this book". Then they dropped Egypt on their own and are in a Greek phase.

Are you wanting to do American history later-like chronologically? There's no need to do American history when you do the ancients if it's not required or an interest. We are talking about explorers right now and are touching on the "discovery" of America as a seperate subject because they love Ancient History but always ask Am. history things-especially when we travel. They've never been confused by it.

[PenelopeJune]

These books look AWESOME! Now how am I supposed to choose?

[LemonPie]

Originally Posted by kittywitty

We tend to do ours chronologically. You can start SOTW pretty much anytime they seem ready. My kids think it's boring, but we get lots of books (especially Maestro) and the books like are discussed here and we use maps and anything we can find to talk about a subject. My problem with SOTW was my kids get SO into a subject. A short chapter on Egypt would turn into 6 months of Egypt books and projects and I didn't want to be like "well, I know you like Egypt, but we're doing Greece now so we can finish this book". Then they dropped Egypt on their own and are in a Greek phase.

Are you wanting to do American history later-like chronologically? There's no need to do American history when you do the ancients if it's not required or an interest. We are talking about explorers right now and are touching on the "discovery" of America as a seperate subject because they love Ancient History but always ask Am. history things-especially when we travel. They've never been confused by it.

I guess I'm trying to decide if I want to start with ancient history and work forward, or if it will matter if we jump around a bit. I thought about starting with American history since that's what I know best, LOL.

[ebethmom]

We have several of these books, and I really like them. We haven't used them much for school yet. I think that ds and I read one together last Spring. Thanks for reminding me about this series. Ours live on a douwnstairs shelf that doesn't get much traffic.