American History curriculum?

[annettemarie]

My 11 year old/sixth grade son has expressed an interest in adding in American history. He's about 3/4 of the way through SotW Volume 4 and we were planning on starting the cycle over again with SotW 1 when he was finished. He still wants to do that, but wants to do American history as well. So I'm looking for something that is
1. Set up a lot like SotW
2. He can do pretty independently
3. Has lots of literature ideas
4. Has some activities he can do on his own as well
5. Doesn't involve buying a ton of extra books beyond what I can get at the library.
6. Doesn't promote one denominational view.
7. Is already fairly put together because I just won't have time to piece something together for him.

Any suggestions?

[jeffsdear]

You might try Sonlight. They use a literature approach to history. You can find most of the books at the library that they recommend, you might need to buy the spines though. You would just have to buy the Instructor's Guide so you can see how it is put together. I think their 3+4 Core would be what you are looking for - it covers American history in the space of one school year.

[Rev1053]

I have always liked this curriculum: Trail Guide to Learning.
http://www.geomatters.com/products/category.asp?CID=53

American history is such a great topic. You could have a lot of fun next year.

[greenmama]

Story of US

by Joy Hakim.
Its not actually a curriculum, but plenty there to be a spine and you can decide what to do with it. We usually just read it and then supplement with historical fiction which we do book reports on, and if there is an appropriate field trip in the mid-atlantic region we throw that in too. I admit though we haven't gotten past the civil war and western expansionism, but we've done colonial times and the revolution at both a 2/3 grade level and then again at a 4/5/6 (Joy Hakim).
I used to throw a historical fiction at her about once a month, and then I discovered biographies in the youth section of the library at that is a great source for supplementing/book reports, but I admit I'm using that section for scientists now

[Jennifer3141]

I dream of the day when HO will come out with something like this.

[phathui5]

I like the A Story of Us series. It's not set up like SOTW with activities, it's a non-fiction book series. They look like textbooks, but they're not as boring.

[annettemarie]

I looked at those and they look neat, and are available on Ebay (very important, LOL!). I checked out Sonlight but it was way spendier than I was hoping. I'm checking out Trail Guide to Learning now.

I will admit, I'm amazed that it's this difficult to find an American History curriculum.

[AAK]

Originally Posted by annettemarie

I will admit, I'm amazed that it's this difficult to find an American History curriculum.

No kidding!
We have used Joy Hakim's books too, but what we finally did that we liked the best was to make a timeline of key pieces of American history. Then, we used nonfiction from the library to study those and we also used lots of historical fiction from each time period as well. We tried to find a project or "hand on" component too--although those were usually about daily life of the time period rather than the battles of war. DD did make a "civil war presentation" out of a small tri-fold cardboard piece. Other projects were about sewing (for the home or for clothing), making butter, simple tools, basic cooking, etc.

Last year we went though the Civil War. This year we are started from there and coming forward to modern times. I don't plan on covering politics--just the history so far. We will talk about political parties, but not from a "politics" standpoint--just informational and historical. We are also reviewing US Geography and the Presidents this year too. If we get to it, we will dive in to our own state's history as well.

Amy