Making the six-year history cycle work for you.
Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast.
I'm Sonya Shafer.
In this episode I want to show you a little technique that I use to help me think through,
adjust, and fine tune our history cycle to fit different family situations.
We're going to answer this question: Why do you have a six-year history cycle and
how can I use it with multiple children?
So let's get started.
First, why do we have a six-year history cycle?
We have a six-year history cycle because we put a big emphasis on Bible history.
We believe it’s important for students to understand how the Bible fits into world history—that
the events recounted in the Bible actually happened and in a historical setting.
So the first three history studies are Genesis through Deuteronomy & Ancient Egypt,
Joshua through Malachi & Ancient Greece, and
Matthew through Acts & Ancient Rome.
We put the main emphasis on the Bible history and bring the ancients in on the side.
Most four-year history cycles combine all of those ancients, but we didn't want to cram
all of Genesis through Acts into one year; so we take three years to go through those
Bible history events and bring Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome in as we
go.
Once we get through the book of Acts, the rest of the Bible shifts away from historical
events and centers on the epistles and Revelation.
So once we get through Ancient Rome, the shift of our studies changes to an emphasis on world
history with the epistles on the side, spreading them out evenly throughout the remaining three
years of study: Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation & Epistles
Early Modern & Epistles, and
Modern Times & Epistles, Revelation.
In this way students have a strong Biblical foundation laid and can trace the people and
events of history—both Biblical and world history—chronologically.
Our curriculum is set up to keep the whole family on the same historical time period,
in order to save you time and money and to foster good discussion and relations.
But sometimes it can be a puzzle figuring out how the six-year cycle will work with
your children's age ranges.
So let me show you a simple technique that I use for that.
This is how I lay out those puzzles when I'm helping a homeschool mama figure out how to
customize our curriculum to best suit her family.
And that's the important point: make the curriculum your servant, not your master.
Use it as it will work best for your situation.
Let's start with just one child so I can show you the basic idea.
Then we'll expand into a family with multiple children.
First, I grab a sheet of paper and write down the grade level that the child will be in
when he is starting to use Simply Charlotte Mason curriculum.
Then I list in a column all the grade levels left until he graduates.
So if this child will be in 7th grade, the list would look like this:
Then I start playing with the six time periods in our history cycle, using abbreviations
to keep it simple and quick, plugging them into the years that are listed and seeing
how they might come out.
If the child will be in 7th grade when he starts, it comes out neat
and tidy:
One of the main considerations is that each student in the U.S. needs to have American
History and World History for his high school transcript.
So each student will need to cover Early Modern and Modern Times sometime during his high
school years.
In this model, the student will get Early Modern in eleventh grade and Modern Times
in twelfth grade.
It works quite neatly.
But what if that child is starting in 6th grade?
Well, let's list those grade levels and play with it.
First, let's check that we have the critical Early Modern and Modern Times studies listed
during the high school years.
Yes, we do; they're listed during tenth and eleventh grades.
So now we can brainstorm options for that twelfth year.
One possibility would be to stretch out the Early Modern and Modern Times studies, taking
more time to complete them or adding more reading if you want to, and give yourself
three years to finish those two studies.
Another option would be to use that twelfth grade year to complete a government course
and/or an economics course.
Or your student could use that year to do an apprenticeship or internship in a field
that he's interested in pursuing.
Or he could choose to repeat one of the history studies from sixth through eighth grade but
with the high school level books.
OK, what if that child is starting in 3rd grade?
Let's try it.
Now, let's stop here for a minute.
You can see that we have only four years left, and we know that we need to have Early Modern
and Modern Times in there somewhere during those years.
If we go clear back to Genesis and start the cycle there, we won't get up to Early Modern
and Modern Times before graduation.
But what if we go back to Matthew through Acts & Ancient Rome?
That study gives us a natural break in Bible history, because it starts with the New Testament.
So in this instance, I would probably recommend going back to Matthew and finishing the cycle
from there:
Another option would be to go back to the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation—the
point in the cycle where world history becomes the emphasis and the Bible study comes in
alongside.
That would be another natural entry point.
In that case, your listing would look like this:
And you would have that extra year during twelfth grade to do one of the other options
we talked about earlier.
See, there are many ways that you can slice and dice this.
The key is to make it work for you.
Let's do one more with one child, and let's say that this child will be starting in 5th
grade, but he already studied the Middle Ages and Renaissance last year.
In that case, rather than jumping into the SCM curriculum at the beginning, you would
want to jump in at that point in history.
So for 5th grade, he will pick up where he left off and do Early Modern.
That one comes out very tidy.
That's why I like to use this little format; it makes it simple to get a quick look at
the big picture and play with options.
Now, let's try a few scenarios with multiple children.
Let's say, you have two students: one who is in 3rd grade and one who is in 6th.
When I'm working with more than one child, I write down their grades in a column just
as before but go ahead and list all the grade levels involved:
And let's say they want to start at the beginning, with Genesis through Deuteronomy & Ancient
Egypt.
OK, let's plug the full six-year cycle in and see what we get.
Let's pause there and take a look.
Your oldest student will have the critical Early Modern and Modern Times studies during
high school; they're listed for his tenth and eleventh grade years.
So you're good there.
During his 12th grade year, he can either study what his younger sister will study or
he could do one of those other options we discussed earlier.
Your younger student will have four years left, so you might want to cycle back around
to either Matthew through Acts & Ancient Rome, and start at the New Testament:
or you could cycle back to Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation and save that senior year to pursue
another option for her too.
I think you get the idea of how this little technique works.
Just for fun, let's try one with four children in 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th grades.
So far it's working out right down the line.
Both the oldest and second oldest children will have Early Modern and Modern Times during
their high school years.
One of them during 11th and 12th grades; the other during 9th and 10th grades.
So let's focus on the younger two.
The sweet spot for them to do Early Modern and Modern Times will be during their 11th
and 12th and 9th and 10th grade years also, so let's pop those into place.
Looking at the list, we can easily see that we would go back to Matthew through Acts & Ancient
Rome and work forward from there to make that happen.
That leaves two years of your preference for your youngest student.
You could cycle clear back to the beginning and pick up the Genesis and Joshua studies
during those two years if you wanted to fill in that Old Testament history.
Or you could select specialized studies that reflect that student's interests or do some
of the other options we discussed earlier.
Each family will be different.
Each student will be different.
The important thing is to make the curriculum work for you.
So now you know why we have a six-year history cycle, and I hope this little technique helps
you to fine tune it to fit your family's situation.
It's pretty simple: just list the grade levels and pop in the abbreviated studies, then play
around with the puzzle to find the best solution for your children.
Use the curriculum as a tool to help you teach the child.