We've used History odyssey and really enjoyed it. I'll take a crack at your questions...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AAK 
I don't know if we will go deep or not--I still plan on using my kids as guides to this based on level of interest. I really don't know anything about ancient history and would like a guide. I have been looking at history odessey from pandia press. I am liking what I see so far. http://www.pandiapress.com/history_odyssey.htm#ancients
My question: It seems to me that the History Odyssey book is meant for the parents and is to be used as a guide. I would then choose how many of the activities and readings to do with my kids. Is that right?
Not really, actually. Yes and no. The kind of thing you describe sounds kind of like Five in a Row -- here's a book to read, here's a bunch of activities based on it, take your pick. But HO is more like a schedule - do this reading this day, this activity this other day. You can certainly modify it and change the schedule or not do everything, but it's not technically presented as a pick-and-choose. SOME things are pick and choose, I should say... kind of like "do this and do that, then do your choice of these other things." You *have* to read the spine text readings, but there's a good variety of choices for the supplementary readings.
pros/cons -- to really get the most out of it, you need to be consistent and do it every day, or nearly every day. Otherwise it's easy to lose track of where you were and have to backtrack. But it's fun to do and there's a lot of great stuff to learn about.
3rd and 6th together -- totally doable. Which level depends on what your kids are like. When my son was 11 we tried level II, but it was too much for him -- he's not a strong writer, he'd never done Ancient History, and the whole organized aspect of it was new to him too. So he couldn't keep up and was stressed by the assignments. We switched to level one which is supposed to be for the younger kids but it suited him much better, it was more fun and more hands-on and it was easy to upgrade the content just by throwing in some more advanced reading material (he's a weak writer but a great reader). So if your 3rd grader is a great reader and writer, I'd suggest level 2 and just don't expect as much detail or length of written response from the younger one. Or if your 6th grader is a reluctant writer, I'd go with level one and give the older one some extra stuff relative to the younger.
