Bev asked a great question about where in the timeline of chronological history should we begin when teaching younger students. Which time period is more developmentally appropriate?
(Bev, please let me know if I've understood your question correctly.)
Here is the new blog post about this topic: The History Rotation: Part II.
Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas! :)
I really enjoyed reading this from your blog and FB. I persoanlly go back and forth with American first or from the beginning. With my 3rd child, we did from Ancients when he was in 1st grade. Did he enjoy it, hmmm, I am not sure. He likes learning. The people he was introduced to was more exciting to him than events. Then we did Middle Ages and well, what boy doesn't like swords, knights and vikings? He made heroic connections. Now, we are doing Ren. to Ref. and he likes it BUT when at night when I am reading books about American history and all of my 6 children (12 grade to 2 years old) all sit and listen in. They made connections with Leif, Columbus and when we finished reading about Pochonatas my 6 year old just cried. She cried because the book had ended. She made very strong connections with her.
We are reading William Bradford and in the first two chapters we shed tears. I am finding holidays like Thanksgiving brings a deeper meaning to them now. I am very candid with my children on the good, bad and ugly of people and events and each children can only take in so much.
A few months ago, my husband was "quizing" our older children and I was amazed on how much they understand World history but when he started quizing them on American history, they didn't know much. He turned to me and said, why have they have not learned about this yet? My only answer was we are not there yet. He and I had a heart to heart and now, I do have another stream of American history. Does that fall in line with CM? How I understand it, yes and no. In form 1 CM doesn't have multiply streams, it starts in form 2.
I think each family will have to do what they think is best for them at the time of understanding CM's philosophy and methods.